Empathy on Nick Wang

Teaching Empathy Interviews - Patrick Newell

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 00:26:00 +0000

After the recent events that caused me to focus my research on “Can we teach children to become empathetic leaders”, I started to interview empathetic leaders in my network. I want to find out how they grew up to become the person they are today. Last Friday, I interviewed Patrick Newell. Patrick lives in Tokyo and he started Tokyo International School 13 years ago because he couldn’t find any school that “taught 21st century skills to 21st century children”. I met Patrick in 2010 when I volunteered at TEDxTokyo, he and another good friend of mine, Todd Porter, were the founders of a pilot program originated from the TED conference, which later became TEDx! Patrick also founded Living Dreams, an NPO that enriches the lives of over 2000 orphans in Japan, and co-founded Impact Japan, a lighthouse for entrepreneurship and innovation in Japan.

Nick: “So, let’s start with your childhood. How did you grow up?”

Patrick: “Yeah, I think that’s the key question. When you ask this question, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen a pattern already. People who are empathetic, I think they have something in their childhood that was challenging and difficult, that caused them to look at other people in a kinder way. For me, in a nutshell, I had a pretty difficult childhood, my mom and dad divorced when I was 5, my mom moved to Northern California when I was 9, with no money at all. We had to struggle, all my life actually. I used to get into a lot of fights, mainly I got into fights with bullies who were bullying other kids, I was empathetic toward other kids who were being picked on, or may be that was the way I got rid of my frustration because I was frustrated with having a difficult childhood. For me, having gone through all of that, when I see people who are in a difficult childhood situation, I can align with their feelings. I have an NGO called Living Dreams and we work with a couple thousand of orphans here in Japan. I see these kids, they were called stupid, that they won’t be able to do anything with their lives, that they have no financial resources… I can empathize with them because I’ve been in a similar position. That really drives me to want to make a difference. So I’m involved in education, I just think I don’t want children to have to go through some of the things I did. Discover ways so we can educate them so that they would excel, and treat other people kindly and with respect.”

Nick: “So in a nutshell, you’ve been through a lot of hardship and that made you empathetic toward others in similar situation. Do you think empathy is something you can teach to someone if they have never endured any kind of hardship?”

Patrick: “I think you can. A lot of it is neural wiring. If you look at situations that develop empathy, you could actually put the children through simulations, make them aware of the others’ difficulties, put them in other people’s shoes and have them imagine, experience and problem solve. Another way is by helping others, exposing them to real life people in need, raising their awareness of the other people’s difficulties.”

The hour long interview was enlightening and meaningful. We continued to delve deeper into developing empathy, and then moved on to his journey starting Tokyo International School, and finally to one of his latest initiatives: 21 Foundation - 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Learners

Thank you again, Patrick!

Can We Teach Children to Become Empathetic Leaders?

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 01:47:00 +0000

Ever since reading about Pauline Hawkin’s Animal Farm Lessons, I’ve had one of the outcomes stuck in my head:

“Every once and a while, I will have a student who stands up and leads, not as a dictator, but as a leader of the people. He will accept every suggestion and value everyone’s input, even if some of the suggestions are ridiculous. I’ve had only a few students who have actually led that way over the years, but I always hope that those few students find their way into politics.”

I had written about why I started 100 Village, later on, I realized that I wanted children to grow up with these qualities because I hoped they can become future change makers - do the right things and make the world a better place. Last week however, something very personal about my son’s behaviors really shook my world and gave me a sharpened focus!

Basically, Allison and Mabo at Mulberry Tree Unschool had identified that my son had passed the toddler, experimental stage of hitting and started to hit and to do things to hurt other people or make other people feel sad / angry / unhappy on purpose. After a sleepless night of reflection, I told them that I think the reason for such behavior was because I didn’t properly give him unconditional love. Last weekend, Luc locked me and his little sister out on the roof and proceeded to laugh about it. When I got back inside, I was angry and I brought him to the roof, locked him out and asked him if he was feeling happy or not? Then I held him in my arms and I said: “I’m always doing things that help other people and make people happy… but I see you doing things that make other people sad… I’m worried about you. I love you so much and I wish you can also do things that help other people and make people happy.” I was crying as I said those words. I can’t help but get very emotional when I think about how my lovely little boy is “turning to the dark side”, in Mabo’s words.

This brings me back to the Animal Farm Lessons. If I want children to grow up to become change makers, then more than just the qualities listed on why I started 100 Village, they need to have a “good heart” - to be considerate and empathic. This became my newfound focus for 100 Village -

Can We Teach Children to Become Empathetic Leaders?

Two Year Olds Deserved To Be Tied Up, Continued

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about the 2 year old with hands taped together in kindergarten (http://pocket.co/sZerG) and how we need to ask ourselves questions about the effects on the children because our relationship with them and the experiences we give them directly shape their neural circuitry, for life!

In my research, I’ve found that many teachers and parents do not realize the significant consequences of their actions. Some of them publicly voiced their opinions with comments like “What’s the big deal?”, “All these uproar for such a minor incident, no wonder the world is full of spoiled brats.”

Those of us who know a little about the potentially life-long ill effects punishments can have on our children, we are on the other extreme of the spectrum. We worry about whether or not we have ruined our children for life. For this specific incident, I’ve inquired Dr. JoAnn Deak about whether there will be any long term ill effect on the child, her response was as follows:

Your question is hard to answer because ‘it depends’ on many little details surrounding the incident. How harsh was the conversation, what was said, what kind of temperament does the child have, etc. Every incident is processed differentially by each individual. In general, the fear associated with such an event can wane with good care afterwards. It would be important to not have a continual layering of such events over time. - Dr. JoAnn Deak

So generally speaking, as long as these events don’t constantly repeat and the child is given good care, he should be able to recover without much long term harm. I hope that was the case with this child but if what I read in the comments were true, then this wasn’t an isolated incident. I’m guessing quite a lot of teachers repeatedly use corporal punishments. It makes me worry about all the children growing up in such an environment.

