Teaching is a noble profession that has a great impact on human society. With human beings as ingredients, teachers must demonstrate human attitudes towards their students. This is relevant because students have different personalities and levels of development that arise from their diverse backgrounds, training, and culture. As a result, teachers must be careful how they relate to them. This relationship should be based on individual personality traits and not on a general assumption of the makeup of the students. This means that the way a teacher relates to student A will be different from that of student B. This requires a lot of empathy and sympathy.
For example, the learning or “comprehension” skills of students differ greatly from one another. While fast learners can easily master the concepts and content being taught, slow learners sometimes have to grapple before they understand the same content. For very weak students, the chain of sympathy needs to be extended further by teachers to show tolerance and perseverance as they undertake remedial lessons to help these fragile but equally important ingredients in each class. Some teachers feel that such an undertaking is time consuming that could have been used to increase the academic prowess of good students, while others feel that such action can disrupt personal assignments and schedules. It is true that these reasons may be, however it is satisfying and rewarding to go the extra mile to aid in the development of these seemingly weak students. There are numerous success stories told by dozens of experienced teachers who emphasize that the virtues of empathy and sympathy towards weak students are truly worth demonstrating. It is interesting to know that teachers who do not give up on these weak students can prepare them to reach the greatest peak of social change, development and progression, which is the main goal of the wonderful teaching profession.
Additionally, there are some students who face emotionally distressing challenges as a result of having to deal with special disabilities, poor finances, discord in family relationships due to marital breakdown or death of parents, and even emotional relationships with partners in the case of tertiary education students. All these real scenarios require the display of empathy by teachers to put themselves in the shoes of their students and this will help them better understand them and know how to meet their different needs without compromising the educational goals set before each of them. they. On the other hand, sympathy would lead them to extend a helping hand to warn or mitigate the pain suffered by their students, either financially or emotionally.
In practice, some offer actionable advice and suggestions on how to deal with special emotional or health problems faced by the student and constantly monitor their progress until the same problem is solved. Some teachers offer to pay student bills, while others take on the arduous but valuable task of applying for funds to help needy students. Other teachers provide a sound atmosphere for these students by protecting them as if they were their own!
In fact, teachers who take these bold actions and demonstrate the great virtues of empathy and sympathy live fully in line with their calling. Its short-term and long-term blessings are indeed enormous. While they experience a long, fulfilling life by witnessing the success of their products in life, their products, in turn, will forever remember their great sacrifices and pass them on to countless generations. Yes! It really pays to be an empathetic and understanding teacher.