Perspective taking goes far beyond empathy; it involves figuring out what others think and feel, and forms the basis for children’s understandings of their parents’, teachers’, and friends’ intentions. Children who can take others’ perspectives are also much less likely to get involved in conflicts and bullying.
Although perspective taking is rarely on lists of essential skills for children to acquire, research makes it clear that it should be. Here, a study by Larry Aber and his colleagues at New York University is quite interesting and valuable. Aber found that 20 years of efforts to teach children problem solving skills as a way of reducing conflict and bullying in children were only partly successful. They began to probe what goes on in children's minds when they are provoked. They discovered a missing link, a link they call "an appraisal process." The children most likely to be aggressive haven't learned the skill of perspective taking, of understanding what is going on in other people's heart and mind.
Aber and his colleague have evaluated a curriculum in the New York City public schools, called Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution. This program doesn't separate teaching children to handle conflict from other kinds of academic teaching. Each unit is based on a children's book selected for its literary quality. Through discussions, writing exercises, and role-play, children explore the meaning of the book, learn how to appraise the perspectives of others in complex situations, and then are taught how to resolve these conflicts.
How can teachers encourage students to develop effective social perspective taking skills?
What teachers should to be doing is asking lots more open-ended questions that get students to think through multiple points of view. Most of all, students have to become more motivated to seek out multiple viewpoints. Teachers could have students bring in newspaper articles that present two points of view or that ignore a big point of view. Ask students for multiple right answers. Help them to develop a disposition that says, 'Okay, I know what my point of view is, but is this how other people are thinking?' Unfortunately, social perspective taking is not something which is currently rewarded in schools, we need to stop ignoring it.
Social Perspective taking