We Cannot Lose Our Empathy

By Davis Vallesi

As a PhD student and teaching assistant, it is incredibly humbling to think of myself as a postsecondary educator, however small my own impact might be. It is also a very privileged position, with a great deal of responsibility for the educational experience of many different students. Of course, I have said nothing new nor revolutionary and truly hope all educators share these sentiments with me.

Over the past six months, university teaching practices have been drastically changed, with the abrupt necessity for courses and services to be delivered remotely. At thousands of universities around the world, instructors, administrators, and not least of all, students have adapted to an unprecedented situation. Reflecting on York’s response to the pandemic, I feel proud of the devoted efforts by countless individuals that made the enormous task of transitioning to online learning as seamless as possible.

While there is hope for the eventual return to a (somewhat) normal world, I know that many of the changes we have seen will be permanent. We might not have thought about it at the time, but March 2020 was the distinct beginning of a digitized model that will define postsecondary education in the twenty-first century. Although significant effort and investment was previously dedicated to digital learning platforms, these technologies were implicitly regarded in many circles as an ancillary to traditional classroom learning.

But this is no longer the case. As quarantine measures were implemented, educators of all backgrounds, disciplines, ages, and experience levels became compelled to adopt online strategies. In the terrible situation of a pandemic, it is important to search for any small positives: it is safe to say that online learning systems have now been drastically improved and that previously hesitant instructors are becoming more tech-savvy.

Nonetheless, I now arrive at my key point: if university education has undergone significant change at an infrastructural level, there is a dire need to evaluate how our philosophical teaching values should be applied in this new environment. With this article today, I challenge everyone to give serious thought toward how we can maintain empathetic qualities within our teaching practices, even as we work digitally and remotely.

In the traditional classroom, we have the benefit of direct interaction with students through the process of conveying content, answering follow-up questions, and diving into further explanation or examples. Obviously, these activities can still be replicated in a digital manner and strong cases can be made for how a digital environment might enhance the learning process. For instance, it is easier to share multimedia content, lessons can be easily preserved for future access, and students can receive instantaneous or faster feedback through online evaluations.

However, along with the opportunities and affordances of digital learning, it is imperative to remember that our teaching is now continuously subject to a technological mediator – whether that is the webcam, eClass discussion forum, or inbox of our e-mail. I would not consider myself a technological determinist, but instead believe that technology – in merely existing – “can embody specific forms of power and authority” (Winner, 1980, p. 121).

As a result, I believe it is crucial that educators recognize how technologies employed in digital learning are not value neutral, and that their very design might discriminate against or pose barriers to certain students. I know what some readers are probably thinking: doesn’t the traditional classroom also pose barriers to certain students? Yes, it absolutely does. In fact, York has a very large and dedicated Student Accessibility Services, which specifically functions to ensure that students are not disadvantaged for various reasons. Unsurprisingly, this service will also need to adapt significantly, given the very different learning environment and challenges that some students are facing.

Regardless, I still believe that course instructors have the primary responsibility of creating an environment where every student has the opportunity to be engaged with the course in a meaningful way. On a philosophical level, this is achieved when educators display empathy, care, and concern for all of their students – inherent to this empathy is a recognition of students as complex individuals, with diverse abilities, needs, and goals. When teaching in the classroom, I am able to engage in unmediated, face-to-face interaction with my students, which is an unrivaled communicative experience (see, for instance, Peters, 1999). There are subtle elements of body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and the energy of a room that are more apparent in this means of communication. These seemingly intangible factors are essential in how students engage with a course, particularly in my own faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.

In closing, I leave with a simple reminder to my teaching colleagues that we must continue to display empathy and recognize the humanness of our students. I fear this commitment will increasingly slip away, as we become accustomed to instead viewing students as distant faces in a zoom gallery or emotionless text on a screen. We cannot fall into the temptation of thinking that digital systems are perfectly objective and absolve the need for human judgment or tact. Again, this is not meant to be a criticism of digital learning, as I believe it can provide many unique benefits. Rather, I am appealing that we must uphold the empathy and authenticity that ensures the experience of a university education is exceptional. We all have a responsibility to continuously strive for innovative ways of maintaining the elements that cannot be coded into a database or outlined in a syllabus.

References

Peters, J. D. (1999). Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press

Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121-136.

About the Author

Davis is a PhD candidate in the Communication & Culture program at York and holds a TAship at the Writing Centre. He is also currently enrolled in the Senior Teaching Assistant (STA) course at the Teaching Commons.