10.1 About “There are challenges at work”

This is the last of the three items scored with the empathy items. This is the most personal of the three– here the parent is sharing about the challenges at their work and their fear of being laid off and not about their child. The challenge for the teachers is to figure out how to respond to the parent as a human and not just as an extension of their child. To score well, the teacher has to engage with the work challenges as they impact the parent– not just how they impact the student. We are looking for empathy here, not productivity– and going back to the child is productive but not all that empathetic.

Note that in 2019-2020, not all teachers were told that dad was in danger of being laid off. In 2021-222 all teachers are consistently given that information.