Theme: Compassion and Empathy
Quote:
"To see oneself in another’s pain is the mirrour of true humanity."
— Jean Puget de La Serre, The Mirrour Which Flatters Not
Through the Mirrour
When I walk into my classroom each morning, I am not alone. The walls are crowded with faces—hundreds of photographs from the past two decades, arranged without design but forming, together, a tapestry of memory. There are smiles and smirks, caps and gowns, babies balanced on hips, even the occasional awkward teenage pose. At first glance, it might look like a collage of ordinary school snapshots. But to me, each face carries a story—stories of perseverance, struggle, failure, resilience, and sometimes loss.
The wall is not static; it shifts depending on where my eyes fall. Some mornings, pride rises as I look at the students who fought their way through difficult programs, who went on to college or trade school, or who built families of their own. Other days bring sorrow when my gaze lands on the students who vanished—pulled away by poverty, incarceration, addiction, or despair. And then there are the names that haunt me: students who never reached adulthood, whose lives ended suddenly in accidents, overdoses, or violence. The wall holds all of them together—triumph and tragedy side by side, successes that inspire and losses that ache.
I often see new students wander the room, tracing the wall with their eyes until they land on a familiar face. A brother, a cousin, sometimes even a parent looks back at them from the collage. It is a moment of recognition: they are not alone. They are part of a story that stretches across time, a story that includes both hardship and survival. I invite them to add their own face to that story, not as decoration, but as testimony that they, too, belong.
In this way, the wall has become my mirror. It reflects back not just the history of my students but also my own vocation as their teacher. Jean Puget de La Serre wrote, “To see oneself in another’s pain is the mirrour of true humanity.” The wall does exactly that. It confronts me with the truth that compassion is not abstract. It is written into the lives of real young people, and it demands that I see myself in them and them in me.
Psychologist Carl Rogers once said, “When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good.” That is what the wall whispers to me: that the first work of compassion is not to fix, but to witness—to see others clearly, without judgment, and to acknowledge their place in the human story.
And yet, the wall also poses a question I cannot escape: What happens to this story when I am gone? Will the faces remain, tended by another? Will the story continue to grow, reshaped in ways I cannot imagine? Or will the photographs eventually come down, leaving only faint marks of tape on the paint? I do not know. But I know this: the wall is more than paper. It is testimony to the truth La Serre described—that humanity is revealed most clearly when we dare to see ourselves in the lives of others.
In the Classroom
To teach in an at-risk program is to live in contradiction. Every day I step into a room that holds both extraordinary possibility and deep fragility. Some of my students arrive carrying burdens no teenager should bear: poverty, fractured families, trauma, addiction, instability. Others are already parents themselves, balancing schoolwork with diapers and midnight feedings. Some are defiant; others are broken. Each one brings a story that does not fit neatly into a transcript.
The work is never simple. Some days end in joy—watching a student earn a credit, complete a program, or simply show up after weeks of absence. Other days end in heartbreak when a student vanishes, swallowed up by the same forces that brought them to me in the first place. As the French philosopher Simone Weil once wrote, “Compassion consists in paying attention.” This, I have found, is the core of teaching at-risk youth: not to rescue every student, but to pay attention—to notice, to accompany, to honor their humanity even when the outcome is uncertain.
One memory stands out above the rest: Micayla. She was a senior in my program, quick to smile and laugh, the kind of student who made the classroom lighter just by being there. The memory I carry most vividly is not of a lesson or exam, but of a Thanksgiving meal we prepared as a class.
We had planned to cook everything in a single morning: thirty pounds of potatoes, trays of biscuits, turkeys that needed cleaning and roasting. It was a daunting task, especially in the cramped heat of a teacher’s lounge kitchen. Students drifted in and out, lending a hand and then retreating to take breaks. But Micayla stayed. From the moment she arrived, potato peeler in hand, until the last dish was washed, she never left my side.
I remember the smell of onions sizzling, the clatter of pans, the blur of faces moving in and out of the room. And there was Micayla, focused, cheerful, content with the simple work of peeling and mashing, of turning raw ingredients into a meal for our little community. When at last the others had gone and it was just the two of us, I thanked her. But she surprised me by thanking me—for letting her peel potatoes, for letting her take out the trash, for letting her belong to something. She told me it reminded her of cooking with her father.
It was such a small moment, easy to overlook amid the chaos of the day. Only later, after her untimely death, did I realize how deeply it mattered. For her, that morning was not about food but about connection. For me, it became a parable of compassion: sometimes the greatest gift we can give is simply to create a space where someone feels they belong.
