ABSTRACT
Schools can encourage the practice of empathic imagination through learning from fiction, imaginatively engaging with characters and situations that students may not meet in real life, and being open to new experiences that can be seen in the mind's eye. Through the acts of empathic imagination, those whose voices could otherwise go unheard can be recognised. Real life also offers intensive opportunities; for example, in an article relating to the need for better understanding of Australian Aboriginal people living in 'outlier' communities. ABC journalist Jonathan Green, writing for non-Indigenous readers, called for "an effort of open-hearted imagination" and stated that while it may be beyond the long-ingrained cultural grasp of many of us to fully understand the affinity of Indigenous people for the land. It ought not to be beyond the capacity to look on that relationship with minds open to other human and cultural possibilities.
