The Respectful SLP - The Double

Empathy Problem
Meet Ms. Robertson and Jason.

Ms. Robertson teaches biology at Hamden High School. She loves teaching and is
passionate about helping her students succeed. She’s generally confident about how she
explains challenging concepts to her students.

Jason is a ninth-grader at Hamden High School. He enjoys playing varsity soccer after
school, and this year he’s taking biology with Ms. Robertson.

Ms. Robertson becomes frustrated when she sees that Jason isn’t participating in her
class. She feels that Jason is not paying attention. He’s not answering her questions, and
he never raises his hand to participate. She thinks he’s being disrespectful and won’t be
able to pass the test on this lesson, which will, in turn, reflect poorly on her teaching. Ms.
Robertson feels that Jason isn’t engaged at all, and she’s becoming upset because Jason
keeps looking at his phone. She also feels like as an educator, she must not be explaining
the material well enough for Jason so that he stays engaged.

Jason’s perspective is quite different from Ms. Robertson’s. Jason feels that once Ms.
Robertson started to review the quiz, everyone began shouting out answers and talking
out of turn. Jason wonders if Ms. Robertson will call on everyone with their hands up or if
she’ll call on him if he doesn’t raise his hand. She’s done this before and he became really
upset and he shut down and he couldn’t speak at all. In this scenario, the other students
laugh at Jason because Ms. Robertson makes comments about him needing to study and
pay more attention.

Sometimes when Jason answers a question, he gives an example that the other students
can’t relate to, and he wonders why they don’t understand him. Jason looks away, hoping
that Ms. Robertson will not single him out. He already knows the material, and he sees no
need for wasting time with a whole-class review. The noise is chaotic and the lights are so
bright that he gets an upset stomach.

He takes out his phone and looks at it in hopes to make the time pass quickly as he counts
down the minutes to the end of class. He wonders if his uneasy feelings will go away when
class is over, or if he’ll continue to be stressed all day.

To be continued…