An educational psychologist and parenting expert offers advice to school leaders.
Empathy is at the core of everything that makes a school caring, a teacher responsive, and a society civilized. When empathy wanes, narcissism, distrust, aggression, bullying, and hate rise—and schools suffer. We are currently in the midst of an educational crisis. American teens are now 40 percent less empathetic than they were three decades ago (Konrath, 2010). While we are producing a smart and self-assured generation, today's students are also the most self-centered, competitive, individualistic, sad, and stressed on record.
So what are optimum ways to help teachers understand and embed these competencies into their daily practice? Let's look at how empathetic schools are approaching this work.
What is the role of character education in the classroom? Educator Jonathan Juravich discusses how we can go beyond teaching empathy as a 'soft skill' and make it actionable.
Have you ever noticed how being heard in a deep, empathic way is like magic? When we’re deeply heard, our whole bodies relax. We return to equilibrium, we can breathe again, and access renewed curiosity, empowerment, and choice.
On this one-day training, we dive into the world of our inner being.
The invitation is to explore self-empathy and self-compassion through NVC experiential exercises which include: listening, discussion, meditation, movement and contemplation.
The focus is to deepen our understanding of the language our mind, emotion and body speaks.
We discover what prevents us from taking the actions to meet our needs fully.
Work with resistance and openness to embrace self-compassion.
Translate our inner judgments through empathic connection, presence and understanding to restore our inner balance.
This training includes: teaching around the neurology of emotion and 90 minutes of Biodanza.
By Minter Dial I recently discovered a new tool to disseminate empathy that’s called the Empathy Circle. On the heels of newest book, Heartificial Empathy, I was invited to participate in two such Empathy Circles, led by Edwin Rutsch, Director of the Culture of Empathy, who co-developed the concept with Lidewij Niezink. The idea of an Empathy Circle is to practice intense listening and to flex your empathic muscle using a structured dialogue process.
The two Empathy Circles I experienced showed them to be a powerful way to help spread empathy, one small group at a time. Essentially, with a curated selection of 3-5 people, each participant speaks in turn for up to 5 minutes, with one’s discourse directed at another individual whose sole role is to reflect back to you what you say.
I would sometimes have conflicts with other people as I was growing up. Some of the conflicts were with other kids and some were with adults. When I'd bring one of these issues to my mom, she'd guide me through thinking about the issue from different perspectives.
She'd have me think about my own thoughts and actions. Then, she'd have me think about the other person's thoughts and actions. My mom ultimately wanted me to think about "why" people act the way they do in different situations. She was teaching me perspective-taking from a young age.
We must teach perspective-taking when developing empathy for the following reasons:
To Prevent Selfishness and Narrowmindedness...
To Develop Patience and Understanding in Children...
To Unite Students by Looking at Different Perspectives...
While formal coaching sessions with your direct reports may be limited, here's how you can fit in coaching conversations and coaching moments.
Coaches use active listening techniques when people are ready to identify problems and find solutions. Cues that someone is open to coaching include: “Can you help me think things through?” or “I’d like to bounce some ideas off of you.” or “Could you give me a reality check?” or “I need some help.”
This group is for mutual support of Empathy Circle and Cafe Facilitators. Edwin is holding a weekly Empathy Circle/Cafe Support Group for Facilitators to talk about their;
* Tips
* Experiences
* Challenges, Problems
* Successes
* Case Studies
* Designing Training Material
* Promotion
* Improving the practice
* Requests for co-facilitators and coordinators.
*Etc., etc
This Meeting Outline ================== * Question 1: What Topics would you like to talk about in the group?
* Question 2: What Structure would you find supportive and effective for the group?
Topics ======
* Bill - bringing Empathy Circles into his School
* Karolina - How to frame Empathy Circle Topics in a way that is accessible and nonjudgmental to people.
* Edwin - Sharing the overall Framework for participation and training for Empathy Circles.
“I am interested in how all the arts can encourage empathy and compassion in the medical experience,” Melamed said. “I think this way because I’m not sure that all of us learn through a literary lens. I think some of us do well with music or movement or fine art, anything that somehow creates empathy.”
"In the last few years, I’ve been exploring the use of Empathy Circles with some of my organizational clients, with facilitator learning groups, and in communication workshops. I’ve been finding that it is a great introduction and warm-up for Dynamic Facilitation, one of my core practices, as it offers everyone in the room the opportunity to engage in offering listening reflections to one another.
