What Are Secular Ethics?

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  Transcript Jen:    [00:40] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is on the topic of compassion. I actually need to thank Dr Tara Callahan, whom I interviewed way back in episode four of the show on encouraging creativity and artistic ability for bringing us this episode. She met today’s guest Dr Brendan Ozawa-de Silva at a conference and was kind enough to put us in touch. Dr Ozawa-de Silva is the Associate Director for the Emory University Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, where he’s responsible for Emory’s Social, Emotional, and Ethical learning program, or SEE Learning; a worldwide kindergarten through twelfth grade educational curriculum based on compassion and secular ethics. He received his doctorates from Oxford and Emory universities as well as master’s degrees from Boston and Oxford Universities; I think you’ve actually got more degrees than I do. His chief interests lies in bringing secular ethics, which he calls the cultivation of basic human values into education and society. I’m excited to learn more today about his work and the benefits that it has for children. Welcome Brendan. Dr. de Silva:   [01:42] Thank you Jen. Jen:   [01:43] So can you start by telling us what are secular ethics, what do these have to do with social and emotional learning that parents might already be familiar with? Dr. de Silva:   [01:51] So secular ethics means basic human values, so things like compassion, gratitude, sense of common humanity, a recognition of our responsibility to one another and to the environment. And if we look at the two words, the word secular means that we approach these ethics not on the basis of any one religion or ideology, but in a broad way on the basis of science, common Sense, common experience. So what we have in common with each other rather than what kind of separates us, which religion and ideology can do, but it doesn’t mean secular in the sense of anti-religious. So secular ethics doesn’t mean anything against religion, but it’s rather what we all have in common despite our religious national cultural differences. And then when we talk about ethics, it’s important to state that we’re not talking about ethics as a set of rules or principles that are being handed down by an authority that this is right and that is wrong; this is good and that iss bad, but really exploring the dimension of what contributes to individual and social flourishing. So what’s beneficial for us, what are the kinds of common values that we would share that will be beneficial to us. So we agree on those values politically and legally. For example, we have laws saying, you know, you can’t steal and you can’t murder people. And those reflect our common values independent of religion. So that’s what we’re approaching it. And the connection to SEL is that we believe that the cultivation of these basic human values is very linked to social and emotional intelligence and social emotional skills. So these moral emotions are actually social emotions, just emotions that involve how we relate to one another. So it’s a kind of different approach to ethics. Jen:    [03:40] Yeah. And as you’re listing off those components, compassion, gratitude, responsibility, individual and social flourishing, I’m going down that list thinking, Yep, I want that. I want that for my daughter. So that gives us a framework to think within and to me, that sounds. Yes. I want to know more about that. So can you tell us why this kind of learning is important for children? And specifically I’m interested in it seems as though not all of these concepts are a component of the existing SEL programs. And by SEL we mean social and emotional learning programs as they’re typically taught in schools. Dr. de Silva:   [04:15] Yeah. Well, I’d like to just very briefly give a story of myself when I was a child when I was growing up because it’s kind of a funny story and it kind of explains why I’m doing this. I remember when I was probably 10 or 11 maybe I first had these thoughts. Even earlier I was kind of thinking and I know what children think about this. Even at a much younger age, I was thinking about what’s important in life and what am I doing here and what am I supposed to be doing? What’s going to happen when I grow up? And I was asking these questions and wondering when in school we would actually be learning about these things. So I thought, well, they’re going to teach us. The adults are going to teach us about the meaning of relationships and loves and meaning in life and what life is about and all these things. Dr. de Silva:    [05:03] And I thought you know; we’re too young right now, so they’re going to teach us later. So maybe when we get to middle school, they’re gonna teach us these things and got to middle school and I said, no, they’re not teaching us that. And then I thought, well maybe in high school they’ll be teaching us those things and know it’s the same thing. Math, history, biology, you know, and by then I was old enough to realize that even looking at college that we would never be taught these things. So not only are we not taught them, but there’s no space in the school day to even talk about them or discuss them. But I think that as human beings, we all have a need to find meaning in life as you said, as parents. We always want the best for our children. We want our children to have happy lives and we know that there’s a connection between character and flourishing; being a good person, however we define that. Dr. de Silva:    [05:47] We know that there’s a relationship between that and leading a happy life. So why don’t we make space for that in education and maybe in previous times that’s a space that would have been held by the family or extended family, the community churches, but what we’re seeing in today’s pluralistic society is that increasingly these things aren’t talked about and so kids don’t have a space to talk about them and since all children go through school in some form or another, why not allow school to be the place where we do that. Social and emotional learning is a step in that direction because it creates a space in the curriculum and in the school day for kids to talk about emotions, talk about relationships, but SEL has stayed away from the kind of more thorny question of values and things like compassion and things like meaning because you know that’s moving in the direction of ethics and to some people that starts sounding like religion, but we think that there’s a way to talk. Jen:   [06:49] And dangerous, too… Dr. de Silva:   [06:49] Yeah, exactly. And