Henri Nouwen wrote, “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish.” In that kitchen, I glimpsed what that means. I did not save Micayla, and I could not change the tragedy that followed. But for one morning, I was invited into her world. I shared in her joy, her memory of her father, her desire to belong. And that, too, is compassion: not fixing, but being fully present.
I no longer measure success only by graduation rates or credits earned. For many of my students, survival itself is success. As Viktor Frankl reminded us, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’” For Micayla, the “why” was belonging. For others, it may be a child, a dream of work, a hope for stability. My task is not to determine that meaning for them, but to help them discover it, even briefly, within the fragile space of a classroom.
Conditional Redemption
When I began my dissertation, I did not set out to write about redemption. I wanted to understand the lived experiences of students and educators in the Missouri Option Program, which offers an alternative pathway to graduation. But as the interviews unfolded, a pattern emerged. Over and over, I heard about students who had been given another chance—and the conditions they had to meet in order to claim it. Slowly, the language of conditional redemption took shape.
The phrase unsettled me at first. Redemption, in my mind, carried echoes of grace, a gift given freely. Yet here I was hearing stories that spoke of opportunity wrapped in requirements: attend classes, pass the HiSET, maintain compliance with school expectations. A second chance, yes—but never an unconditional one. For some students, the conditions aligned with their abilities and circumstances, and they walked through the open door. For others, the door was just out of reach, closed not because they lacked desire, but because life collapsed around them before they could step through.
Using a constructivist grounded theory approach meant I could not separate myself from this process. I was not merely recording data; I was part of the meaning-making. And the truth is, conditional redemption mirrored my own teaching experience. I had long felt its pull: the elation when a student seized the opportunity, the ache when another fell short, the humility of realizing compassion does not guarantee transformation.
Theologians have wrestled with this tension for centuries. Augustine insisted that grace is always prior, always unearned: “For what have we that we did not receive? But if we received it, why do we boast as if it were not given to us?” Yet even Augustine knew that grace does not work without cooperation; there is always a human response required. Later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer drew a sharp distinction between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” Cheap grace requires nothing of us, while costly grace demands our very lives. “Costly grace,” he wrote, “is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.” In their different ways, both thinkers remind us that redemption, divine or human, is never without condition.
In psychology, too, we find echoes of this truth. Resilience research shows that recovery from trauma is always possible, but it depends on both inner resources and external supports. The opportunity must be present, but so must the capacity to meet it. Compassion alone cannot guarantee success; the conditions of a student’s life must align with their will to change.
The Missouri Option Program embodies this paradox. It is a structure of mercy, offering students who have failed in the traditional system a new path. But it is also a structure of demand, requiring them to rise to meet its standards. In that way, it is not unlike my classroom wall: a collage of second chances, some realized, some lost, each shaped by the fragile intersection of opportunity and response.
Conditional redemption, then, is not just an academic theory. It is the lived reality of compassion in practice. It is the truth that grace must be offered, even knowing it may not be received. It is the willingness to open the door, again and again, even if not every student will walk through.
Constructing Empathy
When I chose constructivist grounded theory, I thought of it as a research method. What I discovered was that it was also a religious discipline: a way of learning to see others not as subjects to be studied but as partners in meaning. In constructivist work, the researcher is not a detached observer gathering objective data. Instead, both participant and researcher shape the theory together. The voices of those I interviewed did not simply add to my knowledge; they changed me.
This was, in its own way, an act of empathy. Empathy is not sentimentality. It is not “feeling sorry” for someone. Carl Rogers defined it as “to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy, and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto, as if one were the person.” My participants invited me into their frames of reference. Their struggles and triumphs did not remain “theirs” alone—they became part of my own story. And the theory we constructed together bore the fingerprints of us both.
Martin Buber called this kind of encounter the I–Thou relationship. In his view, most of life is lived in I–It terms: people are objects to be used, managed, or understood. But in rare, transformative moments, we meet one another as Thou—not as objects, but as beings whose presence calls us to responsibility. “When I confront a human being as my Thou,” Buber wrote, “and speak the basic word I–Thou to him, then he is no thing among things… but is rather being itself.” That was my experience in these interviews. They were not data points; they were persons, encountered as Thou. And in meeting them as such, I was changed.
The classroom mirrors this same truth. My wall of faces is not mine alone. It is not a project I built by myself; it is a story co-created by the students who added their photographs and, in doing so, left their imprint on the room. Teaching at-risk students has taught me that empathy is not about delivering knowledge but about constructing a shared story.
Paulo Freire, the great Brazilian educator, insisted that “Dialogue cannot exist… in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people.” In his view, education is not a one-way transfer of information but a dialogue in which both teacher and student are transformed. That is what constructivist grounded theory asked of me as a researcher, and it is what my classroom demands of me as a teacher: to create spaces where dialogue, not domination, shapes the story.
