Compassion and empathy – surely, they aren’t really that important?

How do you measure compassion and empathy? You certainly can’t take an exam and receive a grade that will contribute to university entrance. However, it is clear to us when we see a student display it and also often clear when students or adults display a lack of it. So, why is it so vital that our students at Dulwich College (Singapore) leave with the ability to empathise and show compassion for other human beings? Why do we hold these skills in such high regard?

The world and its people are made up of countless complex physical and social systems; everything is interconnected. Compassion and empathy are human qualities that have a very strong connection.

If we deepen these connections and we actively try to develop and understand them, we will be creating a better and more peaceful world. Over the last decade advances in neuroscience and in psychology have meant we now have an improved understanding of the sources of these emotions and how they develop over time.    

Equally, over this same period of time, and in the decades preceding it, divisions and separations have been created and are widening in culture, wealth, influence, resources and safety for all humans across the world. These divisions are putting an ever-growing strain on the interconnectedness of human beings and restricting the compassion and empathy we hold for each other. In his work “The Fifth Discipline,” Peter Senge discusses this systemic breakdown, and we only need to look at recent harrowing media headlines to identify these challenges. The military siege in Myanmar, the current climate crisis, the rise in reported sexual abuse cases worldwide and the level of gun crime in the United States are merely a few of the issues confronting us all, on a daily basis. We must help our students to navigate, thrive and contribute positively to this environment, and at Dulwich College (Singapore), the Compassionate Systems Framework is our route to achieving this. 

We want to develop students who, quite simply, have a strong moral compass and willingly want to make a positive difference both now and for future generations. Through his research on empathy, Martin Hoffman supports this approach by arguing that the root of all morality can be found in empathy and that putting yourself in another human’s place, ‘. . .leads people to follow certain moral principles.’

This article will explore why it is imperative that we are explicitly teaching these skills in the Junior School and how different systemic tools are an excellent lens through which to do so, with both students and adults. It will explore our journey with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop this approach, and the successes and challenges of doing this at Dulwich College (Singapore). We call this approach the Compassionate Systems Framework and it is now a global project comprising a number of schools and educational institutions.

Let’s start at the very beginning. . .

In the Junior School, through our partnership with MIT, we are using the Compassionate Systems Framework to support the development of wellbeing across all areas of the curriculum. The core aim of the framework can be described as, ‘. . .growing compassionate integrity in students and teachers to have alignment between how we think, feel and act by virtue of an ever-unfolding awareness of inter-connectedness.’ Systems Thinking Tools and aspects of the Personal Capacities are being used across the Junior School to enhance teaching and learning. Systems Thinking Tools provide our teachers with a platform to explore sensitive, emotive, or controversial areas with confidence. It is vital that we overtly teach our students to try to understand the world from the perspective of others and how different social connections, and networks of connections, which we refer to as social fields, influence this. It has been a carefully planned, gradually implemented process over the past year and a half which has involved students, teaching staff, leadership teams and our parents. Explaining the tools will exemplify how they have been most effective in supporting our students.