At the same time, I’m totally excited to see that Edwin Rutsch, the creator of Empathy Circles, has been bringing his work into the arena healing political divides. My experience is that this simple-yet-powerful form is actually quite revolutionary, in the best sense of the word, and so I want to delve a bit into what I see as the underlying dynamics. But first, a brief description, followed by a distinction and clarification…"
Join us for this hour long workshop on Empathy for Others! Do you ever wonder, how do I develop empathy towards others? This workshop will develop the skills of understanding the emotions and perspectives of other people and help you better understand the people around you.
This is the second session in a 3 session Empathy Workshop Series. Each of these workshops is a stand-alone skill but the connection of all three will help you to cultivate empathy that is applicable to your social and professional life. Gain a better understanding of being accepting of self, understanding others, and communicating.
Several disciplines have investigated the interconnected empathic abilities behind the proverb “to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” to determine how the presence, and absence, of empathy-related phenomena affect prosocial behavior and intergroup relations.
Empathy enables us to learn from others’ pain and to know when to offer support. Similarly, virtual reality (VR) appears to allow individuals to step into someone else’s shoes, through a perceptual illusion called embodiment, or the body ownership illusion. Considering these perspectives, we propose a theoretical analysis of different mechanisms of empathic practices in order to define a possible framework for the design of empathic training in VR.
This is not intended to be an extensive review of all types of practices, but an exploration of empathy and empathy-related phenomena. Empathy-related training practices are analyzed and categorized. We also identify different variables used by pioneer studies in VR to promote empathy-related responses. Finally, we propose strategies for using embodied VR technology to train specific empathy-related abilities.
Empathy is the psycho-political buzzword of the day. President Obama said - frequently - that America's empathy deficit was more important than the Federal deficit. Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain", and Hillary urged us all "to see the world through our neighbour’s eyes, to imagine what it is like to walk in their shoes".
Many people have taken up the idea of empathy with gusto, and the United Nations has poured money into virtual reality films that led us allegedly experience the world of, for example, a Syrian refugee. As we seem to be driving ourselves ever deeper into silos of mutual incomprehension, the idea of taking another person's perspective seems an obviously useful one
How? Think about it this way. Each time your children “play pretend,” they have to imagine how another person would think and feel, and then act accordingly. Like striking the confident pose of a superhero, or forgetting how to walk and talk like a baby, or adopting an oh-so-fancy accent and extended pinky finger to have tea with the queen. Although acting may just seem like a fun game to your kids, it’s also giving them amazing practice at understanding people and developing empathy.
This course is a complete, practical training in the transformational method of Awareness Centred Deep Listening, ACDLT®, designed by Rosamund Oliver, which uses the power of bringing simple awareness to listening. Participants will find that this course complements and enhances their existing communication skills.
This method provides a way to listen both to ourself as well as to another. The method shows how to prevent exhaustion while listening and supports the natural resilience of the Listener.
Through applying the three core skills of the model, Embodied Awareness, Supportive Presence and Compassionate Connection, participants discover how to listen in depth. As we open deeper channels of listening within ourselves, we hear the subtle and unspoken communications taking place in any communication.
By being fully present to another, we stay focused and open to all that we experience, bringing compassion, clarity and openness into the listening exchange.
In a podcast hosted by The New Stack Managing Editor Joab Jackson, managing editor, Yu was able to continue her discussion on empathy and why it is so important in the software development sector. Jai Schniepp, product owner for cloud and Security at Liberty Mutual Insurance, also offered more details based on in-house practices and processes on why thinking of the other is critical. The podcast was recorded at the at Cloud Foundry Summit North America last month in Philadelphia,
2:02: The importance of developing a sense of empathy if you’re a developer or manager. 3:02: How does one build a sense of empathy, if you don’t already have it. 9:09: Exploring the concept of, ’Don’t just stop listening to the loudest person in the room. 12:57: How do you determine good feedback versus edge cases. 15:23: How do you incorporate that into an enterprise culture, how do you put that as a line item in terms of institutionalizing empathy. 20:27: Any other empathy tips.
This course provides a systematic way for an individual or groups to deepen their experience of compassion and experience its impact on both an individual and community level. It helps people to become acquainted and to establish common ground, and a shared vision.
