As a future educator — and as a female discovering the gift of my sensitivities — I am aware more than ever before of an aspect of teaching that enables students to truly learn. Beyond curriculum learning and beyond fact retention, there is a human aspect of learning that is long overdue — empathy and connection to personal experience.
After all, it is relationship dynamics, personal development and decision-making for our highest self-actualization that we are preparing for when we graduate. For a majority of high school students, entering the next phase of our life experience will not ask us to be data retention machines designed to calculate and spit out immediate retrieval-based solutions. It will ask us to feel, to discover, to expand our perspectives and to understand ourselves and one another.
Most of us will be faced with circumstances and conditions we could never anticipate or know how to navigate. We are all on a path of learning about ourselves and functioning at our highest potential in any given situation. Learning our mental, emotional, spiritual, and biochemical needs and developing authentic responses is what will truly support our growth and integration into the world we are stepping into.
I used to think I was too sensitive, that I should toughen up and push past my inner observations and emotions. Through the years, I’ve learned that those aspects are a part of me on purpose. I can perceive what many do not — or what they pretend not to. What I see is a crazy world that scares most of us, though we don’t always talk about it. We operate under the expectation to just continue forward, as usual, as if the world does not look like it’s about to erupt at any moment.
What we are needing more than anything is the space to connect with the feelings and thoughts within us, in a supportive, non-judgmental place. We need to feel safe to express our underbellies, rather than hide them, within a structure of listening, empathy and guidance.
The world is changing so fast, and humans are evolving faster than ever in the history of our species. Yet, the evolution of education has been as slow as the heavy wooden axles of a horse-drawn wagon trudging through mud.
Right alongside that, AI and technology are racing like thoroughbreds down the final stretch of a runaway track. All the while, we are still here, being human, needing to find our place in a world that often appears inhumane. These are the needs for a new type of classroom
To fully serve our experience, education should not be limited to text books, course curriculum and test scores, but teach us how to live. Rather than a paradigm restricted to right and wrong answers confined within classroom walls, our academic lessons need to prepare us for an expanding life experience.
Instead of memorizing past dates, people, locations and events, my wish is for incoming students to feel seen and safe. Beyond historic literature, formulas and equations, I want our future’s youth to learn about their identities and how to interact peacefully with others.
Life skills should not be a one-time elective or extracurricular lesson. It should be a predominant thread running through a new “human being” curriculum that teaches and supports our mental, social and emotional development. That’s where I’ll be teaching—The School of Empathetic Learning.
