Re-posted from my blog series for the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at the University of Utah.

“While meeting everyone’s needs sounds compassionate and student-centered, it is pedagogically unsound and psychologically demoralizing.” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 21).

Thank goodness!! From classes for undergraduate and graduate students to workshops for faculty, I have, from time to time, had the feeling that I didn’t meet everyone’s needs – as if it were possible; yet, I would still feel bad about it. That, I suppose, is in part  because my top strength (of 34 possible) as identified by a Strengths Finder test is Empathy! Oh boy. According to Brookfield (1995), being a critically reflective teacher is at the core of accepting that it’s just not possible to meet everyone’s needs – it is simply an assumption that we might carry around with us, but it is an assumption that we should shrug off – right along with our Atlas Complex.

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