The Empathetic Student

The reading and reflecting that we have been doing after reading A Whole New Mind has mostly attended to the relationships we create with our peers and students. There has not been a focus on the relationships our students create with us.
In our calling to be effective teachers, we all know that there are weightier areas than the core curriculum. One of those areas is the social-emotional piece of the curricular puzzle. And the key to a meaningful social-emotional teaching experience in a classroom lies in the relationships held between instructors and students.
I work hard to have healthy, respectful, empathetic relationships with my students, and I expect that they will carry their weight in their relationship with me. This means that the guidelines for behavior in our classroom flow in both directions.  I stop, look and listen when a student is speaking to me.  I expect the same in return.  Teaching in the primary grades has its own, unique catalogue of interruptions and interactions - "I bit my lip", "I can't do that", "He copied", etc.  Attending to these myriad perceived crises is the primary grade educator's juggling act.  The students' issues are very real and intensely felt, and so are mine.
They expect me to empathize with the minutia of their daily experience and I expect the same.  When it is my turn, it is their "stop, look and listen" time.  And when they don't meet that expectation, as I do for them, I tell them how that feels for me and talk with them about empathy.
I believe making yourself human and vulnerable to your students and being willing to parse why it is important to wear another's shoes for a moment is a valuable part of teaching effectively. After all, experiencing empathy is a key life skill. People wonder if younger generations can understand real empathy.  Yes, they can.  They just need someone to teach them.