Educating With Empathy: A Holistic Framework for Teaching the Research Process

Research has proven that when there is a disconnect between students' lived experiences and what they are presented with inside the classroom, student retention drops significantly. Our students want and need to feel seen, heard, and treated as fully whole human beings. So many young people feel as if they don't belong inside the classroom, on a college campus, or walking across the graduation stage. We are taught through out-dated Western lenses that in order to be an effective educator, we must leave who we are at the classroom door. We are sold a lie that students are not experts and that their voices and opinions don't really matter when it comes to course curriculum, design, and instruction. We are convinced that classrooms have no real place for creativity, spiritually, and holistic embodiment. This harmful and destructive fallacy is destroying the souls of our students. It doesn't have to be this way.

This book is about a way of teaching the research process that incorporates storytelling, spirituality, critical creativity, healing work, witnessing, and social justice. It's about shifting proximities of power to make space for the students in the room. Inside this book, you will find woven throughout my story, instruction ideas, community-building techniques, and critical creativity activities to use in the classroom, wherever your classroom may be. By sharing how the research and creative process actually look, it gives students the permission to stumble, make mistakes, make numerous attempts, and ultimately create something meaningful.

Dawn Stahura is an artist, educator, and poet. She is a Research and Instruction Librarian for the Sciences and Health Sciences and the Zine Librarian at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and an M.L.S. She is the creator of the ACT UP evaluation method which considers the role privilege plays in publishing and access to information. She is heavily involved in using zines in the classroom to strengthen student scholarship and research skills while making space for students to engage with critical creativity and open pedagogy. Outside of academia, Dawn publishes her own zines and leads creative arts workshops such as zine making, oracle card making, and smashbooking. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears in such journals as The Comstock Review, Rhino, Rogue Agent, Book of Matches, and Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag. You can find her at www.dawnstahura.com