Compassion in the Classroom

I find compassion to be a hard disposition to recollect from my classroom experiences.  Teachers were after all the merciless tyrants who assigned me homework and forced me to exert myself with thinking.  Caught in this perspective, I equate moments of compassion in the classroom to reductions in homework or the excusing of misbehavior.  Yet this could hardly be the limit of it.  Surely there are alternatives instances where a teacher might show compassion for his or her students.  Students of different backgrounds and abilities must elicit empathy from teachers, yet as a student I failed to notice such acts as compassion.  Compassion was merely letting us off the hook, be it for homework or behavior.

What I failed to notice as a student was that compassion was present whenever teachers made an effort to better understand their students.  Compassionate teachers make time for the students who are not on the 'gifted and talented' roster.  Compassion allows teachers to care about their students, to invest more than their time.  It drives a teacher to do everything within his or her power to help students achieve their goals.  A teacher becomes an ally, a guide rather than an authority figure because he or she is sympathetic to the uniqueness of each student.  The teachers I think of as compassionate are those who continue to make themselves available to students, eager to take the time to teach a straggler or catch up with an alumni.