Compassion

My second post will focus on compassion and its importance in the classroom.  Compassion is vital for good teachers.  Without compassion, why should one teach?  If a studet comes to his or her teacher for advice, or that student is obviously struggling, would a teacher who lacks compassion care enough to help the student?  What could the teacher possibly accomplish without compassion? The answer is obviously that the teacher cannot teach anyone without compassion (a desire to understand and help improve the conditions of students' lives). Education itself helps to improve the conditions of students' lives, so compassion is necessary for all teachers. Without the desire to help others to improve their lives, one should not even consider teaching.

I have forever in my mind a substitute teacher for my second grade class who completely lacked compassion.  Whether she was truly heartless or simply tired of dealing with students who took advantage of the substitute I will never know, but a situation occured that needed to be handled with compassion, but the teacher chose to ridicule the student in front of the class.  This event has stuck with me through the years and reminds me that compassion is crucial for a successful classroom.  Respect, which I focused on last week, is affected by compassion. It is earned over time, but it can be lost the moment that one shows a lack of compassion. As a teacher, one cannot allow this to happen. A feeling of compassion should motivate all teachers to make their students in to the best people they can be, both in terms of character and success in vocation.