How could you incorporate the concept of "emptiness of self" in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
The idea that you are constantly changing when you learn new things can be inspiring and also intimidating. I would strive to incorporate this concept into my professional development by challenging myself to continually learn and grow as a teacher.
I think this is intimidating because change can be scary, and it is easy to stick with a comfortable routine. I would try to overcome this by attempting to stay open and motivated to expand my knowledge as a teacher. Hopefully I will be a completely 'new' teacher every few years because I have continued to learn and improve.
Study Question: How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
I think empathy development is most effective when it is started at a young age, beginning with establishing a safe, and positive learning environment. Without this type of environment, students may not feel secure or comfortable enough to grow socially and emotionally. Once a safe environment is established and maintained, educators can then proceed towards helping students understand what emotions are, and how to identify their own and those of others around them, building emotional competency. By having the students participate in simple activities throughout the school day, such as reading stories about emotions and feelings, role playing, writing in daily journals and sharing out-loud, and participating in group actives that require problem solving and cooperation, students will have the opportunity to experience empathetic behaviors, both from themselves and from those around them, using mirror neurons. Lastly, I strongly believe that as the teacher, consistently modeling empathetic behavior is most important, as students learn by example.
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of "emptiness of self" in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers and how could you overcome them?
I think i encounter "emptiness of self" quite often in teaching, but I do not always embrace it as well as I should. There will be times when I am teaching a lesson in professional development and maybe one or two students do not understand the way I am explaining things, but I push through and hope they catch on because the rest of the class has seemed to get it. However, when it is a good majority that is not understanding my teaching method, I sometimes stick to my lesson and hope that as I go on it will become less confusing. What I need to do, and they same goes with other educators, is realize that your teaching method is ineffective and start from scratch. Too many times do I stick to my old ways of teaching, even though I learn new methods, just because I've seen it work in the past.
How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
I can see incorporating the “emptiness of self” concept by being open to new ways of thinking about education. This does not mean simply allowing all new information to change the way I will teach. Rather, it requires a certain amount of tentative acceptance. In this state of tentative acceptance, I weigh this new information against what I know and have experienced.
One of the main barriers to incorporating this concept might be the realization that in changing one’s thinking about teaching, one will have to take the time and do extra work to incorporate these new ideas in their teaching practice. I think this barrier can be overcome by not allowing oneself to become overly comfortable with their current teaching practice. A good teacher should approach each lesson considering if their current lesson plan will meet the needs of their current students. With this mentality, hopefully one will not become stuck in their ways of teaching.
Study Question: If self could be captured by the concept of “emptiness,” what is the best approach to help your students overcome their ego and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively?
I think that explaining to students that when we learn we are bettering ourselves and growing into more knowledgeable people is very important. I think that having students reflect on what they have learned is also key. For example, if we are learning about dissection in science, asking them questions like do you think you would have been able to do that or known what to do before learning about this? This will help them see that even though they may be leaving behind the “old them” they are creating a “new you” that is more developed. I think also reminding my students that we are life long learners is important. I believe that sharing with my students that I am still learning and growing everyday is important so that they can see that adults are continuously doing this also and that is how we grow and find new ways to view and deal with the world. This is important so they can see that learning is a life long process and a crucial part of development and change is not always a bad thing, it is what shapes us into who we are which is constantly changing.
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
The concept of “emptiness of self” refers to how our brain is constantly changing as we learn new information. This means, that even though we may be pushed out of our comfort zone with this new information, our learning and views are always changing based on new knowledge and experiences. In terms of professional development, this concept is quite important. If we remained educators who never learned, we would remain in this unchanging mindset. But when teaching, learning is happening every day as we engage with your students and discover what works and what does not work with your students. But to further enhance this, educators should be learning research behind the best learning practices, just as the book discusses. Taking the time to learn the best and most recent strategies and understanding why they work, will allow your brain and yourself as an educator become an ever changing individual, constantly changing your views and opening your mind to the many possibilities. One barrier that I have witnessed, is that educators get stuck in their ego. After many years of teaching, they believe that they have mastered the art of teaching. In my opinion, teaching is an ever-changing profession, since research and studies are always being performed. When teachers have been teaching for many years, they tend to continue to teach in the same exact way year after year, with little to few changes. I have seen and heard teachers in my practicum blame the students for their lack of understanding and poor performance. Rather than analyzing their own teaching and the many possibilities that they could take to enhance student learning, they remain using the same teaching styles that they learned years ago. These problems can be overcome by recognizing that you do not know everything about teaching and you never will. It is important to remember that learning new material does not make you wrong in your previous ways, but will rather continue to elevate your skills in your profession.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s expressions?
