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How has this session deepened your thinking of social services in Singapore?

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How has this session deepened your thinking of social services in Singapore?

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Present your answer in this format

I used to think...

Now I think...

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Dear participants

please share how you would carry out VIA practices amongst students.

Do include your school name.

Thank you.

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It will be more meaningful to try our best to relate our own experiences with those whom we want to help.

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Explain to them the importance of empathy and how helping others can affect their lives positively. Help them relate to something that involves themselves. Maybe they will be motivated to step out of their comfort zone to help others.

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I can encourage them to learn from where the person is coming from

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I will encourage others to participate in volunteering activities and listening actively to them.

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To carry out VIA practices, I would organize simple community service activities, encourage kind acts, and let students reflect on their experiences to build good values.

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Create a project, a sharing to let others know the difference between the two. Thus, when we go for values in action, they will know what GQF their feeling and how to improve on what they should feel.1

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take the initiative to instill values as well as empathy in them through talks given to then as a student body which may help them to gain a better understanding of how they can help communities that require help

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How do we make our friends move from sympathy to empathy?

expose them to a wider area of beneficiaries

help them find a beneficiary that they truly empathise with and care about

allow them to have first hand experience

allow beneficiaries to share their experiences

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I can explain the difference between sympathy and empathy to them and encourage them to take part in volunteer work.

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One thing i would do to encourage or my classmate is by describing to her about stepping into other people's shoes or thinking about the same experiwnce that happened to her and how she felt. When she understands that she will gradually think beyond sympathy to empathy

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Activities to help them understand and experience the difficulties of the beneficiaries. E.g. putting on multiple gloves and attempting to sew to simulate elderly with arthritis?

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i can share with my classmate my knowledge of how the people we are helping feel so that they can also empathise with them

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I would encourage students by telling them the benefits of helping others. Simple acts of kindness such as having a chat with the person in need can mean a lot to yourselves and the person.

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Introduce VIA strengths which focuses on empathy, help students find their own strengths, and encourage daily strength-spotting and reflection through group work and discussions.

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Get students to share their own stories when the volunteer. When others hear about their positive experience, they will be more inclined to volunteer, and hopefully over time, there will be a greater shift from sympathy to empathy.

More intentional self reflection sessions where we bring the needs of the beneficiaries to the forefront & getting students to relate their own experiences to those of the beneficiaries.

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Jayden (School of Science and Technology)

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Jayden (School of Science and Technology)

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Share and educate our peers about the difference of empathy and sympathy

Create opportunities in SLPs where students can exhibit empathy (e.g opportunity for students to have a meal together with the beneficiary instaed of just serving food)

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I will encourage them to take down notes from the engagements so they can have a booth where they share what they have learnt from the engagement, the stories they have heard, their feelings and thoughts, and what the other students can do to be involved in the cause directly (like physically volunteering) or indirectly (like promoting the cause within the school community and to friends and family).

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i used to think that there isn't really a distinction between sympathy and empathy.

however, now i realise that there is a difference between the two, which distinctly sets them apart; the action or inaction that follow a sense of emotion.

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Instead of doing a once-off VIA session with different beneficiaries, we can focus solely on one group/organisation instead. With longer exposure to the same people, it allows us to understand them on a deeper level and better connect with them

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Instead of just planning games that the participants will simply participate in, we can engage in more heart-to-heart conversations to get to understand our audience better. It doesn’t have to be conversations with “guiding questions”, it can just be simple and positive conversations to get to know each other and connect with them better on a deeper level.

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Get students to plan their VIA to engage the beneficiaries eg. Eat , play games, share personalstories, draw out their thoughts/feelings on a subject. Do these together to feel the connection with them.

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I will encourage them to volunteer and check up on the elderly.

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I would tell them what sympathy and empathy means and hope they would do things with empathy instead of sympathy.

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Promote empathetic behaviour in school and make empathy related projects to further encourage empathetic behaviour.

