Teaching with Empathy: 5 Practical Strategies for Building SEL in the Classroom

It all started with my focus on SEL by asking a simple question: What is my aim as a teacher? Just imparting knowledge and helping my students achieve their academic success? While these goals are undoubtedly important, however, I started to realise something deeper was missing, which reminded me of the important piece of the puzzle, “social emotional learning.

How many of us did not judge and jump to conclusions based on what we see on the surface? As someone who works closely with students, I have observed students who are not engaged in the group activities, remain silent, display disruptive behaviours, are resistant to feedback, etc. In this scenario, it is easy to form a quick judgment and label those students as interested or lazy. But what if we pause and think about the questions, such as what is the underlying issue? What can be happening beneath the surface? This has led me to learn one of the important lessons in my classroom that “Judgement fades when understanding grows”.

Every single behaviour carries a story we may not fully know. If we stop making assumptions and consider the students' perspectives and their emotional state, our response changes from criticism to compassion. This is where empathy begins with a desire to understand before reacting.

In my teaching experience, I have interacted with students who struggled to express their emotions, manage social relationships, and show empathy to one another. So, how can I offer support to those students, considering the fact that social emotional learning cannot always be a part of the school curriculum or a separate program that schools can provide?

Let’s begin by understanding why social emotional learning matters.

CASEL provide a useful framework to understand the important elements of the SEL.

The development of skills such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship building, and responsible decision-making (CASEL, 2020) occurs through social-emotional learning. To maintain healthy relationships, maintain self-regulation, and prevent harm to others, it is crucial to enhance these skills, as per Bishop (2023).

Moreover, studies have shown that the ability of students to grasp and control their emotions and relationships is associated with their academic and professional achievement (Jones-Schenk, 2019; Strahan & Poteat, 2022). The incorporation of social-emotional learning principles into the education system aligns with wider societal objectives to cultivate responsible citizenship and equitable opportunities (Kim, Allen and Jimerson, 2024).

While understanding the importance of social emotional learning was not just the beginning, the real challenge started with HOW? How can I integrate these principles into my day-to-day lessons? Especially, when I wish my students to foster empathy and show compassion and understanding not only to the people around them, but also in response to the situations and the world they live in.

That’s why, in this article, I have decided to share the 5 practical strategies for teachers to promote social-emotional learning in their classroom, particularly focusing on building empathy. Luckily, I had an opportunity to implement these strategies in my class, where I served as a class advisor.

1. Empathy Map- Empathy mapping is a simple strategy that helps students understand what others feel, what they might be thinking, seeing, and saying. It encourages the students to take the lived experiences of others into account. While this technique can be tailored to your teaching, I applied it specifically in lessons focused on conflict resolution and global challenges that people face. It simply made students pause and reflect on different perspectives before making judgments.

2. Circle of viewpoints- is a visible thinking routine that students can use to explore situations and issues from multiple perspectives. In my advisory class, we used this strategy to discuss the misunderstanding between the family members of the presented story. Students are invited to step into different roles within the family (such as mother, father, brother, sister) and express their thoughts from that person’s point of view using the starters like I’m thinking…. (name of the event/issue) .... from the point of view of…, I think…… (describe the topic from your viewpoint) ...... because (explain your reasoning, a question or concern I have from this viewpoint is……

The circle of viewpoints simply cultivates social awareness by imagining what others might feel, interpreting situations based on their emotions, needs and experiences.

3. Who was wrong (reflective dialogue)- How to use this technique, simple, I presented the students with a video, real-life scenarios, or stories with moral dilemmas and asked them to answer the following questions: Who was wrong and why? What influenced his/her/their actions? What could have been done differently?

This method helps students develop social awareness and responsible decision-making, where no one judges them, and they simply evaluate choices in a safe space where empathy grows through the guided discussion.

4. Step in, Step out and Step back- How it works? Firstly, students need to identify the person involved in a scenario (character in the story, someone in real-life conflict) and then, through guiding questions, they explore different perspectives of others. This helps students to respect multiple viewpoints and boost their emotional intelligence, so they pause and reflect before making assumptions.

• • Step in-Given what you see and know at this time, what do you think this person might feel, believe, know, or experience?
  • Step out-What else would you like or need to learn to understand this person’s perspective better?
  • Step back- Given your exploration of this perspective so far, what do you notice about your own perspective and what it takes to take somebody else’s?

5. Story reconstruction- Fix the ending

Present students, with video clips, stories where the rule was broken, or something went wrong, conflict, dilemmas, ask them how they would rewrite this story? What could they do differently? This technique allows students to put themselves in the shoes of others and make better choices, considering how others might feel and how a more compassionate response would change the situation.

Fostering empathy in the classroom is not extra work for teachers; it is about connecting people. These strategies have helped my students to reflect deeply, understand others and respond more kindly. How do you build empathy in your classroom? I would love to hear how you approach. Share your thoughts in the comments or connect with me on LinkedIn. 

Bishop, P.A. (2023) “Young adolescents’ perspectives on peers’ social and emotional competence,” RMLE online, 46(7), pp. 1–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19404476.2023.2236347.

Fundamentals of SEL (2021) CASEL. Available at: https://casel.org/what-is-sel/ (Accessed: July 29, 2025).

Jones-Schenk, J. (2019) “Social and emotional learning: Why does it matter?,” Journal of continuing education in nursing, 50(2), pp. 57–58. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20190115-03.

Kim, E.K., Allen, J.P. and Jimerson, S.R. (2024) “Supporting student social emotional learning and development,” School psychology review, 53(3), pp. 201–207. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966x.2024.2346443.

Strahan, D.B. and Poteat, B. (2020) “Middle level students’ perceptions of their social and emotional learning:An exploratory study,” RMLE online, 43(5), pp. 1–15. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19404476.2020.1747139.

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