by: Ellen C. Caldwell
for JSTOR Daily
The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently received a $750,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to establish the world’s first Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts.
A team of experts will come together to focus on how art museums can teach empathy and compassion. This news has left some asking whether these qualities can be taught.
Educators have been using the arts and humanities to teach empathy for some time. In 2003, Lauren Christine Phillips tracked the ways in which she set out as an art teacher to nurture empathy. Phillips writes about how her school, Norcross Elementary, has set out to teach and instill empathy in their 900 students. “From an early age,” she explains, “they learn how to treat others with respect, work together to solve problems, and be a part of our community. They learn this from adults at our school, as well as from each other.”