Abstract:
141
Developing empathetic skills among
teachers and learners in high schools
in Tshwane: An inter-generational
approach involving people with
dementia
Erna Alant
Stephan Geyer
Michael Verde
This article describes the implementation and outcomes of an experiential learning
approach to facilitate the development of empathetic skills among teachers and
learners at two high schools in Tshwane, South Africa. An inter-generational training
programme, the Memory Bridge Initiative (MBI), aimed at exposing participants to
interactions with older persons with irreversible dementia, was used as a means to
develop empathetic skills. Programmes such as MBI have the potential to develop
empathetic skills and to cultivate interpersonal and personal skills among the learners
and the teachers. Seven learners and six teachers, recruited through non-probability
sampling, from two high schools in Tshwane participated in the three-and-a-half-day
training programme which serves as the basic training to equip teachers and learners
for the implementation of the programme in their respective schools. Focus-group
discussions were conducted with the teachers and the learners separately before and
after exposure to the MBI programme. Both learners and teachers agreed that the
programme contributed to their interpersonal and personal development. Learners
also adopted a more positive way of perceiving older persons and people with Alzheimer’s disease. It is recommended that inter-generational programmes should
be implemented in more high school settings to determine best practices to develop
empathetic skills among learners. Inter-generational programmes could minimise
the isolation of older persons with dementia and equip the youth with transferrable
skills to educational and work settings.
