Loss, Trauma and the Digital Language of Empathy in Schools

My father passed away part way through my second year as a teacher. This happened in the middle of one of our school breaks and I was able to use the time away from kids to take care of family arrangements. What I didn’t do during this break was find the time to process, reflect, grieve.

And so, when the time came to go back to school, I made the rookie mistake of putting on a smiling face and continuing in my classroom as if it was business as usual. The need to process my own feelings and to simultaneously be present for my students and their needs felt counterintuitive. It wasn’t until years later that I was able to properly reflect on how my own experience as a new teacher is one that is shared by teachers frequently. Particularly urban educators, where the loss of a student is something we will likely experience at some point in our careers, I have often questioned the gap in how we may guide teachers’ expertise around empathy and reflection.

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