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give examples or somehow let them interact with people (???) to emphatise with

then encourage them to understand the situation better. ask them to feel connections deeper than feeling bad for them and feel emotional bonds instead

make them understand that emphathy leads to kindness and kindness leads to more kindness

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One thing that I can do to encourage students or my classmates to move beyond sympathy and into empathy during Values-in-Action engagements:

• Share the difference between sympathy and empathy and how empathising would be a better way during VIA engagements

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We can give them talks about how to empathise with others and also get them to engage in programmes to know how it feels like on the side of the person in need.

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Encourage students to have a helper mindset, and jump straight into action to help those in need and not be a bystander just seeing who will help them.

I would attempt to improve their empathy ask students to try to put themselves in someone's shoes and imagine how the person feels and how distraught they would be when they just see people spectating, not doing anything.

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ask them to put themselves in the shoes of those in need

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I would create more opportunities for students to have conversations with the beneficiaries on specific questions, and then give students the time and space to connect what they have heard to similar experiences that they have in their own lives.

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Jayden (School of Science and Technology)

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Jayden (School of Science and Technology)

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The session helped me understand the difference between pity, sympathy and empathy. It also shared how we could use these knowledge in SLPs etc.

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Expose ourselves to the different groups of beneficiaries out there and see which group we feel most passionately about.

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Possible more sessions with the target audience over a period of time (to have more opportunities for students to understand their target audience better) instead of having one ad-hoc main project.

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I think I would want to encourage others to join a good cause. It can be like making notes or small paper animals for children in the children hospital. I can also get students to sign up to got to the children's hospital to play board games with them. I want to try to foster empathy. This is also a good learning experience and they can share their experience with their peers

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One thing I can do is encourage my friends to volunteer for VIAs with me for CCA since we are both in the same CCA. I can also share with them the VIA/workshop experiences I have such as this workshop.

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I used to think that sympathising and empathising is similar

Now I realise that there is a difference and that empathising is much better

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what is one thing you can do to encourage your classmates or students to move beyond sympathy and into empathy during VIA?

One thing i can do is to encourage my classmates to put themselves into the shoes of the situations the people we focus on go through and think about the needs and wants of theirs. To show empathy, we can base our VIA project off of their needs and wants to show that we care and relate to them instead of just doing this VIA for the sake of doing it.

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We can encourage students to be more empathetic and make empathetic decisions instead of being sympathetic and promote scenarios where students choose whether to be empathetic or sympathetic. We can share with them the ways that we learnt on how to be empathetic and show examples of how to choose empathy and not sympathy

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I think it will be better to have a workshop prior to the VIA event. The workshop can focus on role-playing/ have simulations to let the participants feel the emotions/pressure the beneficiaries would experience.

This would help participants as it involves understanding and experiencing the beneficiaries of what they go through. So that when socializing or helping them, the students would get to better help and create lasting impressions and impact.

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I will try to put myself in other people’s shoes before jumping to conclusions.

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I will try to put myself in other people’s shoes before jumping to conclusions.

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I used to think social services in Singapore were only for people in serious need.
Now I think they support many different groups and help build a caring society.
From now on I will do my part by supporting community efforts and showing more care for others.

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I used to think that we just need to do what we are told to.

Now I think that we can step out of our comfort zone and do more than needed, for what is needed.

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During CCE lessons, teachers can create awareness in students with case studies or scenarios that would require students to think of the solutions. They can be in groups to discuss and bounce off ideas. Teachers would then share the expected response or answer. In the process, students can realise how important it is to offer help when needed. Therefore they could over time, develop this sense of empathy for others.

Students can be brought out to visit homes for the elderly/disabled/children. They could be engaged in talks with the residents there and perhaps develop some connection over similar experiences before empathy can be realised.

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I used to think that sympathy and empathy was equally as meaningful to people. Now i think that having empathy means more and shows that we care and want to help them, not just to feel bad for them.

From now onwards, i want to take action and help and empathize with those in need whenever i have the opportunity to.

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I used to think that volunteering could only be within our community as we are just students but now I think that we are able to reach out to the wider community through many other ways

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I used to think that empathy and sympathy are the same. Now I think that they are very different and I have a new perspective of them.

