Empathy for the Instructor: A Reflection of Using Empathy-Based Pedagogy as a Graduate Teaching Assistant

What Exactly is Empathy-Based Pedagogy?

Before immersing myself in the discourse of empathy-based pedagogy, I had previously understood empathy through the familiar aphorism of “placing myself in someone else’s shoes.” Although I superficially navigated that, in practice, it was revealed how little I could manifest those skills. A brief historical review reveals that empathy held its first glimmers in Germany through the term Einfühlung, which directly translates to “feeling-into” (Ganczarek 141). However, scholars have understood that empathy is not a unidimensional concept. According to researchers Stewart Mercer and William J. Reynolds, empathy branches out into “ethical, cognitive, emotional, and interactional constituents” (qtd. in Zhang 2).

Building on this disciplinary framework, Anne Dohrenwend’s work in empathy-based pedagogy further asserts that empathy involves both affective and cognitive processes, requiring conscious, deliberate effort and skilled listening (1755). Unfortunately, these rhetorical and interpersonal skills are often overlooked in traditional academic curricula and professional settings. This underscores the need for writing pedagogies that actively cultivate empathy and emotional intelligence as integral to rhetorical competence and professional adaptability.