The case for love, empathy, respect in education, especially during a pandemic

A global pandemic is raging. Many children and college students are in online school, and teachers are struggling under the added weight of teaching online and/or in unsafe conditions, some of whom also have kids at home 24/7. While vaccines are on the horizon and healthcare workers are being inoculated, rollout of vaccines has been slower than the projected pace, and we enter into spring term with catastrophically high levels of cases. This is the context of K-12 and college education at the start of 2021.

This is the time to ask ourselves questions about what really matters in education, and working on some of pre-existing vulnerabilities within education that this pandemic has exposed. One of those vulnerabilities has been a disproportionate emphasis on content coverage at the expense of nurturing students’ capabilities. Another vulnerability is the deficit model in teaching, where the focus is on what students are not doing or not able to do, which can lead to making it all the students’ fault. While all parties bear some responsibility, the risk with deficit model thinking is educators abdicating their responsibility. Hence, the case for centering our classes not only on content, but also on humanistic goals and processes, such as teaching with love, empathy, and respect.

When a student is doing poorly, it can be for a number of reasons. If we are quick to judge them, it’s really easy to blame the student. It’s easy say it’s their fault for not showing up to zoom class or not doing the homework. Deficit model sometimes kicks in stronger, and maybe the student just isn’t “motivated” or “lacks the confidence” or innate ability. It is easy to judge from behind screens. Online or virtual teaching makes it even harder for human connection, and sadly can make it easier to be more deficit model oriented.

I remind myself that we are in a pandemic, and there is real pain and suffering out there in all our communities. People are struggling. Some students may have lost a friend or loved one to Covid-19, or they may be the target of racial, gender or other bias. They may be feeling the weight of poverty in a pandemic, or feeling the stress of their family-owned business closing. A student could be isolated from friends, sitting in from of computer screen all day, trying to learn in ways that just feels worse and worse as the weeks go on and on.

Love, empathy, respect in teaching is a couple related things put together. It is a visible inclusivity image to remind us all to be kind and respectful to one another, no matter what identity people have. This sets the norm of inclusion as the foundation, centering equity and inclusion. The second part of teaching with love, empathy, respect is in our attitudes as teachers towards our students as putting humanity first. Love, empathy, respect is a mindset of being understanding and caring as a teacher, knowing that we teach students first and foremost, not only our areas of specialization. We teach students via our subject-matter expertise. Perhaps most importantly, we should not assume that poor performance or lack of engagement is automatically due to some deficit, something wrong with the student, and instead we start from a position of understanding and compassion.

It comes down to listening and understanding where students are at. The main step is working with students to find ways to get them through their learning challenges and sometimes even their personal challenges. Using practices like active learning, inquiry-based learning, and mastery grading puts a course in a better position to be more compassionate, because we engage with students via discourse and conversation, rather than viewing teaching as information transfer.

Here’s a good story. A student of color named Kim (a pseudonym) failed calculus multiple times. Kim took the class 3 times and failed each of those times. That’s three Fs. Most people would have given up, but she tried a fourth time. I actually had her in a different course (for future elementary teachers) during the same term, and noticed that in group activities and class presentations she did really well. When I learned about Kim’s struggles with Calculus, it didn’t add up. So I suggested she drop by office hours for her Calculus questions, and when she showed up I listened to her try and explain something to figure out how she was thinking. I learned how she was approaching Calculus versus the future elementary teachers, and saw how in Calculus she tried to memorize without understanding and would get stuck and not know what to do. In her other class, she worked from the core concepts first, and then was able to think through to find a solution. Kim’s was engaged in entirely different ways in the different classes. That was a key moment for Kim’s education, because she learned about her own thinking that hindered progress in Calculus and her thinking that made her successful in her other math class. It wasn’t content or lack of confidence, it was focusing on Kim’s capabilities, which are things within Kim’s locus of control. Kim didn’t need another textbook or better placement or a smaller class size. What was needed was timely coaching.

Skipping forward several terms, she ended up passing Calculus and taking several more math classes, until she earned enough credits to get a middle school math teaching credential added on to a multiple subject credential. That’s a tremendous turnaround!

This was possible because I started from a position of love, empathy, respect. I made sure I tried not to judge, I listened, and then we found a pathway forward, based on Kim’s strengths. If I didn’t listen and was judgmental or dismissive, Kim might not have gotten out of the cycling of failing she was stuck in. In my mind it doesn’t take great teacher skill or talent (whatever that means) to teach like this, but rather it’s mostly about starting by listening, understanding and caring.

Here’s a second story is about a student named Jerry (pseudonym). Jerry is a historically successful student, but in the class I had with Jerry, things were very different. Jerry missed classes and assignments. When in class, engagement was low and Jerry was spaced out. Anyways, this is a situation where the student would likely be written off. You gotta do the work to pass, right? Well, hold on. I emailed Jerry and check in to see what is going on, and also followed-up in person. Eventually with some prodding, I was ale to meet with Jerry in office hours.

It ended up being the case that he was going through a really tough time with health issues. Life was hard, and he was feeling depressed. I listened. I did what I could to be supportive, by extending deadlines and put the student in groups with highly supportive and dependable classmates. I was also positive and highlighted the long-term possibilities of all the wonderful things that could be done in Jerry’s major. We all need hope and something uplifting to work toward. In the end, even after a rough start, Jerry was able to finish the course. At the end of course, I received an email from Jerry, saying thank you for the support and that it was an extremely rough time, and that crucially Jerry had thought about ending his life. However, with the support of classmates, supportive teaching, and his community, Jerry was able to turn things around. Good teaching can help transform lives!

Humanistic education is so desperately needed by millions of students even in non-pandemic times. Teachers have choices in how they engage with struggling students and the mindsets they bring to these interactions, which is essentially a growth mindset for teachers.

Love, empathy, respect is the positive framing and antidote to the deficit model. Instead of saying “Don’t teach using the deficit model,” we can affirm our universal values based on putting humanistic education first. All students deserve to know that love is the opposite of hate, that empathy warms over the coldness of apathy, and respect counteracts the deficit messages they have been hearing about themselves.