we have a history of people trying to indoctrinate our kids in various ways and of course we should be very suspicious of that, but we believe that there’s a way of doing it, which is not about indoctrination at all, but about exploration. So our program is very much not about teaching children how to think or what to think, but creating a space where they can explore these questions for themselves to talk about their own anxieties, their fears, their hopes and these deeper questions of meaning so that they can kind of get a jumpstart on those things. And also we think it might be protective against some of the problems that we’re seeing among kids and in schools with regard to anxiety, bullying and just a host of various issues that we’re dealing with. Jen:   [07:33] Okay. Your anecdote reminded me of my own moment where I thought the grownups had it all figured out. I was in geography class when I learned about climate change and it was just before the 1992 Rio climate conference and my teacher told us about the conference and I thought, Oh okay, well the adults are going to go and figure out what to do about this and they’re going to come back and tell us and we’re going to do it and climate change will be solved. I believe that’s probably not what happened at the Rio conference or we wouldn’t still have climate change today, but yeah, so when that leads us to the broader issue of the fact that the grownups don’t always have all the answers and that can be uncomfortable I think for teachers and also for parents. And so what would you say to parents who are thinking, oh, I do not want to open this can of worms with my kid because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what the answer is. Dr. de Silva:    [08:22] I think that’s a great point. I think there’s a moment in every child’s life. Probably when they have that Aha moment, they realized that the world is a lot crazier than it should be and that means that the, the grownups have not figured all things out. I remember going to school in the seventies and eighties and being taught stop, drop and roll. You know, what happens if a nuclear bomb falls on you learning things like MAD; Mutually Assured Destruction. So if the Russians fire warheads at us in the States, then that’s no problem because we will fire warheads back at them and everyone will die. So yeah, you learn this, you hear these horrifying things as a kid and you realize, yeah, the adults don’t have all the answers but there’s no place in school to talk about that. And for a lot of kids sometimes there isn’t even a place at home. Dr. de Silva:    [09:07] So I think it is very important for parents to make that space and be courageous enough. It also takes courage from our teachers also to walk into this space where they know they don’t have all the answers. You know, we haven’t figured out our own emotions, our own relationships certainly, but just creating that space is so important and to allow children to explore that. Children have an incredible amount of wisdom on their own and it never ceases to amaze us that when that space is created, the things that they come up with and the learning that takes place just through the conversations. And we also find that parents learn a lot. So a lot of children who go through our program…we’ll bump into the parents and the drug store or at a yoga studio if it’s a school here in Atlanta for example. And they’ll say, you know, my kid was teaching me this about stress and teaching me this about what I can do when I get upset. And, and you know, was seeing me stressed out and saying, know mommy, you can take a few deep breaths now or you can push against the wall. You know, we teach them all these various techniques and those, they get deeper and deeper and deeper. And so the parents, you know, that’s the funny thing is that the parents can also learn, so if parents are open to it, it’s a great opportunity for growth for themselves and their kids and their relationship with their kids. Jen:  [10:21] Yeah. And you know, your curriculum addresses kindergarten through age 12, but I think it’s important to note that this isn’t something you have to wait until school age to start. Actually in an astounding moment of coincidence. I was just browsing Facebook before we got on this call and a friend of mine posted a discussion he’d had with his son who’s four and his son, they were just eating lunch. His son said what’s the best thing to do Papa? And he said, I think the best thing is to keep asking questions and his son said Oh, why? And he said, because if you keep asking questions you understand more. And with understanding you become more compassionate. And his son said what’s compassionate? And he said, what do you think it is? And his son said Well, compassionate is when you hear more laughs and more crying and, and, and he said, yeah, that’s right. When you hear more laughs and more crying, you’ll understand yourself and the people around you better and with that more love goes around and I just thought, wow, this kid is four years old and he’s already having conversations like that with his father. So shout out to my friend – you know who you; are not going to out you on the show, but yeah. So yes, we’re talking about a curriculum that’s used in school, but this is also relevant to kids younger than this, right? Dr. de Silva:   [11:31] No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. It’s a grades K through 12 program, but children’s first learn about compassion from their home environment and from their parents and they first learned the sense of how to get along with others and how to interact with others in the home environment. So absolutely one can and should start earlier. And that little anecdote that you shared is exactly our approach. I mean, we want kids asking these questions. We see kids as little scientists, kids are little scientists, you know, trying to figure out the world and we can teach them one way and say this is the right way, but they’re going to learn pretty quickly that what we have taught them as the right way is only partially true and partially helpful and ultimately they’re going to have to find things out for themselves. So that attitude of questioning and exploring is very central to what we’re doing. Dr. de Silva:   [12:26] And it’s interesting because some teachers have…we’ve run several workshops over the past several years. We’re still in the pilot phase and the preliminary phase of our development, but we have about 460 counselors and teachers working with us; we’ve done trainings for around the world and are giving us feedback and some of the feedback that they’re