Seminar at the Haifa ‘Reali School’

A Shared Society seminar at the Haifa ‘Reali School’ - Empathetic Listening

An online seminar for students was initiated thanks to a new partnership with the prestigious ‘Reali School’ in Haifa.

Based on a new partnership between the prestigious ‘Reali School’ in Haifa and A New Way, we initiated an online seminar on shared society for the students.

The workshops taught them Empathetic Listening, which is a structured listening and questioning technique, allowing them to develop and enhance relationships with a stronger understanding of what is being conveyed.

Empathic listening is different from what we usually term as ‘Listening’, such as Autobiographic listening, which is an attempt by the listener to make the conversation about themselves; Judgmental listening, when the listener is only listening to the speaker in order to determine whether he or she are right or wrong, rather than listening to understand the speaker's ideas and where they come from; and Problem Solving Listening, in which listeners are listening to solve the issue - to move forward, but often the speaker is not looking for answers. They want to be heard.

The students experienced the different types of listening and examined how to adopt Empathic Listening, and, for a moment, look at the world through the other's eyes, identifying the needs and feelings of the other without prejudice or judgment.

The students also experienced empathic listening during a high profile workshop with Actor Jalal Masarweh, Researcher Dr. Rana Abbas, Coach Nadia Zakut and artist Ihab Haskia.

In the second part of the seminar we examined Arab-Jewish relations and the pros and cons of living in a multicultural state and society.