When I was preschool teacher, I used cue cards to lead discussions surrounding social-emotional topics. The cards had pictures of common social occurrences in the preschool classroom such as: a child crying; two children playing and leaving out a third child; a girl happily playing on the playground; etc. The children expressed what they felt when they saw the pictures and described how the children in photos felt. The children were able to empathize with the photos and understood how it would feel to be in their shoes. I found this this approach successful would try it again.
To continue empathy development with older children, I believe that mindful discussions, self reflection, and service learning would deepen students’ concept of empathy. The documentary shown in class clearly demonstrates how discussion and reflection elicit mirror neurons and empathy. Once the child read his reflection about his grandmother passing away, other children were moved and began their own reflections.
I feel that service learning would take the experience of empathy to a new level. If children were involved in their communities and physically had new experiences, I think it would strengthen their abilities to feel empathy and take action in the future. Overall, I think empathy development is something that is occurs throughout our lives. I think as educators we should foster the students’ abilities to feel empathy at a young age and continue it throughout their academic careers.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people's experiences?
Educators could promote empathy development by creating a community in the classroom and frequently having discussions when problems or issues arise. In class we watched the video of the educator in Japan who promoted empathy by having the students write letters and then read them aloud. These letters led to discussions and empathy that the students developed for one another. I really like this idea of having the students write letters and express their feeling and ideas out loud. However for this to occur the teacher must create a community and a comfortable and safe classroom environment. In order for students to be able to meaningfully internalize other people's experiences they must be comfortable showing emotions. They have to be comfortable with emotional learning and they have to be in tune with themselves and their emotions.
What is your inclination as an educator in terms of the localization or distribution assumptions on brains? What would be the best ways to separate or integrate different types of learning experiences in your educational practice?
Seeing as I consider education to be a holistic experience and process, I am inclined to agree with the distribution assumptions about our brains. I feel so strongly about returning emotions to the American education system that last semester, in my Methods course, I developed a three pronged approach to empathy within the classroom to incorporate self reflection and personal growth into my classroom priorities. I believe educators must establish interpersonal, academic, and intrapersonal empathy in order to activate all parts of the brain, since I believe that the process of learning and a students’ emotions/affective elements are inseparable.
Developing ways to effectively integrate different types of learning experiences into my educational practice will take a lot of time (as all takumi does) but I want to start by incorporating as many chances for self-reflection and the identification of metacognitive patterns. I think that self-awareness is crucial for students to find a way to navigate through school and life that best works for them, so I want to constantly be asking students how they felt about the activity, what changed, what they would do next time, and other self-evaluative questions.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s expressions?
Being a teacher of older students, I think this might lend some very difficult challenges to instructors who wish to promote empathy in their classrooms. For contemporary middle and high school students, particularly males, expressing feelings and emotions can garner ridicule in some contexts, so left to their own devices, many classrooms wouldn't place emphasis on activities that promote these things. Thinking back to the video we saw on Monday, i think the best way to incorporate empathy in my classroom would be to have students write about a general experience they all would share (loss, euphoria, powerlessness), and ask students to begin sharing with the class. For the first couple of students I may need to coax them out of their comfort zone, but I think that having the whole class see the pain or joy they all feel about their specific experiences will help trigger their mirror neurons, after all, towards the end of the video even our own class was somewhat crying with the students on film.
Q. (p. 74): How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
Research shows that brain development can be largely shaped by the practice of internalizing another person’s experiences and emotions, or in other words, practicing empathy. Mirror neurons in the brain emulate the same patterns as the ones happening to someone actually carrying out the action. For instance, when we watch somebody crying our mirror neurons emulate the same emotion within us, even though we are only observing the other person crying and not necessarily crying ourselves. Teaching social/emotional intelligence in elementary school is just as important as teaching the academics, because it makes for better human beings. Asking students to place themselves in the shoes of others (which is especially easy if teaching language arts or social studies) is an effective way to teach empathy. However, empathy can be taught on its own—outside of what Americans see as the regular academics/curriculum. This can be done in the form of morning circle, family meetings, journal writing, etc.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
As a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
As a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
As a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.
How could you incorporate the concept of "emptiness of self" in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
ReplyDeleteThe idea that you are constantly changing when you learn new things can be inspiring and also intimidating. I would strive to incorporate this concept into my professional development by challenging myself to continually learn and grow as a teacher.
I think this is intimidating because change can be scary, and it is easy to stick with a comfortable routine. I would try to overcome this by attempting to stay open and motivated to expand my knowledge as a teacher. Hopefully I will be a completely 'new' teacher every few years because I have continued to learn and improve.
