The Missing C: Bringing Back Compassion in University Education

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Content warning: This article contains discussions on mental health struggles and youth suicide. Reader’s discretion is advised.

If you know Prof. Morrie Schwartz, then you know Mitch Albom and his remarkable memoir called Tuesdays with Morrie which tells the story of Mitch’s last visits and the life lessons he learned from his college professor Morrie who was gradually dying of ALS.

Known for his deep understanding of the human experience, Morrie teaches Mitch the importance of forgiveness, living life to the fullest, being compassionate, and how death can become a person’s inspiration to live. Tuesdays with Morrie introduces us to an education that goes beyond the four walls of a classroom, and more importantly, lessons that stretch beyond the scope of time—beyond the distance between life and death. With that in mind, I put forward a central thesis to learning: compassion as the most essential learning tool for educators.

The Filipino Youth and Mental Health Crisis

October is World Mental Health Month. Last year’s October saw the protest of Baguio students against Saint Louis University following the school’s failure to ease the academic workload in response to the deteriorating mental health of their student population. Students and organizations held a candle-lighting ceremony to seek justice for the death of a student who committed suicide due to academic-related stress. In an open letter by the SLU Supreme Student Council to their administration, they wrote “...your lack of communication and compassion has severely impacted not only the mental health of the student population, but their lives and futures as well. We have had enough and we will no longer wait on empty promises.” Ever since the pandemic, youth suicide rates increased in the Philippines—a dire reality showing the urgency of a call to action in reassessing and responding to the gaps in our education system and instructional decisions.

Online school has upended the landscape of learning. The pandemic became the coup de grâce to a nation whose education system is already in crisis. To say that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives is an understatement; these changes carried challenges, and despite learning to cope with the new normal, these challenges continue to plague the education sector. We must admit—online learning destabilized the concept of equity in education. This challenge is heightened by the lack of consideration and thoughtful spacing between academic deadlines. Students don’t have to get used to these happenings, not when efficient resource management and accountable pedagogy exist.

The Role of Compassion in Education

More importantly, compassion exists and this must be ingrained as a guiding principle in education. As an educator, it's not a compromise to show compassion and empathy to students. Kindness can co-exist with standards because education is not merely wringing out the academic best from your students but bringing out and inspiring their sense of humanity. Now more than ever, it’s important to create a safe and restorative space for learning. As a community, we are still getting back on our feet and progress looks different from person to person; we are coming from places and phases of grief, confusion, loss, uncertainty, anger, and disruption. But amidst all these, we have the gift of being free to hope. Moreover, with hope and freedom, education can be reframed to make compassion a central aspect of teaching and learning.

To continue this conversation, I reached out to students from different universities to sound off their experiences on this issue, asking them the question, “What was an experience you had in college that involved a lack of consideration and understanding from your professor/s?”

Unang sem ng pandemic, major subject siya then syempre lahat nag aadjust sa situation even siya. Every week siya pumapasok pero sa gc siya naglelesson. Syempre we cannot understand the lesson kasi sa chat lang siya then yung modules niya is self study. We had a very hard time surviving her subject but in the end she gave most of us tres and some singko. We felt devastated kasi we have dos policy sa course namin and tanggal na agad sa latin honors and auto shift naman pag singko. ‘Yun super strict niya, nakakatrauma maging prof... — 20-year-old financial management student from Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Out of the numerous (sadly) bad experiences with professors, one that stood out the most for me was when an adviser of mine did not put in any effort to understand what I was going through in my personal life. There was a time in my life where I reached rock bottom, I was barely eating nor sleeping. I had a hard time going to school ‘cause I was in and out of the hospital, hence my absences. When I finally came back (not fully recovered btw), instead of him listening and understanding why I was not present, he just brushed me off and blatantly told me something along the lines of, “Lahat tayo may problema sa buhay. Wag kang umasta na parang ikaw lang ang nahihirapan.” That was the last blow. The person I expected to understand me was the person who ruthlessly invalidated what I was going through. — 20-year-old communication student from the University of Santo Tomas

