Review and Reflection: Animal Empathy Empowerment Workshop

In October of 2019, I spent a few weeks volunteering as a teacher at Heaven Hill Academy in Gaunshahar, Nepal. During this time, I taught children from the local villages in their English, Math, and Science classes. I also spent a good amount of time facilitating the library hours, where we would read to the children and facilitate art projects.

While I was staying in the village, I noticed that many of the locals treat animals pretty poorly. There are a number of homeless dogs in the area who are dirty, hungry, and sad. It is not uncommon for people in these rural communities to beat their animals and throw rocks at strays. I quickly realized that the kids aren't going to learn how to respect animals from their parents. On the other hand, these kids are very affectionate and create social connections effortlessly. I knew that they had the capacity in their hearts to expand their prevailing attitudes of kindness and inclusion to animals, if they could just make the cognitive connection.

I sought a way to teach them about being kind and respectful to animals, but since these are very young kids, many of whom are not very advanced in their English speaking skills, I had to get creative.

Tihar was coming up in a few days. It is a festival where on the first few days we give puja to animals to thank them for what they do for us. Flower necklaces are draped around the necks of the revered animals, tikka are placed on their foreheads, and they are offered yummy foods. I saw this as a great opportunity to offer the children an exercise where they could connect the good things we do for animals on Tihar with ways we can treat them all year long. For most people in Nepal, especially in rural areas, Tihar is the only day when they really show kindness and love to animals. But it is not so hard to be kind to animals for the remaining days of the year, if one can only learn to value this conduct. How do we instill values of compassion and respect towards animals in children who are not taught this by their society?

I came up with a Semiotics workshop for kids, which I called Animal Empathy Empowerment. Using simple language, I created a format where I ask questions to the children about how they like to be treated and how they don't like to be treated. By showing them that animals have many of the same preferences and emotions that we do, the goal was to empower the kids to be better able to relate to animals.

The biggest challenge wasn't so much to find the right English words, as most of these children are at least fluent in English. Rather, the challenge was to get the kids to pay attention and absorb the lesson. Their attention spans are so limited that even getting continuous focus for 5 minutes is an accomplishment. My idea was to incorporate an art activity of making Tihar masks of their favorite animals. While the kids were working on their masks, I asked them the questions I had framed to help them develop empathy towards animals. 

Empathy Questions

-First I asked the kids to imagine being a dog or a cat. 

-Asking do you like treats and pets? The answer is universally "yes." Do you like to have your hair pulled or have rocks thrown at you?? The answer is universally "no."

- Then from their human perspective, I asked, do you like to be hungry and alone? Do you like to have good food and be with friends and family? Again the answers are what we'd expect.

-I asked them about their lives as humans, next: "Have you ever been hungry and there is nothing to eat? How does it feel when someone shares food with you?" "Have you ever had a lot of food, enough to share with friends? How does it feel when you share the food with your friends?" 

Community among people is very important in Nepal, and by utilizing this solid experience kids have of being shown kindness by/showing kindness to others, I was able to get them to see that this same kindness can make animals happy too. Animals get hungry just like them, and animals want love just like them.

Dog Body Language

For the older classes, I took time to share my knowledge of dog communication and body language. There are some universal signals that dogs show to communicate how they are feeling, and we as humans can reciprocate these signals to better connect with animals and make them more comfortable.

-Dogs turn their heads when they don't want conflict. They turn their backs when they want to be less threatening. They roll on their backs and show their bellies when they are submissive.

-Dogs stare, raise their hackles, and growl when they are telling you to stay away. They snarl and show their teeth when they are warning that they will bite if you don't back off.

-To help the kids get this, I got on all fours with them and showed these dog body language cues, inviting the kids to imitate me. Playing pretend with the kids for educational purposes was not only fun for all of us, but proved an effective way to integrate participation.

-I made sure to be very clear to the kids that they should not approach a strange dog that they do not know. I suggested that if they know a local dog who is friendly, or especially if they have a family pet, that they can watch how the dog uses these body language cues, and try to use the friendly cues to "talk" to the dogs. I also told the kids to not growl, stare into the eyes, or show their teeth at dogs, even familiar ones.

Teaching the Workshop

I had a few different trials of this workshop with kids in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade. I found that the younger students had no interest at all in responding to my questions. (To be fair, younger students at this school seldom responded to any English, regardless of the context. Generally, I really only noticed responsiveness to the volunteers from students in 4th grade or higher.) As such, I was prepared for the frustration of failing to get across to these younger groups. Trial and error is an important part of experimental learning, and at the very least, we had a fun art project and the students were very excited about their new masks that they were ready to show off to all their friends.

A happy 2nd grader shows off his dog mask.

I tried to get the students to make only Tihar animals (dogs, crows, or cows), but this girl would not be satisfied unless she could make a butterfly! It's so hard to say no to their cute little faces.

2nd graders showing off their beautiful masks!

I was almost ready to throw in the towel after the younger groups, but I had high hopes for the 5th graders. The students in my 5th grade class were rather precocious and creative, and they were most receptive to me out of all the students I had worked with. They were also a bit demanding, and insisted that they make their own style of mask. I said "alright, but let's talk about the animals and Tihar while we make our masks." We had a deal.

I was quite overjoyed when I found them responding to every single one of my questions. I could see them thinking about their answers as I posed them. Even this class can be difficult to control during their library time, but I found that working on the masks while I conducted the workshop helped them to be more relaxed and focused. I can't describe how happy I felt when I was able to get through all of the questions I had set up and still had time leftover. I let them know that I was so very happy with them for giving me their attention and listening.

To my welcome surprise, the 5th graders were so interested in my animal empathy thought-exercises that they started asking their own questions about how to interact with their animals. One student talked about her family pet and how it loves to get treats. Another student was asking me about things his dog did at home after I had gone over the dog body language exercises. These kids expressed to me that they truly do value when the animals that are close to them are happy. I truly believe that this workshop helped them to understand that their most basic emotions and desires are not so different from those of the animals they encounter every day.

Sohan was very proud of his mask.

Parvati (left) and Samita (right).

These two were the sharpest in the class!

The 5th graders pose together with their finished art projects.

 Concluding Thoughts

I was pleased that with older students, this workshop was a huge success. I learned from this experience that a Semiotics workshop is indeed possible with children at a 5th-grade level or higher, but maybe is a bit too much for very young children. If I were to try a workshop like this one at home, I would probably target kids between 4th grade and 8th grade. If I were to work with high-schoolers, I might try something a bit more advanced. I would be interested to see how an Animal Empathy Empowerment workshop functions with students who speak English as a first language. Not everyone gets a chance to consider how to relate respectfully and compassionately with animals, so this would be a good activity for any school in America where we often have students from many different backgrounds all in the same class. I also discovered that when working with kids, including art has a positive effect on their focus and engagement. I anticipate that art will be a key element in any other Semiotics workshops I create for children in the future.