Fanya Stein

Guidance Lesson Empathy

National Standards for School Counseling

Personal/Social Development

Lesson Title: Empathic Listening for Conflict Resolution

Standards and Competencies Addressed:

Standard A: Students will acquire the knowledge, attitudes and interpersonal skills to help them
understand and respect self and others.
PS:A1 Acquire Self-knowledge
PS:A1.2 Identify values, attitudes and
beliefs
PS:A1.4 Understand change is a part of
growth
PS:A1.5 Identify and express feelings
PS:A1.6 Distinguish between appropriate
and inappropriate behavior
PS:A1.7 Recognize personal boundaries,
rights and privacy needs
PS:A1.11 Identify and discuss changing
personal and social roles
PS:A1.12 Identify and recognize changing
family roles

PS:A2 Acquire Interpersonal Skills

PS:A2.1 Recognize that everyone has rights
and responsibilities
PS:A2.2 Respect alternative points of view
PS:A2.3 Recognize, accept, respect and
appreciate individual differences
PS:A2.4 Recognize, accept and appreciate
ethnic and cultural diversity
PS:A2.5 Recognize and respect differences
in various family configurations
PS:A2.6 Use effective communications
skills
PS:A2.7 Know that communication involves
speaking, listening and nonverbal behavior
PS:A2.8 Learn how to make and keep
friends

Assets Addressed:
Caring School Climate
Caring
Integrity
Honesty
Responsibility
Interpersonal Competence
Cultural Competence
Peaceful Conflict Resolution

Target Age: Middle/High School

Time Required: 30-45 Min

Equipment and Materials: Projector, Brene Brown Empathy Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw, Images of optical illusions or different
perspective pictures, role play scenarios and character cards,

Purpose/Objective:
To understand what empathy, perspective taking, and active listening are and how they can
be used for conflict resolution.
To Understand other people’s point of views and empathize with their situation.

Procedure:
1. Introduce the topic of empathy and ask the class if they know what it is. Talk about
student definitions
2. Watch the Brene Brown empathy video
3. Highlight the 1st part of what empathy is from the video, Perspective taking
4. Show the different images of perspective and if students could see the different sides
of each
5. Talk about how we can see others perspectives during times of conflict and introduce
the benefits of empathic/active listening
6. Highlight the point of how we can use this for conflict resolution among our peers
7. Go over the different active listening skills, what it looks like and what it sounds like
8. Give directions for the scenario and role play exercise. The class splits up into small
groups and reads each scenario. Each person gets to be a character and then role play
an active listening session to try to come to a conclusion.
9. Once they are done with the role play, they can come together and have a class
discussion with questions such as, How did it feel to be an active listener? How did it
feel when you were presenting your side of the problem? How confident do you feel
using these tools in the future?

References:
http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/empathic-listening
https://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/onlinetraining/resolution/step4.htm
Directions: Read the scenario as a group and then divide the character cards up. Role play this
situation as the different characters and take turns using your active listening skills. Make sure
each character gets a chance to be heard and present their side of the conflict. Think about the
other character’s perspectives and try to come up with a resolution to the conflict.

Scenario: Brian, Taylor, and Jamie are all working on a project together for science. This
project is worth 30% of their grade and every participant in the group gets the same grade.
Brian has been in class everyday and works on the assignment in class and at home. Taylor
has been absent a lot but contributes as much as he can when he comes to class. Jamie is in
class almost every day and tries to work on the project in class with Brian, but does not do any
work on his own. One day, Brian got really mad at his group because Taylor was absent again
and Jamie was barely contributing. Brian told the teacher that Taylor and Brian do not deserve
as good of a grade.

Brian- Brian has never missed turning in an assignment. Brian has had perfect attendance their
entire school career. Brian feels like if he does not get good grades that he will never get into a
good college and be successful. Brian does not have many friends and feels like none of his
peers take school as seriously as him. Strengths include: math, science, and technology.

