Boundaries and Encouragement/Incentives
How do you be an empathetic person and listener and still maintain proper boundaries for the classroom? Sometimes this is a fine line to walk.
Be a good listener! The student will feel that their opinion is valuable. This will increase that person's self-worth. Be empathic but make sure you are a professional. Make sure that your students feels that you are sincere about wanting them to succeed.
Hi Fanny,
As instructors we tend to find ourselves being very empathetic with students. We have that characteristic to really be able to share in anothers emotions or feeling. It is not good to have pity, which is sympathy, but in a lot of cases we are empathetic.
Patricia
I had to make the clear distinction between sympathy and empathy. There is an excellent facuty development workshop in the faculty development lab on this subject. When I think back on my college days and being in a situation beyond my control and what would have happened if the instructor was not empathetic, I would have had a different image of the school, course, and the instructor.
