MIT 2022 Kuaotunu - Empathy

Our first activity in the design thinking process was called Empathy. 

We started the session with another roleplay to show how my identified problem will affect the students in my class. I was buddied up with Matt. (He is a great actor). When watching everybody's skits, I realised how each challenge is very real and applicable. In my skit, I was the teacher and Matt the student. My student presented me with a beautiful piece of writing, however, when he showed it to me with pride, all that I noticed was his errors in using capital letters and full stops, not noticing the high level of writing he has actually produced. My "lack" of knowledge of the learning progressions in writing caused me to keep my student back and most probably made him unenthusiastic about writing. 

During the Empathise stage of our design thinking process, I had to identify who the people were that were affected by my proposal, then describe how they might feel, what they say, think and do. The goal of this activity was to gain an empathetic understanding of the problem I am trying to solve. I went into the headspace where I am the new teacher. I thought of how a new teacher could experience their first few days/weeks at a new school, whether from overseas or as a beginner teacher. This gave me insight into their needs.

I managed to get through this activity pretty easily, as I could 100% relate to this, being an overseas trained teacher myself. It brought back emotions that I experienced when I started teaching in NZ and made me even more determined to come up with a solution that will make the life of all new teachers easier.