On empathy for teenagers

Students have so many things that they have to do, both academically and non-academically, and I think it gets very easy for adults, whether they work in classrooms or not, to not have empathy for what students are going through developmentally, emotionally, academically.

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On AI & human connection

One of the differences between learning from an AI program and learning with a teacher in a dialectical manner is that you don't have that empathy, connection, dialogue.  All of our kids have so much potential and deserve for someone to have high expectations of them and to help them improve and grow, whatever that means for them.

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Dana Guenterberg

In school, I was the quiet kid. My silence and my kindness were perceived as intelligence, and I just never stood out. I never really felt seen — and I needed to feel seen. I was pretty close with my…

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Tamika Fluker

I was working at The Bridge Home at St. Mary's Women and Children's Center. It’s a shelter for infants to 12-year-olds. If the Department of Child and Family Services pulled a kid from their home, we housed and counseled them.…

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Dan Shutes

My junior year of high school, the varsity team had to coach a youth basketball team. It was a couple of practices a week and a couple of games throughout the month in wintertime. I remember how fun it was…

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Ashley Kannan

I grew up in Oak Park in the 1980s. People were all about the melting pot. The idea was that everyone is the same and nobody looks different — we're all part of this collective homogenous blob. One of the…

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