HOW DO GROWTH, EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING HELP FOSTER RELATIONSHIPS (PHYSICALLY AND/OR DIGITALLY)?

Please check out this post written for and published on #Empathetic Educators and published in the first Magazine of the Series.  

I have to begin by just saying it, this year has been hard. In my 18 years as an educator, I have never had as many relentless challenges. I pride myself in being a person who really sees challenges as opportunities for growth, but this year, I have had many moments of meh. According to @AdamMGrant’s recent New York Time article, this feeling is called Languishing. So here I am languishing, and thinking about how to support others in growth and empathy. One of Grant’s recommended antidotes for this feeling is finding your flow using a meaningful challenge. But in order to do this he recommends finding uninterrupted time and focusing on something small.

So here we go. I have woken up early on a Saturday morning. It is that time where it is quiet, before my three kids fully wake up and my husband leaves for work. I have my giant list of tasks but I am not pulling it out. Instead, I am sitting in the quiet and focusing here on one goal, reflecting on what is the basis of everything I do: Empathy, Growth, and Relationships.

Empathy

It is challenging to talk about empathy, growth, and relationships independently, as they all weave together but I will attempt to explain them in the order of operations or steps that has most helped me in my 18 year educational journey. I have to begin everything that I do in a place of empathy. The way that I think about empathy is that I have to think about issues, spaces, problems, celebrations beyond myself. I must always think about WE. It doesn’t mean that I forget myself, instead it means that I need to realize that the world is bigger than me and that in order to connect, I need to think about the needs of others. In projects with my students this looks like beginning projects with Empathy Interviews. Students develop questions and interview others before developing ideas for a solution to a real world problem. We close our first grading period with the Person of Inspiration unit where students interview someone who has inspired them. They record the interview and upload it to NPR’s StoryCorps and the recordings are stored in the Library of Congress. The closing of this project is what I find the most meaningful, we invite the People of Inspiration to the closing Gratitude Presentations where students share why they are grateful for their people of inspiration, what they have learned, and how the stories shared have helped them gain more understanding. This project asks us to honor those around us by listening. This is something not just for students. It is essential in all levels of communication. During meetings with families, it is extremely important to really hear what is going on, how they are feeling and open the space up to let them share. As a leader, educator, staff member we need to look to our colleagues and our PLNs and connect with them by providing the same empathetic ear we do with our students.

Growth

Now we are listening empathetically, but how do we actually grow? This is the reason I created CanWeTalkEDU.com which helps students and educators learn about themselves and others. Can We Talk Monthly Challenges focus us on our own areas of growth which may be natural areas of strength for others. It can be a struggle to know where to begin as growth can be personal and/or professional. For students it may be in specific content. But I have found that if we focus our goals for growth on skills that help us grow as people, all of the other goals become much more clear and attainable.

Relationships

Empathy and growth help us foster meaningful relationships. Relationships matter in and out of the classroom. Students can learn when they feel safe and seen. Staff are open to collaborating when they feel valued. But we must figure out where to begin. According to Adam Grant, we need to find uninterrupted time, focus on something small, and focus on a meaningful challenge. When I reflect on how my deepest educational relationships have formed, they have come out of working together focused on meaningful challenges. We have analyzed areas of growth for ourselves, our students, our pathways. This, honestly, is what I have missed most from this year. I have missed traveling with colleagues, staying together, observing other educators at another school, discussing our takeaways, and applying our learning to what we want to see in our school. I have found connecting with other educators over social media has helped while virtual and I have been widened to grow relationships that span farther around the globe than I ever would have done pre-pandemic. For students, it is about providing them with opportunities to foster these relationships. In my classroom, I give students a meaningful challenge, I ask them to be the ones to create relationship building opportunities for others. They have risen to this challenge and I am so proud of them. In an article I wrote for Edutopia I detail the options that students created. They range from creating a Service Club, to Virtual Movie Nights and my favorite unique idea was a Virtual Cooking Club connected to the reading from class. My biggest lesson for relationship building is to not get in anyone’s way. For students and colleagues, whatever I do must support what they need and I can only understand this by really listening to their needs.

I am grateful to be challenged by #Empathetic_Educators; you have helped me to grow and widen my circle of relationships. We need to continue this practice for ourselves, our colleagues, and our students. So let’s begin. I cannot wait to hear where these relationships bring all of us.