Recently, I read about the writing assignment “I wish my teacher knew ____”, first given by Kyle Schwartz, a third-grade teacher in Denver. For those who have not read about it, the task for students was to anonymously share a piece of information about themselves that they wanted their teacher to know, but would not publicly or personally want to divulge. The results certainly tugged at my heartstrings and gave illumination into the private lives of students. This information is useful because it is a call for compassion and humanity in a world that too often becomes too enamored with the bottom line.
As a teacher, I am often caught between the need for compassion and the importance of the academic bottom line. Sometimes it is a hard balancing act because both aspects are necessities in education. A teacher has to be sensitive enough to handle kids who are having difficulty in their lives and yet impartial enough not to allow compassion to influence academic assessment. It’s a tough tightrope on which to walk. While many kids pick up pretty quickly on the fact that we have a love for them, a large number of kids are skeptical that teachers do what we do out of love. And it is, perhaps, tougher for them to recognize that love when we get into the part of education that has to do with academic performance. Some of the ways teachers go about obtaining good academic performance include planning lessons, redirecting behavior, and demanding the best of our pupils. While these ways are not always the most fun, if anything, they express even more strongly how we feel about educating the students entrusted to us. If each student only understood _____, he or she might see teachers in a different light.
If all students only understood that we know what it’s like in the real world and want to prepare them for the difficulties in life, they would be more receptive to learning the skills at the core of our lessons. Many teachers have run the gauntlet in life already – hurricanes, divorce, bankruptcy, cancer, unemployment, failures of every kind, and loss. We have dealt with these challenges and are here to help guide our students to acquire skills that will someday help them cope with similar situations. We spend hours of waking time trying to create just the right activities to stimulate, interest, and engage kids. In addition to the purposeful planning, we end up thinking about education while driving to and from work, watching a popular TV show, and shampooing our hair. But the point is, our lives, past and present, are dedicated to education in the mission to find ways to create activities that simulate and teach the skills needed to cope with real world situations.
If all students only understood that we really do care about them, they would perhaps try harder to make wise choices. We allow them to use their phones only for schoolwork, tell them computer games come AFTER all schoolwork is done right, and only allow earbuds during certain points in classroom activities. We limit talking to relevant subject matter, assign them seats, and ask them to collaborate in diverse groups. We make them read and annotate texts, write complete sentences, and try to teach them the value of doing their own work. In response, they do everything from trying their hardest to occasionally testing the boundaries to see if we really mean what we say. And when they find our boundary line, while we discipline them, it’s not in a gleeful, “gotcha” kind of way, but rather with the goal to help each student be as successful as possible. It’s a tougher version of love, baby, and we do it because we care.
If all students only understood that we really do believe in them, they would step up to every assignment with a can-do mindset. Teachers who insist kids give their best effort do so because we know in our hearts that each student has so much potential. Sometimes we tell them we believe in them with our actions or write it on their completed work; at other times, we verbally tell them, right to their faces. They look at us in disbelief, or scoff at us, laugh sheepishly, or maybe tell us we’re crazy while a lopsided grin sneaks onto their face. Some will even duck their heads and blush; maybe it’s the first time they ever heard a “you can do it” or “I believe in you” in their entire life. But deep down, they’ll be gratified, because the small seed of “maybe I am better than I thought” has begun to germinate.
We have only a few more weeks left of this school year. It’s been an amazing year, filled with both blessings and challenges. Most students are ready for a break, and perhaps teachers are, too. Hang in there and treat the last weeks with the same vigor as the first few weeks. Because what we do is so important. And someday, hopefully, all our students will understand.
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