Ever wonder why you react the way you do? Ever feel like you are self sabotaging? Ever question your ability to make decisions and have confidence in yourself? Well you are not alone!

During my first year of teaching I was 21, turning 22 years old and I made the big move to inner London. I was not prepared for the mental rollercoaster that I was about to embark on for many reasons!! 

I had such high, unrealistic expectations for myself and those around me which meant I was constantly 'failing' and that just resulted in constant battles in my head about why I wasn't good enough and I was backing my own negative thoughts up with evidence because of my need to please. 

This is when a friend introduced me to 'The Chimp Paradox' and it literally changed my whole way of thinking. Let's see why.....

This week was my first week of virtual learning......wow! I can see why there has been such a wide range of opinions from a wide range of people over the past few months. Personally, I may have gained a few grey hairs that I wasn't expecting to get for a few years yet!!

I really do believe in this current climate Empathy is going to be our super power! I have had to take a step back and show compassion for myself as well as for those around me. So, for the purposes of this review I am going to be focusing on the Empathy element of the design thinking process.

I have so much admiration for those going through this time in all different walks of life. For example, seeing my amazing teacher friends who are also having to manage being full time parents as well!!

On our first day of online teaching, I literally thought all those years of my parents saying 'you're going to get square eyes' was going to actually come true. 

So, I am really happy I have began this season, looking at ways we can deal with change and grow my tool box to empower myself with strategies to take action in the unknown....
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Hey there. Welcome to the first blog post of Season 1: Change. This season we will be focusing in on our own accountability. How can we grow our confidence to take risks and be comfortable in our own skin?

I will be reflecting on my current thinking and routines to see if they are positively or negatively impacting my life and then thinking of ways I can make little changes to my day to make myself more productive and help my mental wellbeing. 

I hope you will be able to join me, trying out the strategies and sharing what works/ doesn't work for you!!

So what better book to start our journey than Richard Gerver's book Change?
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This week I was speaking with my Uncle who has been in the education system for many years and it was so good to hear his insights into Empathetic Educators. We spoke about how I am gathering my #toptiptakeaways and he asked if I am making connections between the sessions. And the answer is......I ammm!! 

While I have been reading the books for my weekly book review and editing the sessions. I feel there are some recurring themes emerging. And I am really excited to share these with you. 
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Like I always say, I believe leading with Empathy can be one of our biggest superpowers of the future and as always these are my opinions and connections. So I feel these themes could give an insight into what is needed to empathise with ourselves and empathise with others...... ​

Hey there, 
Welcome to the Empathetic Educators blog. Let's get started!!

​So I have given myself the challenge to read a book a week for the next 20 weeks and you can see the order of books that I am reading in this image.

First things first, I don't know about you but I literally have book selves full of books that have basically been ornaments, looking pretty since the day I got them. Constantly reassuring myself 'I will read them one day.' So I decided today is that day, or this is that week! I have added my top 20 books that I want to read into a weekly list. Wooooohoooo!! Have you got any of these books on your list? Could you read them or your own book along with me?

​Secondly, I have matched up my Empathetic Educators sessions with each weekly book review. Some weeks I have interviewed the author of the book. As you can see in the images below, in Week 1 I will be releasing my interview with Richard Gerver, (one of the most exciting moments of my life to date) and I will be releasing a review of his books 'Change' the same week. 

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Recently I have tried a new layout for my Empathetic Educators Blog Posts. I do not want to loose all of my previous learning and posts so I have put the link to this post here. 

I have very much been on a journey of collaborating with many amazing educators, parents, learners, researchers etc and I feel like these posts have made this active inquiry so dynamic for my own thinking and I hope help tell the story of my journey so far. 

However, I wanted the next phase of my blogging to be around educational research and I wanted to change the layout of my posts which is why they will be archived in this post. 


Looking forward to hearing from you and see where this space can go to next! 

Make sure to download the app for Free to have all of the interviews, blog posts and resources all in the one place. 

bit.ly/empatheticeducatorsapp