By Mr Patrick Wong
GP teacher/Raffles Press teacher-mentor
I have been studying for some months now, taking a part-time course three evenings a week. In one of my modules, we covered the concept of empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Or, in a familiar metaphor, to stand in someone else’s shoes.
More aptly, it’s been like sitting in someone else’s chair – the student’s, to be precise. And the experience has deepened my appreciation of what my students may be going through. It has certainly allowed me to understand better why they behave the way they do (sometimes infuriatingly) and made me think about what I expect or ask of them.