4-5 reflection papers, 1 paper per chapter ang pinapagawa in a week, tapos may format na need na icomply. Ang inconsiderate dyan is minsan natatapat sya during exam week so dagdag stress sya sa pagrereview for other subjects na exam. — 20-year-old psychology student from Arellano University

I am a student of PLM and to be honest, a lot of professors here don't have any consideration when it comes to our situation, especially that I am a working student. I do understand that PLM is a high-standard school, a state university, and our tuition is free. I don't have complaints about their ways of teaching because they are all good, however, they don't have consideration for working students just like what I said. It is about choosing your school or your work. They don't also understand that some of their students can't provide learning materials like laptop and so on, for them, it's a must but how about the other students who don't have enough money to buy that? I am indeed disappointed with other professors’ actions. We just want an understanding and considerate professor, we know our limitations. — 20-year-old education student from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

Balancing Human Values with Academic Standards

What is being asked is not absolute leniency, but simply understanding and compassion for the circumstances of students. We value competency and commitment to meritocracy but there are universities that miss the mark in being responsive and empathetic to students. While academic standards matter, there has to be a more human element to education—a deeper understanding of individual circumstances and consideration of the collective condition of the student population. Academic rigor and quality play an important role in the recognition and ranking placements for universities. There’s no denying that acknowledgments of such sort are remarkable, but overconcentration could lead to a misguided focus because there are other values—overlooked, understated values—in education too, such as the level of psychosocial support and emotional attunement of universities to their students. Is there a measurement tool and ranking placement for that? Maybe if there is, universities would take this responsibility more seriously.

There can be a balance between standard and understanding, between competence and compassion. Humiliation and punitive approaches have no room in a learning environment that claims to cultivate what’s best for students. The core of the human person is not merely to perform but to experience what it means to be part of a community because a university is also a community and it must be connected to its students—allow them to live a balanced life, grow, explore, make mistakes, fail, and try, and fail again without rebuke; there is no need to lambaste students or make them feel small when they fall short.

The essence of education isn’t found nor measured by its regimented approach but by its ability to affect, uplift, and open the minds of students—encouraging independent thinking and cultivating their awareness of the world. In a study by C. Kirabo Jackson (an economics professor at Northwestern University) involving over 570,000 students in North Carolina, it revealed that teachers who help develop the non-cognitive skills of students are the ones that impacted their future success the most. These skills included motivation, self-regulation, and the capacity to adapt to changes.

Redefining Teaching and Learning

As we broaden our perspective on learning and look into the pain points of our education system, it makes us realize how we are only covering a fraction of substantiated and holistic education; going beyond the by-the-book technicalities to teaching, education should enlighten us in seeing that the possibilities of what we can achieve are just as diverse as the opportunities we can find beyond the classroom; it would be a grave oversight to leave this unaddressed, that we are in need of a more compassionate and empathetic pedagogy—something beyond performative solutions and empty promises.

Compassion must be a core value to teaching and this must be sincere in application, not just for one time, but persistently and consistently. As students, we also find belongingness in the community and culture of our universities, but the extent to which we do is challenged by a lack of awareness and involvement from the end of universities in creating a restorative learning environment. Only then can we truly build an education that listens and connects when there is a participative system that admits to its faults and works in addressing educational shortcomings.

We must acknowledge that there is a mental health crisis in the student population and that despite learning adjustments in the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact still remains and reverberates throughout the educational sector. Colleges have no right to expect continued excellence and unwavering quality from the outputs of students if there is a systemic problem. We can’t do our best if we don’t feel safe and heard—if we are not understood—and we cannot move forward if these patterns of teaching and learning persist. As Dr. Jill Biden once said, “Education teaches us compassion and kindness, connection to others. Education doesn't just make us smarter. It makes us whole.”

Afternote: For the students.