2016 Annual Conference

Compassion is a human quality that is often overlooked in today’s competitive environment. An interactive conversation on its usefulness to adult education follows a review of the recent scientific research.

Adult educators interested in the newly emerging practices and research on compassion and altruism in psychology and neuroscience and their application in adult education will be interested in attending this session.

We educate in an era dominated by an ethos of competition and self-interest. The fallout of this is experienced as increased stress in the workplace, increased violence in communities and the workplace, and a narrative of competition linked to accountability requirements in education. Social science and scientific research and education practice have overwhelmingly focused on humans, like animals, in competition for survival. However, recently research findings have begun to accumulate that support the opposite view, that humans have a natural capacity for compassion for others. This session will summarize major research findings in the growing field compassion studies and look at how professionals in a variety of fields are applying these findings to their practice. Participants will engage in an activity for developing compassion. We will look at ways to incorporate compassion and altruism into our own practice as adult educators.