Taylor- Taylor always does his best when he is in school, but lately he has been feeling sick.
Taylor wants to do well on this assignment but sometimes doesn't feel well enough to get out of
bed and has had feelings of hopelessness. They recently saw a doctor who diagnosed Taylor
with depression. Strengths include: art, writing, and watching youtube videos.

Jamie- Jamie does their best while at school but always has to go home right after to take care
of their little siblings. Jamie wants to be getting better grades but it is hard for them to get study
and get homework done because they have to babysit and take care of the house while their
mom is away at work. Strengths include: Drawing, social media, and cooking.
Directions: Read the scenario as a group and then divide the character cards up. Role play this
situation as the different characters and take turns using your active listening skills. Make sure
each character gets a chance to be heard and present their side of the conflict. Think about the
other character’s perspectives and try to come up with a resolution to the conflict.

Scenario: There are a group of 4 girls having an argument at lunch, Melissa, Stacey, Caroline,
and Esmé. Melissa, Caroline, and Esmé want to go to the movies this weekend. Stacey is mad
because she already had plans with Melissa to have a sleepover, just the two of them. Caroline
and Esmé want to go to the sleepover too so Melissa decides to invite everyone over to her
house for the sleepover. Stacey is still mad at this idea and mad at the other two girls for
inviting themselves over.

Melissa- Melissa has been best friends with Stacey since 4th grade. She met Caroline and
Esmé this year playing soccer and likes to hang out with everyone as a group. She feels that
they can all be friends and always wants to include everyone. It makes her feel sad when
Stacey doesn't want to hang out with her new friends and she doesn't want to pick between
them.

Stacey- Stacey has been best friends with Melissa since 4th grade. She likes Melissa’s new
friends Caroline and Esmé enough, but still wants to have one-on-one time with Melissa. She
was really looking forward to the sleepover with just Melissa because her parents are getting
divorced and she needed a friend that she trusted to talk about it with. She has been feeling
lonely and betrayed because of her home life and now she feels detached from her best friend.

Caroline- Caroline is a new student and is really happy to have met these new girls. She wants
to be friends with all of them at her new school because her old school friends live 3 hours
away. She is happy that Melissa is so inclusive but wonders why Stacey doesn't want to hang
out as a whole group.

Esmé- Esmé has a different extra curricular activity everyday after school. It varies between
soccer, piano, tutoring, and volunteering at the animal shelter. She is happy whenever she has
free time to hang out with her friends. She is extroverted and prefers to hang out in big groups.
Directions: Read the scenario as a group and then divide the character cards up. Role play this
situation as the different characters and take turns using your active listening skills. Make sure
each character gets a chance to be heard and present their side of the conflict. Think about the
other character’s perspectives and try to come up with a resolution to the conflict.

Scenario: There are 4 students at a table group in math class: Jessica, Blake, Briana, and Luke.
Jessica gets up to go to the bathroom and Blake whispers to the rest of the table a secret that
Jessica told him through a text message. Luke continues to gossip with Blake more about
Jessica while Briana tells them to stop being nosy and in other people's business. Jessica
comes back to hear them gossiping and looks really mad.

Jessica- Jessica is good friends with Blake but now feels like he betrayed her trust. She hopes
that he didn’t spread this secret to other people in the class. She is mad that Luke continued to
gossip instead of doing what Briana did. She now has more trust in Briana as a friend.

Blake- Blake is good friends with Jessica. Blake shared the secret with his table because he
thought it would be funny. He didn’t realize that she would be so upset and feels sorry that he
broke her confidence.

Luke- Luke has been trying to become better friends with Blake since the beginning of school.
He wanted to feel included in the conversation and wanted to know more about Jessica. Luke
feels bad that he continued to gossip and hopes that he can be forgiven.

Briana- Briana would consider the people in her table group acquaintances rather than friends.
Briana has been bullied in the past and did not like that the boys were gossiping about Jessica.
She felt that she needed to stop the secrets from spreading to protect Jessica.