Reviewer:

Lesson 1 :CRITICAL THINKING: THE ART OF CRITICAL QUESTIONING

CRITICAL QUESTIONING

● What makes us understand new ideas and concepts better is not just knowing
what the statement of fact is but the questions that will lead us to come up with
the right answers. Most of the time, answers or ideas seem to be vague because
of the improper questions that we raise. Questions motivate the answers. The
level of answer we get is essentially based on the kind of question we ask.
● Dare to ask the following questions when you talk about new ideas and issues
that spark your interest
Lesson 2: Developing Peaceful Co-Existence: CULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND
TOLERANCE

CULTURAL SENSITIVITY

● Many years ago, Milton Bennett developed a solid framework to understand the
various stages of cultural sensitivity (or as he calls it “intercultural sensitivity”) that
a person may experience. He argues that as people become more and more
culturally sensitive, they progress from having an ethnocentric orientation to a
more ethno-relative worldview.
● In Bennett’s words, “In general, the more ethnocentric orientations can be seen
as ways of avoiding cultural difference, either by denying its existence, by raising
defenses against it, or by minimizing its importance. The more ethno-relative
worldviews are ways of seeking cultural difference, either by accepting its
importance, by adapting perspective to take it into account, or by integrating the
whole concept into a definition of identity.”

Ethnocentric stages of intercultural sensitivity

● Denial: At this stage of cultural sensitivity, people don’t recognize cultural

differences and experiences. They believe their culture is the only “real” one and
they tend to interact in homogenous groups and to stereotype everyone else.
Example: People who say, “We are all the same and I don’t understand why we
have to learn about the different groups in the company. Why don’t they just learn
how we do things in America?”
● Defense: At the defense stage of cultural sensitivity, people recognize some
differences, but see them as negative because they assume their culture is the
most evolved, the best one. Example: People who say, “In Latin America,you
can’t just get to the point and talk business. They want to tell you their life story. I
don’t understand why they can’t just learn to be more direct and save everybody
time.”
● Minimization: Individuals at this stage of cultural sensitivity are unaware that
they are projecting their own cultural values. They see their own values as
superior. They think that the mere awareness of cultural differences is enough.
These people think we are all the same because we are more similar than
different and, in the end, we all have similar physical, biological, psychological
needs etc. They think they are wonderful because they see people as people but
they are actually denying the influence of culture in every person’s experience.
Example: Statements such as, “In the end, we all want to be liked,” or, “We are all
people.”
● Acceptance: At this stage of cultural sensitivity people can shift perspectives to
understand that the same “ordinary” behavior can have different meanings in
different cultures. They can identify how experiences are influenced by one’s
culture. They may not agree or even like the differences they observe but they
are interested in finding out and learning about another culture. Example: People
who approach others with genuine interest and curiosity about how they
experience the same situations. They ask questions such as, “How do
Dominicans do it?” or, “What would your family do in a situation like this?”
● Adaptation: Individuals who are at this stage of cultural sensitivity become more
competent in their ability to communicate with other cultures. They can evaluate
other people’s behavior from these people’s frame of reference and can adapt
behavior to fit the norms of a different culture. Example: People who seamlessly
interact with others from different cultures by following the norms of that culture.
They feel that they can respect their own values while adapting to the values of
other cultures they interact with. They use empathy effectively. For instance,
people who bow at the right time when interacting with Japanese clients or
naturally expect their Mexican guests forty-five minutes after the scheduled start
time of a party.

● Integration: People who are at this stage of cultural sensitivity can shift easily
from one cultural frame of reference to another. They develop empathy for other
cultures. People who are equally comfortable with one culture or another.
 Example: This stage is easy to see with perfectly bilingual/bicultural individuals
who almost change their personality when they interact with one group (their
family, for instance) or another (their Anglo co-workers, for instance) but they are
equally genuine in both situations.

How far should you expect your team to go regarding their own cultural
sensitivity?

- Part of answering the question of what cultural sensitivity is, is to realize that one
of the main purposes of becoming more culturally competent is to become more
effective in your relationships with colleagues, customers and suppliers.
- Don’t expect for people to change their worldviews overnight or after a workshop
or even an intensive program.
- It is the cohesive introduction of opportunities for interaction with different
cultures, training in the practice of empathy, and practical exposure to the way
different cultures experience a similar situation that will produce more sustainable
results.

Lesson 3: Developing Empathy: Empathic Listening

Empathic Listening
● Empathic listening (also called active listening or reflective listening) is a way of
listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding
and trust.
● It is an essential skill for third parties and disputants alike, as it enables the
listener to receive and accurately interpret the speaker's message, and then
provide an appropriate response.
● The response is an integral part of the listening process and can be critical to the
success of a negotiation or mediation.
● Among its benefits, empathic listening builds trust and respect, enables the
disputants to release their emotions, reduces tensions, encourages the surfacing
 of information, and creates a safe environment that is conducive to collaborative
problem solving
●
● Though useful for everyone involved in a conflict, the ability and willingness to
listen with empathy is often what sets the mediator apart from others involved in
the conflict.
● Even when the conflict is not resolved during mediation, the listening process can
have a profound impact on the parties. Jonathon Chace, associate director of the
U.S. Community Relations Service, recalls a highly charged community
race-related conflict he responded to more than 30 years ago when he was a
mediator in the agency's Mid-Atlantic office.
● It involved the construction of a highway that would physically divide a
community centered around a public housing project. After weeks of protest
activity, the parties agreed to mediation. In the end, the public officials prevailed
and the aggrieved community got little relief.
● When the final session ended, the leader of the community organization bolted
across the floor, clasped the mediator's hand and thanked him for being "different
from the others."