Study Question: How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
ReplyDeleteI think empathy development is most effective when it is started at a young age, beginning with establishing a safe, and positive learning environment. Without this type of environment, students may not feel secure or comfortable enough to grow socially and emotionally. Once a safe environment is established and maintained, educators can then proceed towards helping students understand what emotions are, and how to identify their own and those of others around them, building emotional competency. By having the students participate in simple activities throughout the school day, such as reading stories about emotions and feelings, role playing, writing in daily journals and sharing out-loud, and participating in group actives that require problem solving and cooperation, students will have the opportunity to experience empathetic behaviors, both from themselves and from those around them, using mirror neurons. Lastly, I strongly believe that as the teacher, consistently modeling empathetic behavior is most important, as students learn by example.
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of "emptiness of self" in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers and how could you overcome them?
ReplyDeleteI think i encounter "emptiness of self" quite often in teaching, but I do not always embrace it as well as I should. There will be times when I am teaching a lesson in professional development and maybe one or two students do not understand the way I am explaining things, but I push through and hope they catch on because the rest of the class has seemed to get it. However, when it is a good majority that is not understanding my teaching method, I sometimes stick to my lesson and hope that as I go on it will become less confusing. What I need to do, and they same goes with other educators, is realize that your teaching method is ineffective and start from scratch. Too many times do I stick to my old ways of teaching, even though I learn new methods, just because I've seen it work in the past.
How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
ReplyDeleteI can see incorporating the “emptiness of self” concept by being open to new ways of thinking about education. This does not mean simply allowing all new information to change the way I will teach. Rather, it requires a certain amount of tentative acceptance. In this state of tentative acceptance, I weigh this new information against what I know and have experienced.
One of the main barriers to incorporating this concept might be the realization that in changing one’s thinking about teaching, one will have to take the time and do extra work to incorporate these new ideas in their teaching practice. I think this barrier can be overcome by not allowing oneself to become overly comfortable with their current teaching practice. A good teacher should approach each lesson considering if their current lesson plan will meet the needs of their current students. With this mentality, hopefully one will not become stuck in their ways of teaching.
Study Question: If self could be captured by the concept of “emptiness,” what is the best approach to help your students overcome their ego and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively?
ReplyDeleteI think that explaining to students that when we learn we are bettering ourselves and growing into more knowledgeable people is very important. I think that having students reflect on what they have learned is also key. For example, if we are learning about dissection in science, asking them questions like do you think you would have been able to do that or known what to do before learning about this? This will help them see that even though they may be leaving behind the “old them” they are creating a “new you” that is more developed. I think also reminding my students that we are life long learners is important. I believe that sharing with my students that I am still learning and growing everyday is important so that they can see that adults are continuously doing this also and that is how we grow and find new ways to view and deal with the world. This is important so they can see that learning is a life long process and a crucial part of development and change is not always a bad thing, it is what shapes us into who we are which is constantly changing.
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers, and how could you overcome them?
ReplyDeleteThe concept of “emptiness of self” refers to how our brain is constantly changing as we learn new information. This means, that even though we may be pushed out of our comfort zone with this new information, our learning and views are always changing based on new knowledge and experiences. In terms of professional development, this concept is quite important. If we remained educators who never learned, we would remain in this unchanging mindset. But when teaching, learning is happening every day as we engage with your students and discover what works and what does not work with your students. But to further enhance this, educators should be learning research behind the best learning practices, just as the book discusses. Taking the time to learn the best and most recent strategies and understanding why they work, will allow your brain and yourself as an educator become an ever changing individual, constantly changing your views and opening your mind to the many possibilities. One barrier that I have witnessed, is that educators get stuck in their ego. After many years of teaching, they believe that they have mastered the art of teaching. In my opinion, teaching is an ever-changing profession, since research and studies are always being performed. When teachers have been teaching for many years, they tend to continue to teach in the same exact way year after year, with little to few changes. I have seen and heard teachers in my practicum blame the students for their lack of understanding and poor performance. Rather than analyzing their own teaching and the many possibilities that they could take to enhance student learning, they remain using the same teaching styles that they learned years ago. These problems can be overcome by recognizing that you do not know everything about teaching and you never will. It is important to remember that learning new material does not make you wrong in your previous ways, but will rather continue to elevate your skills in your profession.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s expressions?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was preschool teacher, I used cue cards to lead discussions surrounding social-emotional topics. The cards had pictures of common social occurrences in the preschool classroom such as: a child crying; two children playing and leaving out a third child; a girl happily playing on the playground; etc. The children expressed what they felt when they saw the pictures and described how the children in photos felt. The children were able to empathize with the photos and understood how it would feel to be in their shoes. I found this this approach successful would try it again.
