Disposition Blog: Compassion

Compassion is an important part of the classroom dynamic. It is important for a teacher to understand and sympathize with their individual students. I have seen many examples of compassion in my classes and also many examples where compassion has not been shown to a student or a group of students. First, though, I think that it's important to have a good solid definition of what compassion really is. According to the Webster dictionary, compassion is defined as, "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it". Understanding this allows future teachers to understand and employ compassion in their classrooms.

An example of a teacher who employed compassion was my Calculus teacher in High School. She understood that we all would need help in the class from time to time, and would frequently checkup on us. She would often adjust her schedule to accommodate the classes ability to learn the material and grasp the concepts of a specific chapter. Her compassion and understanding allowed the class to succeed together. It did not get in the way of the standards that she set for us, which were very high.