empathy

The Adaptable Mind – Finding Success in a World Full of Change

/ Dave Eberwein / 1 Comment

I started this blog post way back in 2018 but didn’t finish it as I couldn’t seem to get ‘lift off’. I had written about 100 words and then stalled. I kept going back to it — I’d add a little and then delete it. I wasn’t going anywhere with it. I almost deleted the entire thing but decided to keep it in my ‘drafts’ and ignore it for awhile. There it sat for almost 2 1/2 years.

And then I opened it back up in early 2021.

A blog by George Couros had originally piqued my curiosity on the topic of The Adaptable Mind. I watched the video again and this time something clicked — funny how that works — a new context, a new time and you can sometimes find success when it eluded you in the past. An important life lesson in itself for all of us.

The 2021 context of living in a pandemic may have actually helped me personalize the ideas to make the topic my own.

As we work creatively to find new ways of making education in a pandemic more meaningful and relevant, the idea of focusing on flexible thinking makes perfect sense.

ADAPTABILITY will only make our students more successful during this wild time of uncertainty and change.

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Looking Ahead to 2018 – The Importance of Empathy

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

I’m a dreamer of sorts.  I believe that every day we have the potential to live in an increasingly sympathetic world — a world where we not just tolerate our differences, but a world where we accept and celebrate each other.   Some days I see progress, and other days I watch the news on TV.

I remember very few things from my teacher training in the mid-80s.   One thing I actually DO remember spending a TON of time learning and implementing was a teaching model of Science education.  The model outlined various actions to be accomplished — the ‘boxes’ that we were required to fill-in were called ‘teacher actions’ and ‘student actions’.  It was elegantly simple, but also particularly time consuming to write out for every lesson.  At the time, it seemed to make some good sense as it laid out the lesson really well — and for a newly minted teacher, I was grateful for the structure it provided me and my lesson planning.

empathy 5However, even back then I felt like it was missing the point in a big way —  it never considered the students as people with different traits, needs, emotions and perceptions.  It was completely missing the importance of empathy.

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