To construct empathy is to risk being changed. It means admitting that the boundary between teacher and student, researcher and participant, is porous. Their story becomes part of mine, and mine becomes part of theirs. Together, we create meaning that neither of us could have found alone.
Lessons in Compassion, Lessons in Self
Compassion has a cost. That is one of the truths I have learned over twenty years with at-risk youth. To care deeply for students whose lives are fragile is to carry their stories inside you, long after they leave your classroom. Some days that weight is joy—when a former student messages me to say they’ve found work, or when I see a picture of them holding their newborn child. Other days, the weight is unbearable: the phone call that another young life has ended in overdose, suicide, or accident. The wall of faces I live with is not only a tapestry of triumphs but also a cemetery of absences.
Early in my career, I believed compassion meant never letting a student fall. If I worked harder, gave more, stayed longer, surely I could carry everyone across the line. But that illusion eventually broke. I learned the bitter truth that not every student can be saved, and not every story will end in success. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” Compassion does not mean omnipotence; it means doing what is within my power—teaching, listening, accompanying—and then releasing what I cannot control.
The challenge is not only external but internal. There are days when compassion feels like weakness, when empathy drains me to the point of exhaustion. In those moments, I wrestle with the temptation to harden myself, to pull back, to protect my own heart. Yet as Brené Brown reminds us, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.” To remain compassionate is to remain vulnerable—to risk being wounded again, to open myself to grief alongside joy. Without vulnerability, there can be no authentic compassion.
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, captured this paradox well when he wrote, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” In other words, compassion is not contingent on outcome. It is not offered only to those who succeed or only to those who thank me. It is a posture, a way of being in the world. And it is humbling, because it constantly confronts me with my own limits.
Perhaps the hardest lesson has been learning compassion for myself. I am not a traditional teacher, and I often feel the shadow of imposter syndrome among my peers. I lack their credentials, their neat success stories, their polished classrooms. But here, surrounded by the faces on my wall, I am reminded that perfection is not the point. Presence is. To show up, again and again, even when the stories end in grief—that is the deeper work.
The faces have taught me that compassion is not about erasing pain but about walking beside it. It is about sharing in brokenness, even when the outcome is beyond my control. It is costly, humbling, and at times almost unbearable. And yet, it is the only way I know to live this vocation with integrity.
Carrying Compassion Forward
I often find myself staring at the wall of faces and wondering what will happen when I am gone. Will another teacher continue to add to it, reshaping it in their own way? Will the wall slowly fade, the photographs curling and falling, until only faint tape marks remain? I cannot know. But I do know that the work I have given my life to must be larger than a wall. Its endurance will be measured not in photographs but in the structures of compassion I have built—the programs, the opportunities, the second chances—that can outlive me.
During my dissertation defense, my advisor observed that the phrase conditional redemption carries unmistakable religious overtones. He was right. I hear in those words not only the voices of my participants but also the echoes of the gospel stories. What comes to mind most strongly is the Fifth Station of the Cross, where Simon of Cyrene is pressed into service to carry Christ’s burden. Simon did not erase the suffering, nor did he change the destination. But for a moment, he stepped in, shouldered the weight, and bore it forward.
That image captures the heart of my work with at-risk youth. I cannot save every student. I cannot erase their burdens or predetermine their endings. But I can bear with them, for a time, the load they carry. I can offer presence, patience, and persistence—carrying what I can, even knowing it will not always be enough. Compassion in this sense is costly. It means entering into the suffering of another, knowing I will carry the ache of it with me long after they are gone.
This is what separates compassion from sentiment. Sentiment wants happy endings; compassion accepts the brokenness of reality and still chooses to stand alongside it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this “costly grace”—a grace that does not come cheaply, but demands something of us. In the classroom, costly grace means offering another chance, even knowing some students will not take it. It means holding space for belonging, even when the world outside denies it. It means peeling potatoes with a student one morning and, years later, carrying the grief of her absence.
I no longer think of compassion as mine to possess. It is not a trophy, a feeling, or a strategy. It is a pattern—a way of being—that must be set in motion again and again. Students have shaped that pattern with me; colleagues have carried it alongside me; research participants have co-constructed it into language I can now name. The wall reminds me daily that this story was never mine alone.
When future students walk into this room, whether my face remains on the wall or not, I hope they sense what countless others have felt: that their lives matter, that they belong to a larger story, that redemption—though conditional—is always possible. I cannot control how the story will change when I am gone. But I trust it will continue, because compassion is never the possession of one teacher, one program, or one wall. It is a pattern that, once set in motion, cannot be undone.