공감과 문학교육

Empathy, Literary Education and Wonder

This paper examines the value of reading novels as an efficient way of cultivating empathy. The ability to understand the situations of other people and share their emotions is fundamental in building a society full of life. This can be proved by the fact that a stable attachment to the caregiver is essential for humans to survive when they are young. Reading literary works is a good means of fostering empathy in that it allows readers to experience many kinds of lives. Researchers have revealed that parts of the brain that control the behavior of character in novels are also activated in the brain of readers. Reading Wonder, a multiple perspective work, readers can experience the lives of the socially disadvantaged and the people around them. This makes Wonder a valuable text for empathy education.