The Relevance of Empathy to the Intentionally Inviting Stance

Abstract

A core component of invitational education is taking an intentionally inviting stance, whereby the teacher achieves and maintains an optimally inviting environment by intentionally practicing care, trust, respect, and optimism with students. These elements are rooted in the affective domain. Affective teaching involves the use of empathy. Humans are born with the capacity to feel the expressed emotions of others. This affective attribute is the basis for demonstrating empathy. However, empathy is a progressive construct. Initial affective mirroring must be augmented with cognitive, social and cultural experiences in order to be transformational. An intentionally inviting stance provides the potential for development of high-levels of empathy to occur.