Kelsey Ludeman has over 15 years of experience as an elementary teacher, a museum curriculum coordinator, a university student success coach, and a content editor and strategist. Kelsey strives to connect people and create resources to benefit educators, students, and families everywhere.
Read on as Kelsey shares insights and advice on teaching with empathy.
Those that follow a path of teaching have many traits in common, among them is a highly developed sense of empathy. The highly sensitive teacher must find ways to heal and rest as they navigate through the school year.
Channeling Your Gifts
Your desire and ability to care for others is a powerful gift! Caring deeply for those around you is what makes you the teacher you are. Leaning into your natural inclination to build meaningful connections with your students and authentically care about their struggles, changes lives in ways that those who cross your path will remember for years to come.
Managing Your Boundaries
Empaths absorb the energy around them, and in a busy school environment, those energies are in no short supply. Opening your heart fully to every single interaction you encounter will leave you drained long before the day is over, let alone the year.
Think of social interactions as invitations. You should never accept every invitation you receive, especially when you’re receiving dozens a day. Not only must you choose which conversations and situations to engage in with your students, but with parents and colleagues as well.
Leaving Your Worries Behind
Bringing your emotional work home as an empath exists as a default. Constant worry about your students, coworkers, upcoming conferences, and ungraded papers is just the type of habit that will drain you of your joy, both as a teacher and a human. Retrain your brain each day to redirect your line of thinking from that of anxiety to one of contentment.
Remembering Your Powers
As a teacher, you are a healer, a helper, a guide, a confidante, and so much more to so many around you. You hold a great gift that not all are given. Take pride in all of the many ways that you comfort, lead, and love others, as you make your way through life. Well done.