How to Listen with Empathy

● Empathy is the ability to project oneself into the personality of another person in
order to better understand that person's emotions or feelings.
● Through empathic listening the listener lets the speaker know, "I understand your
problem and how you feel about it, I am interested in what you are saying and I
am not judging you."
● The listener unmistakably conveys this message through words and non-verbal
behaviors, including body language.
● In so doing, the listener encourages the speaker to fully express herself or
himself free of interruption, criticism or being told what to do.
 ● It is neither advisable nor necessary for a mediator to agree with the speaker,
even when asked to do so.
● It is usually sufficient to let the speaker know, "I understand you and I am
interested in being a resource to help you resolve this problem."

● The power of empathic listening in volatile settings is reflected in Madelyn

Burley-Allen's description of the skilled listener.
● "When you listen well," Burley-Allen says, "you: acknowledge the speaker,
increase the speaker's self-esteem and confidence, tell the speaker, "You are
important" and "I am not judging you," gain the speaker's cooperation, reduce
stress and tension, build teamwork, gain trust, elicit openness, gain a sharing of
ideas and thoughts, and obtain more valid information about the speakers and
the subject."

Lesson 3: DEVELOPING ETHICS:THE WAY TO VIRTUE

MODULE LESSON
● What is judged to be good are actions. But these are actions that are done
voluntarily or out of your own freedom and knowledge of what you are doing. And
if you act upon these chosen actions, this is what makes your character.
● As the saying goes, “you are, what you do.” Hence, a consistent state of
character is what you call virtue.
● For Aristotle, Virtue involves striking a mean between extremes of action and
passion or what he calls “vices”.
● Excess is having too handmuch of something. While deficiency, on the other , is
having to little of something. To strike the mean is not mediocrity but attainment
of harmony and balance.
Lesson 4: Developing Empathy: The Practice of Empathy

WHAT IS EMPATHY?

● Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and
vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of
either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience
fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner also: the capacity for this
● Empathy is the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that
the object appears to be infused with it.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EMPATHY AND SYMPATHY?

● Sympathy and Empathy are closely related words, bound by shared origins and
the similar circumstances in which each is applicable, yet they are not
synonymous.
● For one thing, sympathy is considerably older than empathy, having existed in
our language for several hundred years before its cousin was introduced and its
greater age is reflected in a wider breadth of meaning.
● Sympathy may refer to "feelings of loyalty" or "unity or harmony in action or
effect," meanings not shared by empathy. In the contexts where the two words do
overlap, sympathy implies sharing (or having the capacity to share) the feelings
of another, while empathy tends to be used to mean imagining, or having the
capacity to imagine, feelings that one does not actually have.
● Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's thoughts, feelings,
and condition from his or her point of view, rather than from one's own. Empathy
facilitates prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being
forced, so that people behave in a more compassionate manner. Although there
may be individual differences in empathy based on genetic differences, research
suggests it is possible to boost the capacity for empathic understanding.
● Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if
one has experienced that pain themselves:
● For instance, people who are highly egoistic and presumably lacking in empathy
keep their own welfare paramount in making moral decisions like how or whether
to help the poor.

TYPES OF EMPATHY
● Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand how a person feels and what
they might be thinking. Cognitive empathy makes us better communicators,
because it helps us relay information in a way that best reaches the other person.
 ● Emotional empathy (also known as affective empathy) is the ability to share the
feelings of another person. Some have described it as "your pain in my heart."
This type of empathy helps you build emotional connections with others.
● Compassionate empathy (also known as empathic concern) goes beyond
simply understanding others and sharing their feelings: it actually moves us to
take action, to help however, we can.

EMPATHY
● To illustrate how these three branches of empathy work together, imagine that a
friend has recently lost a close family member. Your natural reaction may be
sympathy, a feeling of pity, or sorrow. Sympathy may move you to express
condolences or to send a card--and your friend may appreciate these actions but
showing empathy takes more time and effort. It begins with cognitive empathy:
imagining what the person is going through. Whom did they lose? How close
were they to this person? Besides feelings of pain and loss, how will their life now
change?
● Emotional empathy will help you not only understand your friend's feelings, but
also share them somehow. You try to connect with something in yourself that
knows the feeling of deep sorrow and emotional pain. You might remember how
it felt when you lost someone close, or imagine how you would feel if you have
not had that experience.
●
● Compassionate empathy moves you to take action. You might provide a meal, so
your friend does not need to worry about cooking. You could offer to help make
necessary phone calls or do some chores around the house. Maybe you could
go over to help keep them company; or, if they need to be alone, you could pick
up the children and watch them for a while.
● This is just one example of how empathy works, but every day will bring new
opportunities to develop this trait. In fact, every interaction you share with another
person is a chance to see things from a different perspective, to share their
feelings, and to help.