Students want teachers who are emotionally present, empathetic to their experiences, and invested in their well-being and success. Teachers crave those same things—empathy, support, and investment—from families, school and district leaders, and the public. In my experience, there is an empathy gap for teachers. What I did not or do not recognize is that this has also created an empathy gap for students.
I didn’t realize that until I heard a student’s perspective on the subject.
Recently, one of our seniors, Yazmin Walters, composed a TED Talk-style presentation as an independent study project. The project was designed to allow our students to share experiences from their academic careers that they felt were hindering their success. Yasmin gave her speech at one of our professional development sessions at the school.
Using his own experiences as a struggling student in his junior years of high school, his talk focused on the achievement gap and his belief that a lack of empathy from educators is a major factor in perpetuating it. Yazmin shared her personal experience as a student who often struggled, but worked diligently to improve her academic performance. In her talk, she reflected on her inclusion on the “promotion in doubt” list in second grade. She was told that to advance to the next grade she needed a 75 percent average at the end of the year. She finished the year with a 73 percent average. Yazmin expressed that the number 73 of hers haunts her to this day. To her, the situation represented not just a setback, but a broader indicator of how the people responsible for ensuring her success—her teachers—viewed and supported her. “I’m over 73”, she told us all. “The biggest mistake as an educator…is to make a student feel like nothing more than a number.”
It was powerful to hear his perspective. Too often, the voices of our students are not heard when it comes to the issues that affect them the most. My heart filled with pride as I watched her command a room full of educators and speak her truth. But when I walked out of our building later that night, that sense of pride was overshadowed by overwhelming frustration.
I was angry. I was tired. I was broken.
Yazmin’s speech stuck in my stomach all night. I felt his words deeply. She was right. Empathy is needed to create safe spaces for those we guide to take risks, learn and thrive. Empathy is, without a doubt, one of the main determining factors in a student’s ability to succeed. Her call to action was directed at educators, including me, who she sees as responsible for shaping students’ academic trajectories.
It’s a valid call to action, but how do we show empathy for our students when there is no empathy for us? How do we lead with empathy when tasked with supporting students despite low pay, limited time, and the difficulty of navigating the personal challenges we face?
What is even empathy?
In your discussion On the difference between empathy and sympathy, professor and author Brené Brown references nursing scholar Theresa Wiseman’s four qualities empathy:
- taking perspective
- stay out of judgment
- Recognize emotion in another person.
- Communicate understanding of another person’s emotions.
Wiseman describes perspective taking as seeing and feeling through another person’s eyes. He also mentions “acknowledging emotion in another person” as a necessary quality of empathy, explaining that to truly recognize emotion one must remember what it feels like to feel what that person is experiencing. It was within these two qualities that I connected with Yazmin’s frustrations.
Even as I struggled to process my complicated emotions after hearing her speak, I realized that we both wanted the same things. We wanted our feelings to be acknowledged without judgment. We wanted to know that our emotions are recognized and that we are not alone in our struggles. As I grappled with what she shared, I began to think that maybe she was right that the achievement gap is not necessarily the educational problem to be solved. Instead, perhaps it was in fact an empathy gap.
It was hard not to process Yazmin’s experience through all my conflicting emotions. After all, I am human, a fact that seems to elude many critics of educators. I resented thinking about all the times I de-prioritized my personal needs to prioritize the needs of the students. However, this was not Yazmin’s fault. She did not create the conditions that fostered that resentment.
What I wish I could tell Yazmin
One line in particular hit me square in the stomach. Yazmin shared that he felt that his academic difficulties were not a reflection of who he really was. “I always came to school, did my job and behaved myself. However, even when I did all the things I had to do, I still failed.”
What I wish I could share with Yazmin are all the ways the system prevents us from reaching all the kids who need us: unreasonable class sizes, insufficient preparation time, lack of resources.
I wish I could help her understand how seriously I take my responsibility to ensure that every child who walks through my door succeeds academically, and how it weighs on me when they don’t. I wish I could show you how little control I have over many of the factors that determine my ability to give you the education you deserve.
At our school, there can be as many as 33 students in a class, and teachers lead four or five periods of instruction each day, not counting impromptu covers, meetings, and parent calls. I wish I could illustrate to you how complex it is to move the needle in a classroom where only half of my students are reading at grade level, and a quarter are two grade levels below their assigned grade. I was wondering what Yazmin would say if I told her that sometimes teachers start the day getting scolded with profanity by students or getting attacked by parents. I wanted her to understand how exhausting it is to have 180 children needing her every day, and they all deserve empathy, care, and academic support.
The impact of our empathy gap
Ultimately, Yazmin felt reduced to a data point and interpreted this as a lack of empathy, which then negatively affected her academic performance and emotional development. She wanted to believe that that wasn’t true, that we were all better than that. But as she processed my emotions, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right. At our school, numbers have become a priority. The expectation that all children cross the finish line (even if they kick and scream all the way) has become a priority. This is due to problematic policies crafted by disengaged legislators who often view education as a business.
And guess what: the immense pressure placed on educators to absolutely comply can result in a lack of empathy for our students. I’ve been guilty of “calling him on the phone” more often than I’d like to admit. Yasmin’s experience is real and valid. But she is also mine.
The expectation that educators become martyrs to the cause is at the heart of the nationwide teacher shortage, and it is damaging. At one point in his speech, Yazmin shared that for teachers, “teaching pay should not be the first thing that comes to mind.” Trust me when I say that I wish that were possible.
We want to teach from the place of the passion that brought us to this work, but the tension is that many teachers have no choice but to keep their salaries at the forefront of their minds. Many are taking side hustles because their teaching salaries aren’t enough to get by. Some are exceeding their personal budgets to ensure that students have their basic needs met. Others forgo desperately needed preparation periods to comfort children going through traumatic experiences and struggle with compassion fatigue absorbing student pain day after day. However, teachers cannot afford the mental health support they may need to help them process all the pain they carry. Unrealistic expectations, unacceptably low salaries, and a growing population of students who need more and more have dried up the river of empathy.
Yazmin concluded her talk with a direct call to action for teachers: “Be the solution and not the problem. When you teach with empathy, you lead with empathy.”
I extend these words to educational policy makers and administrative leaders whose decisions have failed us all. Lead with empathy. Help us bring the most empathetic versions of ourselves to our students who need it most.
