EmpaTheater - Masters Thesis
Empathy learning leads to better socialization with peers, children getting better grades, and ultimately better overall outcomes (Denham). Despite this, there is a lack of empathy curriculum directed at pre-literate children, mostly due to monetary and opportunity cost.
EmpaTheater curriculum strengthens children's understanding of their own and others’ feelings. The curriculum, taught over 4 lessons on a weekly or monthly basis, breaks down emotions into their physical, facial, and auditory components. These components are conveyed to the children through the use of interactive hand puppets and role-playing.
Since play is the “primary vehicle through which children use their current knowledge to understand and to build knowledge” (Hull pg. 162), curriculum needs to successfully address how children best experience interactivity, and contain the elements of successful interactive design, while also being economically viable. EmpaTheater does this through the creative use of puppets, a child-friendly item, in the classroom.
Grounded in the fundamentals of child development, and currently held educational best practices at the state, local, and teacher level, EmpaTheater is a curriculum that is designed to strengthen Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten students understanding of their own and others’ feelings. The affordable and easily implemented curriculum, taught over 4 lessons on a weekly or monthly basis, breaks down emotions into their physical, facial, and auditory components. These components are conveyed to the children through the use of interactive hand puppets and role-playing.
EmpaTheater’s provides young children with an interactive way to better understand and express their emotions in positive and constructive ways through; teacher guided discussion of an individual emotion, a chance for children to use the interactive hand puppets to devise and act out a scenario regarding their emotion, and then a teacher led, open ended discussion of the emotion.
This is the EmpaTheater kit. Show above is what comes with a standard kit.
Below is the entire thesis paper that can be read in its entirety or simply paged through for a quick viewing *
These images are from the Parsons Design and Technology Masters Thesis Showcase. I participated in day 2 of 2 of the Interactive Showcases. What you will see is several images of both how I displayed my work as well as adults and children interacting with the puppets. *
*Notes: All images of children are either used with parental permission or obscure faces. No video of user testing is available as parental permissions were unable to be obtained