To continue empathy development with older children, I believe that mindful discussions, self reflection, and service learning would deepen students’ concept of empathy. The documentary shown in class clearly demonstrates how discussion and reflection elicit mirror neurons and empathy. Once the child read his reflection about his grandmother passing away, other children were moved and began their own reflections.
I feel that service learning would take the experience of empathy to a new level. If children were involved in their communities and physically had new experiences, I think it would strengthen their abilities to feel empathy and take action in the future. Overall, I think empathy development is something that is occurs throughout our lives. I think as educators we should foster the students’ abilities to feel empathy at a young age and continue it throughout their academic careers.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people's experiences?
ReplyDeleteEducators could promote empathy development by creating a community in the classroom and frequently having discussions when problems or issues arise. In class we watched the video of the educator in Japan who promoted empathy by having the students write letters and then read them aloud. These letters led to discussions and empathy that the students developed for one another. I really like this idea of having the students write letters and express their feeling and ideas out loud. However for this to occur the teacher must create a community and a comfortable and safe classroom environment. In order for students to be able to meaningfully internalize other people's experiences they must be comfortable showing emotions. They have to be comfortable with emotional learning and they have to be in tune with themselves and their emotions.
What is your inclination as an educator in terms of the localization or distribution assumptions on brains? What would be the best ways to separate or integrate different types of learning experiences in your educational practice?
ReplyDeleteSeeing as I consider education to be a holistic experience and process, I am inclined to agree with the distribution assumptions about our brains. I feel so strongly about returning emotions to the American education system that last semester, in my Methods course, I developed a three pronged approach to empathy within the classroom to incorporate self reflection and personal growth into my classroom priorities. I believe educators must establish interpersonal, academic, and intrapersonal empathy in order to activate all parts of the brain, since I believe that the process of learning and a students’ emotions/affective elements are inseparable.
Developing ways to effectively integrate different types of learning experiences into my educational practice will take a lot of time (as all takumi does) but I want to start by incorporating as many chances for self-reflection and the identification of metacognitive patterns. I think that self-awareness is crucial for students to find a way to navigate through school and life that best works for them, so I want to constantly be asking students how they felt about the activity, what changed, what they would do next time, and other self-evaluative questions.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s expressions?
ReplyDeleteBeing a teacher of older students, I think this might lend some very difficult challenges to instructors who wish to promote empathy in their classrooms. For contemporary middle and high school students, particularly males, expressing feelings and emotions can garner ridicule in some contexts, so left to their own devices, many classrooms wouldn't place emphasis on activities that promote these things. Thinking back to the video we saw on Monday, i think the best way to incorporate empathy in my classroom would be to have students write about a general experience they all would share (loss, euphoria, powerlessness), and ask students to begin sharing with the class. For the first couple of students I may need to coax them out of their comfort zone, but I think that having the whole class see the pain or joy they all feel about their specific experiences will help trigger their mirror neurons, after all, towards the end of the video even our own class was somewhat crying with the students on film.
Q. (p. 74): How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
ReplyDeleteResearch shows that brain development can be largely shaped by the practice of internalizing another person’s experiences and emotions, or in other words, practicing empathy. Mirror neurons in the brain emulate the same patterns as the ones happening to someone actually carrying out the action. For instance, when we watch somebody crying our mirror neurons emulate the same emotion within us, even though we are only observing the other person crying and not necessarily crying ourselves. Teaching social/emotional intelligence in elementary school is just as important as teaching the academics, because it makes for better human beings. Asking students to place themselves in the shoes of others (which is especially easy if teaching language arts or social studies) is an effective way to teach empathy. However, empathy can be taught on its own—outside of what Americans see as the regular academics/curriculum. This can be done in the form of morning circle, family meetings, journal writing, etc.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
ReplyDeleteAs a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
ReplyDeleteAs a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.
How could educators promote empathy development? What does it take to help students use their ability (or mirror neurons) and meaningfully internalize other people’s experiences?
ReplyDeleteAs a history teacher it is especially important to try and make students feel what people were feeling during a particular event. To gully grasp the significance of a historical event, students need to step into the shoes of those living through these historical events. I believe that there are effective teaching strategies in which students can have an opportunity to try and udnerstand what certain groups of people were going through. For example, when I was teaching Japanese-American history and we were discussing Japanese internment, I had students write diaries written in the first person, pretending like they were going through this event. I think activities like these allow students get inside the minds of those living through dramatic events, such as Japanese-internment.