Where Did the Empathy Go?

Earlier this week, I had a lesson planned for my students that was designed to encourage them to put themselves "in another's shoes."

It did not go over well. 

My students simply could not understand how to do this. They claimed that they didn't want to write from the person's point of view because he was "old and boring" (for the record, yes he was old, but he risked his life to ensure that African-Americans had their right to vote secured). 

It worried me a great deal. I was aware that prevailing research suggests that empathy is experiencing a decline among young people, but my students' behavior suggested that they were having some real difficulty in a relatively simple exercise in empathy. 

I proposed a compromise for their assignment: they could write about the person in the assignment, not from his point of view. Hopefully as we go on with the material, I can help them take "baby steps" towards exercises in empathy.