There is Nothing Soft About Compassion

Traditionally sidelined as a “soft skill”, the ability to feel and exercise Compassion is now widely recognised as one of the essential “Human Skills” needed to thrive in the age of AI.

The latest Future of Work report from the World Economic Forum describes an AI driven shift towards a “new-collar era”. This, it says, will be focused on high technical skills and uniquely human strengths – what humans can do but machines cannot – such as self-awareness, problem solving, tenacity, courage.

Of course, building Compassion as a skill is not just, or even largely, about a student’s working future. Decades of research has shown that compassion – both to others and ourselves – actively reduces suffering, fosters emotional resilience, manages stress and builds meaningful human relationships.  As Kurt Hahn said “… above all else, compassion”.

In the Round Square Discovery Framework, Compassion is described as both feeling and action: To empathise with someone who is suffering and to enact kindness as a response to that empathy. We want students to “develop understanding and empathy for the plight of others who are in distress, in need or suffering”, but also to, “take informed action and initiate appropriate, sensitive, collaborative, sustainable, partnership-based help.”

Across the Round Square network, through a range of activities and programmes, schools approach this in different ways. A common thread is that additional skills and experience grow under the umbrella of compassion. Students learn to navigate complex issues, make meaningful connections with diverse peoples, build their sense of responsibility and exercise these qualities in practicing leadership with understanding.

The Hunger Banquet – Havergal College, Canada

At Havergal College in Canada, compassion is explored through a student-led Hunger Banquet organised by the school’s Forum for Change Council. The aim is not simply to raise awareness of food insecurity, but to help students better understand the realities that exist within their local community.

Drawing on the Oxfam Hunger Banquet model, the student organisers adapt the experience to fit their context. Around 60 students from Grades 9–12 participated in the school’s most recent Hunger Banquet, with numbers and profiles based on demographic data from Toronto. Students were assigned to one of three socio-economic groups and given profiles to help them understand the circumstances of the person they represented.

The physical setup reinforced those differences. Students in the highest-income group shared a meal around a fully laid table. A middle-income group sat on chairs with a more modest selection of food, while the largest group sat on the floor sharing basic portions of rice and a limited number of serving bowls.

Importantly, the organisers also involved a group of student observers. Their role was simply to watch and record what they saw and heard. Fatima Kaba, RS Coordinator at Havergal College noted: “there can be laughter or nerves. There’s lots of nervousness. So you have to let students really feel it out and engage with it. And no interference.” Facilitators deliberately avoided interfering, allowing the learning to emerge from the participants’ responses rather than adult direction.

While the simulation itself lasted only around twenty minutes, the real learning came afterwards.

The student facilitators led a structured debrief, breaking into smaller groups, beginning with simple questions: What did you see? What did you hear? How did you feel? Students were encouraged to reflect not only on their own experience but also on the profiles they had been given and the realities those profiles represented.

One theme emerged repeatedly. Students expressed a desire to help, but also uncertainty about how to do so meaningfully. Discussions moved beyond questions of fairness and towards more complex issues of dignity, empathy and assumption. How do we support people without reducing them to recipients of charity? How do we respond to needs we cannot fully understand ourselves?

The final stage of the experience connected those reflections to the local community. A representative from a partner food bank spoke about food insecurity in Toronto and challenged common assumptions about who accesses food support. Students learned that food insecurity does not have a single face and often affects people whose circumstances are not immediately visible.

A key aim and outcome of Havergal College’s Hunger Banquet is to develop compassion through building understanding. As students learn more about the plight of those in need in their community, they care more. This experience is cleverly designed to draw out a natural instinct, and provides a clue as to how long-term community partnerships across the Round Square network build compassion through the relationships they develop.

Community Service – The Marvelwood School, USA

For more than fifty years, Marvelwood School in Connecticut has structured its academic week around community service. Students attend classes on Saturdays so that Wednesdays can be dedicated to volunteering in the local community.

As Head of School Blythe Everett notes, the decision is a deliberate statement about priorities. Service is not treated as an extra-curricular activity or a graduation requirement. It is positioned as a central part of the educational experience.

“We aren’t just chasing hours,” Everett explains. “We’re caring about a long-term placement and building a habit of service that stays with a student for life.”

Students spend time in placements that reflect their interests and passions. Some work alongside teachers in local primary schools. Others volunteer in hospitals, libraries, care homes, ambulance services or environmental projects. Many remain with the same organisation for extended periods, allowing relationships and responsibilities to develop over time.

Faculty members participate alongside students, something Everett and the school’s Round Square Coordinator, Misty Jordan, see as fundamental to the programme’s success. Service becomes a shared experience rather than something adults simply expect young people to do.

That long-term commitment appears to be where some of the deepest learning takes place. Everett describes how students often begin by listening and learning, but gradually assume greater responsibility. One student, after four years of volunteering at a local library, had become such an integral part of the organisation that she took it upon herself to identify and mentor her successor before graduation.

In nurturing compassion, Marvelwood’s experience illustrates an important distinction: The goal is not simply to do something for a community but to spend enough time within it to develop genuine understanding and connection.

Jordan captures this shift succinctly: “Our community service often begins with doing for others, but it becomes compassionate when it shifts to being with others.”

Perhaps that is why Everett describes service as “a laboratory where compassion can be discovered.” Students may arrive focused on completing a task, but through repeated encounters they begin to understand the people, organisations and communities around them in more meaningful ways.

Compassion Prompts Student Leadership

Across the Round Square network, Compassion is developed and enacted through community service, from whole-school partnerships through to individual volunteering. Each year, Round Square recognises extraordinary acts of service, and servant leadership, with the Kurt Hahn Prize. Common across the finalists’ stories is the extent to which their leadership of positive action was initially prompted by their compassion.

Sara Gupta from The Shri Ram School Moulsari in India did not set out to create an award-winning initiative. Her project, ATI, grew from a moment of curiosity at a fundraising event for neurodivergent individuals. Rather than focusing on an unexpected interaction she witnessed, she found herself asking a deeper question: what had caused it? That question led her to explore how theatre could create opportunities for expression, belonging and connection for neurodivergent young people. Today, ATI delivers workshops and productions that help participants build confidence while challenging assumptions about inclusion and ability. 

For Nahla Mfinanga from Ashbury College in Canada, the starting point was equally personal. Having seen the challenges immigrants can face when navigating unfamiliar legal and administrative systems, she developed The Justice Compass, a programme that helps newcomers understand Canada’s immigration processes, identify common fraud schemes and access reliable support. Her focus was not on speaking for a community but on making complex information more accessible and empowering others to make informed decisions. 

Meanwhile, Oliver Hutton from St Andrew’s College in South Africa transformed concern into practical action after becoming increasingly aware of preventable drowning incidents in local communities. Following a tragedy in Kenton-on-Sea, where several children lost their lives, Oliver proposed a partnership between his school and the National Sea Rescue Institute. Together they launched a survival swimming programme that teaches children essential water safety and survival skills. Reflecting on the experience, Oliver noted that he felt his school had “both an opportunity and a responsibility to do more”.

Sara, Nahla and Oliver offer just three examples of a story we repeatedly hear: There is nothing soft about true Compassion. When students are offered understanding through experience, the freedom to care, and the opportunity to take action, Compassion can be the strongest driver of positive change.