Tokyo 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!

@AniDotMe's @MikePrasad taught me how to win this with 500 yen

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0000

First time in my life winning a big toy in those UFO catcher machines :D

Went to the new SEGA arcade in Akihabara tonight with AniDotMe [http://www.ani.me] founder Mike Prasad and he taught me the trick to winning this gigantic Glommy plush toy cushion! ¥500 for 3 tries, the trick is to hook its tag!!!!!!!! Definitely a bit a beginner’s luck there but hell yeah it was epic when the claws pick the whole thing up!!! :D

Thanks Mike!!!!

Comments

julie_wang — 2011-06-09 17:19:24

I just saw this post and it reminds me of your otaku adventure, only this is way more sad looking: http://www.someecards.com/2011/06/09/mechanical-claw-machine-offers-chance-at-a-handful-of-sadness

My 1 week since the biggest earthquake in Japan's history

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:00:00 +0000

The largest earthquake ever in Japan’s recorded history hit 373 km NE of Tokyo on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:46pm. I was in a meeting with two Japanese colleagues at our French partner’s office in Higashi-Nihonbashi. Most of the guys there are Europeans, so they had never been through a severe earthquake before. We decided to flee when the earthquake didn’t subside but actually began to strengthen! As we were running downstairs, the shaking really got violent and we began to hear the building walls breaking and tiles falling! We’ve never run down staircases so fast in our lives!

The ground continued to shake pretty violently for minutes(!!), including some up & down ones that I had never felt before! People from other buildings joined us standing on the street, we stood for what seemed at least 5~10 minutes, couldn’t really tell if the world is still shaking or if it was just our feet. Some of us went back upstairs to grab our wallets & jackets when another aftershock hit, which probably wasn’t strong but was amplified by the fact that we were 6 floors above ground. We grabbed what we could and ran back downstairs, then we all walked toward an open flat area further away from the office building. Lots of people in black business attires stood with us in the middle of the street.

By this time, the aftershocks had mostly stopped but people were too afraid to go back inside buildings. Our team actually went and got beers at 7-eleven and started drinking and causing a ruckus. We were visibly the only group that was having “a good time” out there. In true “when things go wrong” fashion, all my mobile devices’ batteries were out! I had to borrow a colleague’s iPhone to post on Facebook to let my family know that I’m ok! Mobile voice networks were completely down, but data was still up and Twitter became everyone’s main tool for communications!

We stayed out for more than 30 minutes until the sky began to drizzle, some of us then headed back to the office, while some went to a cafe to hang out instead. I took the chance to recharge my batteries, everyone went on Facebook and ustream to watch the news on the destructions and tsunami. Aftershocks kept hitting us and it was quite scary on the 6th floor, so we didn’t stay long. We closed the office and catch up with the other guys at the cafe. This was around 6 pm already.

Fire raging at oil refinery in Chiba.

A few people decided to walk home, the rest of us went to grab dinner at Jonathan’s. Walking together in relatively good spirits, it felt like the ending of a (disaster) movie! At dinner, one of the French guys read about the earthquake being the 8th largest in recorded history in the world and yelled “And we survived it!” He turned around to call the waitress “Sumimasen! Corn soup kudasai!!” … I totally thought he was gonna order champagne! LOL!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23438911@N03/5519118672/

Later that night, people argued about where to stay the night, since all train services were suspended, those of us who lived far away couldn’t go home. Some were worried about sleeping at home, some were worried about staying at the public safe houses, one went as far as suggesting spending the night in a park! (It was like 2 degrees Celsius that night!) I chose the safe house along with 3 others, so we walked to Meiji University in Ochanomizu. We spent the night in a lecture hall along with hundreds of others.

Although we had just been through the earthquake of the century and tsunami up North, the weekend actually felt rather uneventful. When I return home on Saturday morning, my old next door neighbor didn’t even asked me about the earthquake, but instead lectured me about putting out the garbages on time! (Next time is Tuesday, u better put it out before 8:10 am!) So yeah, life had pretty much returned to normal the next day! Sure, we were aware of the situation with the nuclear power plant up North in Fukushima, the hoarding at local supermarkets, the upcoming blackouts… etc, thanks in no small part to Twitter for immediate, open, free flowing information, but people in Tokyo are generally well informed and confident about the safety in Tokyo!

Meanwhile, a picture of the complete opposite were being painted by the mass media abroad!!!! With headlines like “Radiation fear prompts Tokyo exodus”, our friends and family back home went into a state of hysteria! People emailing and calling me constantly, “updating” me with the latest news of apocalypse in Japan as we know it, and urging us to fly away ASAP! No matter what!! One P2PU classmate whom I barely knew wrote me from the UK, telling me to leave even though I had written the following email to the whole class:

Well… I had evacuated to Kyoto, ~300km West of Tokyo since Monday. I did this not because the situation in Tokyo was bad, but because all my family & friends are worried sick and keep calling me and writing me, telling me to get the fuck out! The 2nd reason why I left was logistics.. with ~35 million ppl in Tokyo, if shit happens and people starts to panic, it will become real dangerous!Honestly, the situation with the nuclear power plant isn’t so bad, sure the first few days we were treated to spectacular videos of explosions (of the outer walls) and there have been some leakage of radiation, but it’s far from a real disaster like Chernobyl, this tweet sums it up pretty well:

You know, 41 year old reactor gets hit by 8.9 earthquake, then 20ft. waves, then an explosion, but core intact… That’s awesome. -slashdot

— Joyce (@joycem137) March 15, 2011

- You know, 41 year old reactor gets hit by 8.9 earthquake, then 20ft. waves, then an explosion, but core intact… That’s awesome. -slashdotThe Japanese engineers are amazing! I mean, I’m sure you’ve all seen the tsunami videos <

▶ YouTube video

, the kinds of elements that had been thrown at the nuclear plant is unimaginable!! I had complained a lot of the Japanese’s “foolishness” of doing things by the book, but this time, it’s definitely thanks to their diligence, following the rules to keep the nuclear plant well-maintained that saved us from a real nuclear disaster!The real tragedy are the tens of thousands of people who lost everything to the tsunami… they’re living in school stadiums now, it’s super cold and I heard some of them have to share 1 blanket among 3 people!! :(Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity said it pretty well - “Every time I’ve been to a disaster, a Japanese national has been there. Japanese architects are the most trusted people on the ground” If you can spare some change, please donate to their efforts to rebuild some homes - http://architectureforhumanity.org/programs/2011-sendai-earthquake-and-tsunami

Like I said in the email… I complain a lot about how the Japanese does things a lot of times… but I had also complained a lot of Hong Kong, Seattle, New York… basically every place I’ve ever been to! I also know that with time, I’ll learn to appreciate and love a place and its people. For Japan, this incident had become one of those turning points for me. I’m really impressed with the people of Japan! They’ve made me love this country a little bit more! …

With that said, there are still a lot of “stupid” things I want to complain about! I’m writing one up for my next post - “Will your company survive another crisis?” Stay tuned.

After yesterday's big Earthquake, spent the night at Meiji University

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:03:00 +0000

Some photos from the Meiji University last night.