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I used to think that empathy and sympathy were the same thing, but now I think that empathy has a greater positive impact on yourself than sympathy when experiencing something that makes you feel for others.

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I used to think that service learning is difficult to achieve because empathy is hard to cultivate.

Now I still think that empathy is difficult to cultivate, but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be done. Sometimes all it takes is for people to talk about service learning and what their experience is like.

What I will do differently now is that I will be more proactive to get people to share about their experience to inspire others to do the same.

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Instead of just fund raising projects, create opportunities for the students to interact with the beneficiaries so as to create more awareness of their needs and challenges

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Instead of just fund raising projects, create opportunities for the students to interact with the beneficiaries so as to create more awareness of their needs and challenges

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I used to think that sympathy and empathy would not really impact or affect my beneficiaries that much. But now I learnt the difference between the two words and I get to learn how to apply it to my future vias

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I think it is important that students be on the ground, and understand their beneficiaries

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I used to think sympathy could lead to action, but now I think sympathy first needs to be branched into empathy before it can lead to action. And from now on, instead of just getting those around me to know what beneficiaries feel or feel sad for them, I will move to try to make them have deeper understanding

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Be more sympathetic

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I used to be unclear of what the difference of empathy and sympathy are,

Now I know what the difference is, Empathy is understanding the pain of someone and not just feeling pity. Sympathy is feeling pity but not understanding someone's pain fully.

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We can get students to relate more to how the beneficiaries they are helping feel

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I used to think that sympathy and empathy is almost the same but now I better understand the difference between those two.

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understand other people better

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I used to think that sympathy and empathy had the same definition.

Now I think that empathy has a deeper meaning than sympathy as it means that one has a deeper connection and understanding of the person who is going through hardship.

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i used to think that sympathy is the same as empathy and wasnt sure if doing via was important. now i think that even helping a bit can make a big difference and empathy is better amd doing more than sympathy. in the future, i will try to help out more by doing via and also being the one helping rather than the one watching when ppl need help

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I used to think that I have to do something big in order to contribute to society.

However, now I think that there are a variety of ways that I can contribute to society. By understanding what the meaning of empathy and sympathy means, I developed a comprehensive understanding of these words.

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I used to think that social service was just volunteering for a cause and really just to help out.

Now I think that social service is reaching out and engaging to the community and understanding the stories of different individuals from different background and making a personal connection to it and maybe take a step further to do something more (e.g. Long term projects, volunteering consistently, be a community builder or social worker, etc.) for the community.

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i used to think that to feel empathy you had to go through the situation yourself

now i think that you can connect your experiences, no matter how small, to empathize with someone

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I used to think that empathy and sympathy can be used interchangeably as they both have a positive mindset towards understanding others. Now I think that empathy is connecting with them on a deeper level while sympathy is only the surface, and not really viewing things from their perspective

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I learned that there are 3 tiers to this.

Pity- just watch from the bus stop

Sympathy - wait and see what others do

Empathy - Run out to help

Thank you for the enlightenment. ☺️

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I used to think that sympathy and empathy were the same meaning, except that sympathy was shown by words and empathy was a feeling.

Now I think that empathy is a personal connection through experience and sympathy is feeling for someone, not with them.

So, from now onwards, instead of being a sympathising outsider, I would like to be an empathising outsider who can be anyone's safe space.

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This session has taught me abt the difference of pity, sympathy and empathy, and how and where we can apply. I also used to think that they were the same but now as I know the differences, I will now be able to know where to use them

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I used to think that carrying out the VIA project would naturally allow students to feel empathy.

Now I think we need be more intentional in helping students feel empathy instead of pity or sympathy.

Moving forward, I would give more consideration to the emotional involvement and personal connection portions of VIA.

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I used to think that empathy is just an understanding of the person's experience but now I know empathy can be understood better if related to our own experience. For VIA, it is important to think about empathy in our planning

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Now I think we can slowly shift our perspective towards having empathy, rather than pity and sympathy;

Emphasise on EMPATHY <3