By learning about compassion through this course, an individual or groups can begin to think about broadening their scope of compassion to their community and thrive. Your work together can be shared with other groups, such as:
Start-up compassion community groups
Book clubs or libraries
Community service groups such as Rotary, Lions, United Way etc.
Faith-based groups
Parent and teacher groups
Compassionate Schools
And other community coalition groups of activists working to make their communities healthier and safe
Since this skill may be on the decline, the importance of teaching this skill to our children is vital. Research has been expanding on how best to do just that. Two Australian researchers examined 19 studies on empathy training in a comprehensive metanalysis.
They found the programs with the largest effects focused on three key components:
Understanding the Emotions of Others
Feeling the Emotions Others are Feeling
Commenting Accurately on the Emotions
They found that the most effective ways to increase these skills were to model, instruct, practice, and give feedback.
Model Parents need to evaluate their own emotional intelligence and be aware of the behavior they’re modeling. Children are keenly perceptive to how those around them handle conflict.
(This is the indoor Empathy Laybrinth at a workshop at the Omega Institute)
The Empathy Labyrinth is a kinesthetic tool that guides you step by step through the process of self-empathy. You will gain greater clarity about your feelings and needs/values, connecting you to your heart, so that you can live a more joyful life.
The Empathy Labyrinth combines a cognitive process known as Nonviolent Communication (NVC), traditional circle labyrinths, finger Heart Labyrinths, and Inner Sacred Circles (ISC).
What you will learn:
How to use the Empathy Labyrinth
Principles of NVC
Empathy skills- Acknowledging feelings and needs
The calming, healing, and transformative power of self-empathy
How to create and use an Inner Sacred Circle (ISC)
Acknowledging your inner voices/entities/parts
Make requests which contribute to connection, harmony & peace.
We want our students to be active listeners, develop a vocabulary for their feelings, listen to and understand others, increase their self-awareness and help them to regulate their emotions. It is a long list and no easy task. So two years ago, we decided to take it further. We implemented a curriculum and focused heavily on teaching students empathy starting from our youngest students in Prep.
Learn simple exercises that are scientifically proven to boost your empathy.
At Big Think Edge, Alan Alda shares his insights on empathy and effective communication.
Empathy is a superpower for connecting and communicating with others, but it can be surprisingly fragile. Even a bad mood or preoccupied mind can easily close us off to the people – even the ones we're closest to, let alone to colleagues or strangers on the daily commute.
Noticing this, Alan Alda wondered what exercises could help bulk up his "empathy muscle" regardless of shifting circumstances. An exercise he invented became the focus of a psychological study that discovered a way to significantly increase empathy.
An average human spends about 70-80% of their waking hours in some form of communication. Out of this time, we spend about 9% writing, 16% reading, 30% speaking and 45 per cent listening.
Active listening is an important skill for anyone to develop. This skills along with other skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving are highly valued in the workplace by employers. To increase your understanding of the information given to you, you must be more effective in your active-listening skills. This skill is also an essential component of leadership.
During an interview, active listening can help build rapport with the interviewer.
Join us for this hour long workshop on Self Empathy! Do you ever wonder, how do I practice Self Empathy? This workshop will consider the definition of self-empathy and how it can be practiced in your daily life.
This is the first session in a 3 session Empathy Workshop Series. Each of these workshops is a stand-alone skill but the connection of all three will help you to cultivate empathy that is applicable to your social and professional life. Gain a better understanding of being accepting of self, understanding others, and communicating.
Empathic Workplace and Improv Therapy Group present A full-day workshop, lecture and demonstration on The Art of Building an Empathic Workplace. March 28, 2019 9:00 AM to 3:00PM
“An Empathy Bridge for Autism” is a toolkit that includes three virtual sensory components, including peculiarly shaped lollipops that make it hard to speak clearly, headphones that produce loud, distorted sounds, and a headset that, when used in tandem with a smartphone application, simulates the experience of having double vision. In similar fashion, designer Di Peng created a virtual reality headset in 2016 that imitates the sensory changes experienced by people living with dementia.
Virtual reality activities may help cultivate empathy in people by creating the perceptual illusion of “embodiment,” or the feeling that a user is in the body of a virtual avatar, according to a 2018 article published in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Moreover, researchers have found evidence that such may drive users to exhibit psychological responses comparable to tho
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