Empathy and Teaching
In this post I will explore the connection between one of Carl Roger’s core conditions, that being empathy, and how it connects to teaching. Education is a critical portion in any person’s upbringing and the ability of teachers to help in fostering a positive experience for many students can relate to whether they are empathetic or not. It is often easier for a teacher to take a negative view on a student who is troublesome and takes away time from others and address the situation in a manner that will make the student who may be lashing out feel unheard or unseen by the teacher. In turn a student is likely to have future positive reciprocation with that teacher and unlikely to change the troublesome behavior. An example of this would be a teacher saying something along the lines of “If these outbursts keep occurring, I’m going to have to send you to detention”. This kind of response will leave stude...