Collaboration Across Home & School: Empathy
Time to see if you have the essential ingredient of empathy in your learner’s collaborative kitchen. Empathy is, “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”
How can a parent who has never worked in the schools, and a school staff member who has never been the parent of their student understand and share the other person’s feelings?
In my experience, hearing parents/caregivers and students share their stories and provide a glimpse into their worlds often helped me to get a sense of their responsibilities, worldviews, priorities, passions, fears, previous experiences navigating the systems, personalities, and dreams.
It often gave me a glimpse into what life looks like for them once the student and family leave the school building at the end of the day. Often times, people would label their emotions as they spoke, other times, reading body language provided some good clues. And usually, reflecting those emotions back through active listening helped me get a sense of whether I was on the right track.
Sometimes, their experiences hit close to home, and it was pretty easy to connect my experiences and feelings with what they may be experiencing/feeling. In fact, the challenge was usually pausing to intentionally disconnect with the situation and not internalize it as my own. Other times, I have to pause and actively envision myself in their situation to understand and share their feelings.
One challenge that parents often face when attempting to cultivate empathy in their relationship with school staff is that there are professional boundaries that make it very challenging and nuanced for school staff to be able to share a glimpse into their worlds.
I remember often thinking, “If you only knew about the other ‘fires’ we’ve been putting out today, you might understand why we’re walking into the meeting already stressed-out.” However, drawing on my customer service jobs and training since the age of 15, what usually came out was, “I’m sorry.”
Not a bad response, since giving a peak behind the curtain requires a delicate approach…but it doesn’t do much to build empathy with receptive parents. It also doesn’t help the team to cultivate those other essential ingredients needed for effective collaboration across home and school.
So, what can you do when the people in your kitchen aren’t able to have those difficult, emotionally laden, and precarious conversations with one another?
The long-term solution is to work toward cultivating the other needed ingredients. However, the real world doesn’t always make that possible.
Here are a few things to try while you’re cultivating those other needed ingredients:
Attend Parent / Caregiver meetings and Parent / Community Member grassroots initiatives,
Find books/podcasts/documentaries/movies that are realistic depictions of what it’s like to navigate systems of support as a parent, or work to support kids needs within overburdened and bureaucratic systems,
Read blogs and social media posts from folks who have been in that position and are in a place where they can share about it,
Find friends/family members who have worked in schools, or who have parented children who require some extra creativity in the classroom, and ask them off the record about what that looks like,
Volunteer in the schools to build trust, and to see a bit behind the curtain,
Follow trusted news coverage about the strengths and needs of school systems and healthcare systems,
Connect with the Teacher and Administration Union-Representatives, etc.
As you learn more, you may find that:
You’re better at separating the person/people from the disagreement and focus on the ways that the systems in place are breaking, or broken.
You have some additional solutions to offer, and those solutions focus on repairing the broken pieces instead of cleaning up each mess caused by the broken parts.
You feel more empowered to be a change-agent in a seemingly grid-locked discussion.
As the team focuses on solutions and systems-change (when appropriate), the more likely you’ll be able to cultivate the other necessary ingredients together as a team.
Best,
Evan Gallena, Ed.S., NCSP
Founder & Lead-Consultant: GPS Education Consulting L.L.C.
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Together, as one… Navigating the path to school success!
