CENTER FOR LEARNING & TEACHING

Bear in Mind

Friday, May 4, 2018, 10:30-11:30AM, Lancaster Lounge, Moulton

Are we a Compassionate Campus?

“Cultivating compassion in educational settings and creating the kind of culture where it is a norm of student and staff behavior, may seem at first a noble ideal: a nice-to-have, something to be undertaken only when all other priorities are met. Yet we now have the evidence to show that a school’s ability to foster real learning, indeed to fulfill its fundamental purpose, depends on its ability to do just that. More and more schools and educational organizations/groups are acting on this evidence and creating compassion-filled learning environments. Students and adults alike thrive when their social and emotional needs are met, when they feel a sense of belonging, when they feel their voices are welcomed and heard. Choosing to uphold the principles of compassion is central to a school’s ability to create a caring and inclusive culture and climate, to nurture a strong moral identity among those who walk through its doors, and to invite deep participation and learning. What’s more, compassionate action is foundational to effective collaboration, and to advancing the common good—attributes that, in today’s increasingly connected world—are central to success. A compassionate school begins with the adults on campus walking their talk and modeling compassion to all.”

(Charter for Compassion, Partners in Education)

The following materials explore the concepts of compassion in the academic setting and how their influence on the work of both students, staff, and faculty.

Thai commercial- Good Stories (3 minutes) The power of paying it forward and extending compassion. https://youtu.be/cZGghmwUcbQ Joy & Heron Video (4 minutes) Kindness leads to more kindness in this delightful animated video. https://vimeo.com/255894286 How to listen with compassion in the classroom. (5 minutes) Martha Caldwell (January 2017) Greater Good Magazine When we teach compassionate listening to students, we foster belonging, inclusion, and learning in the classroom. When clear ground rules for respectful communication are established from the outset, classrooms become safe places for students to share their lives with each other and find support for their growth and development. When students’ need to

CENTER FOR LEARNING & TEACHING

belong is met in the context of a healthy learning environment, authentic inquiry and higher-order thinking naturally emerge.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_listen_with_compassion_in_the_classroom Compassionate boundaries: How to say no with heart. (10 minutes) Carly Hauck (August 2016) I define a compassionate boundary as the act of turning toward whatever difficulty I am feeling

with compassion and listening to the underlying need that I want to request that is both

compassionate to myself and the other person involved.

https://www.mindful.org/compassionate-boundaries-say-no-heart/ Why self-compassion works better than self-esteem (10 minutes) Olga Khazan (May 2016) Interview with Kristin Neff, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, and author of Self-Compassion: Stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind, about how self-esteem fails us and how we can boost our compassion for ourselves instead. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-compassion-works-better-than-self-esteem/481473/ The RAIN of Self-Compassion: Guided Meditation with Tara Brach (11 minutes) This meditation is included at the end of the RAIN of Self-Compassion talk. This talk explores three key features of the trance of unworthiness and introduces this guided meditation based on the acronym RAIN that awakens self-compassion and de-conditions the suffering of being at war with ourselves.

R- Recognize what is going on A-Allow the experience to be there, just as it is

I-Investigate with interest and care N-Nourish with self-compassion

https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-the-rain-of-self-compassion/ The Neuroscience of Compassion (20 minutes) Tania Singer (March 2015) Can training our brains help make the world a better place? Tania Singer from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences thinks it can. She’s a social neuroscientist and psychologist who says the brain’s plasticity means it can be trained to make us less selfish and more compassionate. In this video for the World Economic Forum, Singer shows how our decision making is driven by a set of psychological motivations - from power to fear - that can be altered to help us make better decisions for society and for our health. Her research has also influenced the development of a new model of “caring economics” that hopes to work towards sustainability and global cooperation. https://youtu.be/n-hKS4rucTY