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Teaching Empathy
- November 11, 2022
- Posted by: The Teachers Academy
- Category: All Blog Postings Classroom Activities Educator Resources / News Online Courses

Teaching Empathy: A Personal Experience
Jump to course: Teaching Empathy
Sometimes my heart aches really bad and I feel like I’m going to cry. When this happens I breath in deeply and start doing something to keep myself busy. My son left for the Army when he was 18. Him and I were buds. My “little buddy” is about 6’2 and almost 200 lbs! He just turned 20 and I’ve only seen him a few times since he left. I miss him dearly.
A few months ago, my heart started aching thinking about him and I decided to keep myself busy by checking our social media account and maybe write or post a blog. When I logged in, I noticed a message from a stranger. The message was pretty aggressive and when I read it, I’ll admit, it hurt my already broken heart.
My first thought was, how can he say these hateful things about me and the Teacher’s Academy? He doesn’t even know us!
Then I got a brilliant idea. I would write him back. This poor man would get to know me, my sister/partner and the company we built from scratch.
I started by telling him that, “we were going to be friends and he didn’t even know it.
Our story actually begins in 2012. We were desperate to find affordable professional development opportunities that actually helped us become better teachers. We found options for professional development are slim, boring, expensive and usually a waste of precious time that most teachers just don’t have. When my sister lost her job (teaching PA teachers) she reached out to me with an idea. Let’s create amazing professional development courses for teachers. After speaking with a few friends at the PA Department of Education, it was clear the was a great need and the DOE would love to support our venture. Two years later, we not only had a catalog of about 20 courses, we were able to expand and offer professional development courses to teachers across the United States.
This was a very scary time for us. We experienced a lot of sleepless nights worried about finances, courses work, website issues, etc. The whole time, we had the support of our growing families and amazing friends.
I continued to explain that, being teachers, we wanted our professional development courses to be different from the typical workshop or state courses. They would be written by teachers, include custom lesson plans and activities and be cheap and easily accessible.
Being an education company, we believe it is important to support surrounding communities as well as teachers that may need a little extra help. We (The Teacher’s Academy) have directly sponsored children’s activities as well as struggling families by supporting the YMCA. We began a scholarship program for teachers who are rebuilding towns in poverty-stricken countries (Hi Heather!!). We collect books and supplies and give them directly to schools in need. The Teacher’s Academy has also sent flowers to sick teachers and gift cards to the ones struggling financially. I wanted to make sure this man knew how proud we are for building a company that really does care!
During this time, our children were growing up and we would celebrate birthdays and holidays and go on really fun vacations. We also suffered the sadness of lost lives, sickness and fear of watching our children learn to drive, the leave for school or military service.
I told this man that I was sure he had family and friends who loved him too. I was sure he experienced sadness and loss as well as happiness and joy. If nothing else, I said that we agreed that teachers are awesome and needed our support.
Okay, so maybe we didn’t become great friends but, he did say that he “understood.” I thanked him for listening.
This man took the time to read what I wrote about my family and my experiences. He read about how we operate our company and the ups and downs of owning a small business. He not only “understood,” he empathized.
Maybe he just needed to see that we were similar in so many ways, not perfect, but definitely human. I’m actually not sure. I do know that we turned what could have been angry banter into compassion for a fellow human and that made my heart feel pretty good.
However, I still miss my little buddy
We can teach our children to be empathetic. Empathy, kindness and compassion are not weaknesses, they are our greatest strengths. Imagine what we could accomplish if we took time to really get to know each other? To begin to understand different perspectives and learn to compromise with respect for each other and dignity for ourselves.
To be empathetic means to be able to feel another person’s joy and loss. To be able to understand their actions and opinions. Our society will never be absolutely perfect – nothing is. However, we can be better.
In the course, Teaching Empathy, teachers will gain an understanding of the importance of teaching empathy, exercise their own empathy skills, analyze empathetic strategies, consider appropriate actions in response to scenarios and design their own empathy learning activity. Teachers will be armed with knowledge of how our minds work to empathize, provided with strategies to model empathy in the classroom and given time to reflect on their own practices.
Projects to be Completed:
- Video Analysis: Empathy is a Verb
- The Power of One (You)
- Empathy Scenarios
- Empathetic Strategies Review and Analysis
- Design Your Own Activity
Teachers are our best chance for creating a more empathetic future for our children.
Open your hearts and change the world, one classroom at a time!
Teachers need to renew their licenses every 3-5 years depending on state requirements. Renew your educator license quickly through convenient and relevant professional development courses offer by The Teacher’s Academy. Teachers can save time by creating custom materials for their own classroom like grade sheets, organizational tools and lesson plans to be used right away.