An important Massachusetts high school exam asked students to portray
the viewpoint of a white woman refusing to help a runaway slave. Some
black students were
so
upset by this that they did badly on the rest of the exam from that
point.
The ability to present viewpoints you disagree with, even strongly
oppose, requires empathy. Practising that must be a useful exercise;
I think I could have learned a lot if I had practiced it more. But we
shouldn't ask students to start that exercize in the middle of a
high-stakes exam. If each student does dozens of such exercizes, over
a period of a few months, with no special pressure, the student may
become comfortable with portraying attitudes that disgust per.