And The Meaning Of Empathy: The Definition Of Empathy

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“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes” a quote by Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. This quote address the feeling of empathy yet so many of us confuse the definition of empathy with the definition of sympathy. So what is empathy?
According to merriam-webster empathy is a “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner”. For …show more content…

“Students create caring communities of learners” (Empathy 6). My role as a teacher is first and foremost to provide a safe space for all my students to learn, to express ideas and socialize without feeling judge, harmed or underpressure. Secondly, I emphasize the need to have respect and to show respect to others no matter what differences and similarities they may have. Thirdly, is communicating fairness whether you are a general education student or a student with an …show more content…

My way of thinking has surpassed the mind of a third year teacher and I believe it's because of the setting I am teaching in. I am not at an ordinary public school in New York City. I am at a transfer school also known as “last chance school” where most of these students have gotten kicked out of many high schools and this is their only hope of getting a high school diploma. Although I cannot empathize with their struggles hopping from school to school I do empathize of being a public school students in New York City and that struggle alone allows me to connect with the

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