The grade 7/8 class attended a virtual seminar today.  Making a Difference BL Speaker Series: Designing for Empathy was put on by Brilliant Labs.    

The focus questions of the presentation was: How can we help to foster different forms of empathy in youth to create a compassionate sustainable world? 

The speaker talked about building an ethical imagination.  He highlighted the power of change that can be made through kindness.  That we should start with small acts.  He described how to be a cooperative team member.  That kindness can be learning to be a good listener.  Kindness comes from a place of strength.  He encouraged a cooperative mindset and reminded students that we always have a choice to be kind. 

Here is some information on the speaker from the session handout: 

“About Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi is an innovative thinker, philosopher, educator and a polymath monk. He is Director of the Ethics Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and President & CEO of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a center dedicated to inquiry, dialogue, and education on the ethical and humane dimensions of life. Venerable Tenzin’s unusual background encompasses entering a Buddhist monastery at the age of ten and receiving graduate education at Harvard University with degrees ranging from Philosophy to Physics to International Relations. He is a Tribeca Disruptive Fellow and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford Universit