TEDxPSU - Sam Richards - A Radical Experiment in Empathy

Sam Richards is a sociologist and award-winning teacher who has been inspiring undergraduate students at Penn State since 1990. Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State and the largest of its kind in the country. Through his natural ability of seeing a subject from many angles, Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he did not do until his third year in college. Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as "an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds."



His career began at the age of 24 when he was hired to teach a cybernetics course — just 15 minutes before the first class meeting. He remembers walking into the room without having had a moment to create a lesson plan and greeting his students, "Welcome to the course. I'm your instructor. And if you have no idea what cybernetics is, you're not alone — because I don't either." This characteristic willingness to be playfully transparent in the classroom, along with a talent for making complex ideas understandable and relevant, is the foundation of his success as a teacher.

Richards is also the co-director of the World in Conversation Project at Penn State (www.worldinconversation.org), whose mission is to create a kind of dialogue about social and cultural issues that invites the unexamined, politically incorrect thoughts of participants to the surface so that those thoughts can be submitted to conscious exploration and inquiry. The conversation topics span a range of cultural issues — from U.S. race relations to gender to faith to international racism. This year, nearly 7,000 University Park students will participate in one of more than 1,300 of these unscripted conversations. Furthermore, the project also sponsors video dialogues between Penn State students and students at other universities around the world.

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Arabic translation: Noof Fawzi Alkhamis
Malay translation: Iliani Wan Ahmad Murtadza

• Category

  Education

[Amani Al Sheikh Aleais]

im with him in every word he just said but not only muslim iraqies felt about americans that way .. but christian iraqies too , and im one of them !!

[Lydario]

The rage, passion, and concern saturated his voice in a way that no one should be able to deny. He takes all that "be nice" hollow metaphor you learn in school, and really illuminates it in an accessible way. This is powerful!

[fidelinf]

If our situation was the same in US as it was in Iraq, I would love for NATO or UN to come in and establish democracy. It is better than genocidal dictator or murderous theocracy.

[Craig Boyer]

And on the flip side, you have Muslims yelling "God is Great" as they blow up other human beings, you have madrassas training children to hate, Christians, Baha'is and Ahmadiyyas being killed. Americans aren't the only ones lacking in empathy, it's human beings in general. Mostly driven by our biological and social tendency towards relatedness and tribalism. Only holding one group of people responsible might be a good marketing and PR strategy for yourself. But it's hardly honest.

[fidelinf]

Liberal propaganda

[dailydols]

Invite people to look for other info-sources and spend sparetime in another way then watch TV. It might be a start.

[mafiaman2]

Interception of perception is the key to logical sequence and rationality. Understand what that means and you can understand everything

[deltaxcd]

You always label everyone as "ignorant:" who do not match your baseless beliefs? I am incorrect about what?

also even if empathy improves "advancement of species" I wonder wgu this advancement should be in any way relevant to individual members of species unless it is some kind of religion.

I cant enjoy advancement which will happen 200 years in future so I definitely do not care about that all humanity may be extinct at that time it does not matter.

[Khai Fox]

This is why I didn't hate the boston bombers. The root cause of the problem isn't the boys themselves. It's what caused them to feel that they had to take such horrible action. Americans only care about what affects them, their inconveniences. But these boys' lives are destroyed. They were obviously desperate.

[Khai Fox]

I empathize with your ignorance but you're completely incorrect. High levels of empathy and altruism contribute to the advancement of our species.

[bmcmvox]

Human beings = tunnel vision.

[deltaxcd]

Unfortunately this is impossible because you are destroying word no matter how you live.when you will leave there will be nothing usefull left besides lots of burned oil contaminated land and destroyed environment.

if your mirror is straight you should see monster by looking into it.

I simply accept that reality and do not condemn myself for being monster who is destroying everything.