Walking in someone else's shoes

Knowing exactly where Montenegro is on a map is a fun skill to pull out at parties. If nothing else, it might come in handy on trivia nights at the local tavern. But, ultimately, if you can't talk intelligently about anything else having to do with the country, then you practically know nothing at all about it or its people or its culture.

When we're younger we might fantasize about faraway lands, but mostly, we're concerned about our immediate surroundings. As teenagers, we might wonder what the girls are like in the next town over, or if we're in sports, we wonder how good their teams are. Those other places are mysteries to us.

Author John Lee, in the textbook "Visualizing Elementary Social Studies Methods," reminds those of us training to be teachers that " ... sometimes we limit our understanding by rigidly valuing one place over another." In other words, we might want nothing to do with places we've heard are terrible in some way. Word of mouth can be a powerful deterrent. For instance, a child in a small town might be indoctrinated to believe that cities are dangerous places to visit or live. The same goes for other countries. Altering those entrenched perceptions is not always an easy job.

"Teachers have to help their students expand on the attachment children and adults have to their home," writes Lee. The well-worn phrase "expanding their horizons" comes to mind, and while it may be overused, that's certainly what we, as future educators, are called to do. Empathy is something we want students to develop. We want them to, essentially, take as many walks in the shoes of as many people who are different from us as they can. An in-depth study of geography can help educators guide their students to become empathetic learners.

And it can start with simply showing students pictures of people from different countries going about their daily activities. Seeing them at work or at leisure can trigger questions about what their lives are like. Figure 6.4 in "Visualizing Elementary Social Studies Methods" shows three images of life in South Africa. There's one of San Bushman hunting with a bow and arrow alongside an ancient settlement called Umtata, with small houses dotting the not-so-densely-populated landscape. Another photo shows how fertile the land is. Being from farm country in Wisconsin, surely children from here might feel a kinship with the agricultural character of such a region and think about how different farming is there compared to here. Wisconsin also happens to be a land where outdoors activities like hunting and fishing are treasured. Seeing the rudimentary bow and arrow used by the San Bushman might get students to compare and contrast hunting activities in their country with those of other nations.

Lee postulates, "The more closely we associate ourselves, through experience, with a place the more likely we are to be willing and able to study that place." I'm already planning to do some research on South Africa after I post this blog.