Now how should we deal with what some would call a “naughty child”? That’s a long post to write but the two words summary is this: Stay connected! (If you get it, feel free to elaborate in the comments.)

2 Year Olds Deserved to be Tied Up

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, a picture of a 2 year old child with both hands tightly taped together (http://pocket.co/sZerG), kneeling on the floor in an activity room of a famous kindergarten in Hong Kong, surfaced on the web and caused quite a controversy. While lots of the comments are from parents who detest such atrocity, it’s unfortunate that I still read and hear comments like these:

“Bad kids need to be taught like this, so that they will learn to behave.”

“I need to send my son to this kindergarten so they can discipline him. May be not that extreme but he definitely needs to be disciplined by a teacher.”

“Is it really that big of a deal? It’s not like the teacher had beaten the kid till he was bruised and bleeding. You can’t even tell if he was kneeling or sitting either.”

Seeing these comments made me realized that there are still a lot of people out there who don’t understand child development or simply why children do what they do. There has been decades of scientific research on child development and with the latest brain imaging technology, we are knowing more and more about what a child’s brain is doing. Much of these information is in English and I feel that perhaps they just need to be translated into Chinese and other languages so everyone can learn about them.

One key thing about this incident that all early childhood educators need to be aware of is that your actions, your relationships with your students directly affect their brains for the rest of their lives!

“Education is a key component of a child’s development. The relationships that teachers have with their students and the experiences they provide for them directly shape the neural circuitry of the next generation.”

We know from 50 years of research in neuroscience that an infant’s experience can have permanent effects on the wiring of the brain. Neurosurgeons know there are truly critical periods—stages of development—in which the brain needs certain types of experience, or the circuits don’t get put together properly. Babies’ brains need stimulation to develop their full potential. Their best learning is from being highly attuned to human stimuli—interacting with your face, voice, and touch. If children have stressful or impoverished early environments, there will be long-term implications for the building of the brain.

Eliot, L. (2006). Experts’ opinion, nurturing brain development National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2006). Early influences on brain architecture

I think we can safely assume that by binding this two year old’s hands, the teacher’s intention was to punish him for a certain behavior, thereby stopping him from doing it again. Do you think the teacher’s intention was achieved?

Certainly, you can teach a two year old to stop doing something by inflicting pain, fear and shame on her. However, she has only learned to stop doing what she wants to do out of fear of punishments. What we want in our children is for them to have an internal locus of discipline, and you can only achieve that by having a warm relationship with the child. Calmly but firmly communicate to her your expectations and boundaries. She will keep pushing those boundaries again and again, that’s natural for a two year old. You just need to stay consistent and keep reminding her your expectations and boundaries.

There are so many questions we parents and teachers need to ask about in this incident. How would it affect the child? Will there be any long-term effect? How would it affect other children? Their relationship with this child? Has the teacher set up an example for other children to bully and ridicule this child?

There are several topics here that I want to get to - learning to be a social being, anti-social behavior, socially acceptable behavior, an 80 years longitudinal study of Harvard men, self-worth, but probably the most relevant and urgent of all, how do you deal with a “terrible” two year old who “just don’t listen”, do the exact things you tell him not to, making you so mad you’re yelling at him at the top of your lungs? (I faced this issue with my son when he was 2 years old.)

Diary - Uninterrupted Play and Empathy

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Aug 3rd

At the farm expo, we found out about this organization that does a lot of events to let kids reconnect with nature. Unfortunately, they don’t have an outdoor space that we can visit, what they have is a well designed indoor playroom with 4 main spaces, an open space with lots of train tracks, a mock supermarket, a huge web that spans an entire room and finally an arts & crafts room. Each room has a towering structure for kids to climb almost to the ceiling!

Sounds exciting right? Well, L didn’t even bother with the 2 rooms in the back! He was completely absorbed in the trains, playing with them on the tracks, taking them up the tower and back down, walked to the other tower in the mock supermarket and took the trains up there. Back and forth, again and again for the entire hour!

While I was sitting there watching L play, I saw other parents talked to their kids while they were playing, trying to get them to drop whatever they were playing and be interested in what the parents wanted to show them! I thought to myself, if it wasn’t for my knowledge in the Reggio Emilia Approach and reading up on the importance of uninterrupted playtime from RIE, I probably would’ve tried to talk to L to get him to check out the whole venue too! That’s my personal style of doing things, I like to explore the whole place first before deciding what to spend more time on.

While L was playing with the trains, a little baby was upset and started crying. Something amazing happened! Sarah’s younger daughter, Chi, was playing with balloons. She stopped and watched the baby cry, then she walked over and gave the baby her balloon! People around me often says “you gotta keep an eye on your babies, they have no sense of anything yet!” If that’s true , how could a 1 year old baby shows empathy?! Chi gave something she liked and was playing with to another baby! I’ve seen way too many parents forced their children to share or apologize, and these are the same people who think babies have no sense of anything. Perhaps if they would open their eyes and pay a bit more attention, they would see that babies are so much more capable!

Finally, when it was time to go, L found a doll on his way out. He picked it up and poked it in its eyes and touch its mouth. I smiled. Back at home, we were having a hard time telling L to stop poking his baby sister in her eyes! Suddenly I realized, he was just learning about eyes… by sticking his finger into one! This is a good example of why we adults always need to take a step back, don’t make any assumptions, and replicate the things they want to do so they can learn what they want to learn.