From No More Teaching Without Positive Relationships.
Easier said than done, but we are not pretending teachers do not make judgments, because we all do. Rather, we are asking teachers to be self-aware enough to monitor for them so that they can prevent them from negatively affecting students. Many young people want to share their lives with adults but are afraid of our judgment, especially if they know their lives and decision-making do not fit traditional expectations. To feel safe, students need us to listen without judgment. Even if the circumstances require a future action from us, such as mandatory reporting, in the moment of sharing, we need to be calm and steady for the student. Although that is hard to do at times, it is always necessary. Most people do not feel listened to enough, and that is especially true for young people. If we want students to have positive understanding about their lives, we need to be a supportive audience as they make sense of it for themselves. Of course, ideally, we have the kind of teacher-student relationship where the student wants to hear what we think, but listen first, then ask the student if they want to hear our thoughts.
How to Refrain from Judgment
- Practice active listening. Lean forward and be physically and emotionally present when talking with a student. Focus on the student and on what they are trying to communicate. Repeat what the student says to make sure you understand the thought, question, or comment. Follow up with questions that show your interest and that can help the student draw their own conclusions.
- Recognize and validate every student experience. This does not mean agreeing with the student’s interpretation of the experience or the student’s reaction to the experience. This means making clear to the student that you understand the challenge of the experience they are expressing, and that you are here to help them consider productive ways of dealing with it. It is also important to offer appropriate verbal, written, and body language cues that demonstrate you are interested and care about what the student is sharing.
- Affirm student feelings. Validate students’ feeling through statements such as “I appreciate that this is frustrating,” “I can see why this would upset you,” “I see that you are excited by this opportunity,” or “I understand that you are disappointed.” Validate feelings while steering students toward developing productive and multiple perspectives on the same situation to build empathy.
- Help students optimally process academic experiences. Ask students questions that will help them reflect on their behaviors in class and their academic experiences, as well as help them to explore their thinking, decisions, feelings, reactions, and options. Asking questions such as “What led to that decision?,” “Tell me why you think this happened?,” and “What will you do differently next time?” These questions can help students process their emotions and experiences in a way that will help them plan productively for the future and grow as students.
Leading with Empathy
Perspective taking, or the ability to adopt or imagine another person’s psychological point of view (Davis 1994), is a research-proven technique to refrain from judgment by fostering empathy. There is compelling research evidence of other “helping professions” (such as nursing, social work, medicine, and counseling) whose application of empathy improves the outcomes of those we are trying to help. In education, empathy has been theorized to improve the quality of teachers’ reaction or response to the needs of diverse students, but too little empirical research exists that operationalizes the application of empathy in teaching. One of the more impressive bodies of research by education professor Chezare Warren (2015, 2018) identifies the “empathy gap” experienced by many Students of Color in schools. He describes this as the “disparity in perception between those on the receiving end of one’s help and the helper” (573). Empathy requires educators to see the world through the eyes of marginalized students and to understand how the world has seen them. And yet how many teachers understand the systems of oppression that have kept Students of Color from succeeding? Although many early career educators say they believe in fairness, perspective taking, and equity in their interactions with students, their actions often contradict their stated beliefs (Warren 2015, 2018). Specifically, in his research Warren identified that teachers’ description of their empathic beliefs was disproven by how they interacted with Black male students, and that many of their interactions with students did not reflect empathy or perspective taking. Often, teachers were reluctant to show the vulnerability necessary for relationship-building, explaining that they were not “touchy feely” or “a hugger” and were averse to demonstrating too much emotion toward their Black male students (185). Of course, coldness and disdain are not the only unproductive teacher behaviors in relationships. Some teachers mistake sympathy for empathy (Howard 2020). They are not the same. When educators feel sorry for students, that is not equity, that is pity. Educators’ pity is a negative judgment that lowers expectations and allows Students of Color to fail.
