What’s the Difference Between a Teacher and a Textbook? The Power of Empathy-Driven Education
Many people seem to think of educators as information conveyer belts. They onload and offload knowledge and skill to people who need it. This isn’t a totally wrong way to think about teaching, but it is an incomplete view of an educator’s job.
The real trouble starts when this information-transfer view of teaching becomes the foundation for course planning. When this happens, we wind up creating learning experiences that aren’t much better than textbooks. Information transfer ignores something essential: connecting with our learners.
So what’s the difference between a good textbook and a good teacher?
An educator can practice empathy, a foundational skill for a successful lesson or course.
Empathy means finding out where your students are so that you can lead them where they need to go. It translates all that wonderful information and skill into something more personal, engaging, and actionable for those you teach.
In short, empathy bridges the gap between what you teach and who you’re teaching.
This video from Brene Brown is a great explanation of empathy’s power to connect us:
So let’s view teachers as the bridge makers they are instead of as passive conveyor belts.
And if teaching happens to be our job, let’s take the time to borrow our learners’ brains long enough to find out precisely what they need to go as far as they can. When we work to make learning more personal, we make it more powerful.
If you’d like to find out more about planning a learning experience through an empathy-driven method, check out our course on the topic. (Use the code “EMPATHY” for 50% off.)
Thousands of teachers use Pathwright every day to design and teach courses to their team, class, or anyone in the world. If you’d like to design a course, we invite you to try out Pathwright for free. You’ve got nothing to lose!
