Back to Thoughts

Thoughts on Educating

Please contact the author, Jennifer Morrison (j.morrison@artofeducating.com), with questions, comments, or requests to reproduce this material.  

6/18/2008 - Teacher as Relationship Expert

I just finished Kathleen Cushman’s book, Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students, and it highlights for me the fact that to be a successful public school teacher these days, in this country, one must first and foremost be a relationship expert, especially when it comes to students.  Cushman's book outlines what students think and need from teachers regarding knowing them, respecting them, building trust, controlling classroom behavior, creating a culture of success, working with individuals and groups, motivating students, teaching difficult material, and teaching teenagers who are still learning English.

It’s good for any teacher thinking about classroom culture, and I am definitely going to give a copy to my student teacher next year.  I picked it up when I was sitting in Sarah’s room helping monitor another teacher’s administration of his EOC.  Really what I was doing was resisting the urge to attend to his students’ needs and behaviors.  It was obvious that there wasn’t much of a relationship there, that his students didn’t see the point or relevance of what they had been learning in his class, and that they felt under-prepared for the test.  I wonder what he would have gotten out of a reading of this book.   

I’ve been lucky, I think.  I was never very social as a young person, so relationships don’t come as naturally to me as they might someone else.  I approach every relationship from the outside, and as an outsider – even one who has become very good as developing and maintaining lots of relationships – I think through and analyze everything.  What’s the point? What do I need? What does the other person need? How do I know when I’ve screwed it up? How do I fix it? How do I need to respond? What are the ramifications of responding that way? What does it really mean when he/she does this? 

No wonder I tend to limit my friendships outside of work.  Relationships are work…worthwhile work, but work nonetheless, and I am tired after a day at school relating to well over a hundred students, parents, and colleagues.  We can talk about curriculum and best practices all we want, but what it boils down to in an American school is the relationships a teacher is able to build in the classroom.  You cannot be a successful educator in this country without the ability to develop and maintain relationships with people unlike yourself, who do not believe what you believe, and who do not know where you are coming from.  With kids and their parents, you only have ten months to make the relationship happen, to find common ground, to bring them to an understanding of the whys and what of your curriculum, philosophy, and style, and to trust your intentions.  You actually have less than ten months because they need to be on board before the end of first quarter if the year is going to be a successful one.  I point out that it is in an American school that relationships are the fulcrum of a school’s work because I know that this is not the case in many other countries.  Most the visiting international teachers I’ve met have a great deal of difficulty adjusting to American students’ seeming lack of respect, blatant dismissal of their expertise (often with the excuse that those teachers “can’t speak English”), poor discipline, and poor work ethic.  From my perspective, it’s generally a relationship issue.  Often, in their own countries, teachers getting to know their students, being open and transparent about their teaching and beliefs, or sharing personal information about themselves is inappropriate and, because it is unexpected and seen as negative, doing it would probably work against students’ success.

That is not the case here, however.  Students have to feel the teacher likes them (and knows them as individuals) in order to feel comfortable and be motivated (p. 21).  Fire’s students, most members of What Kids Can Do, Inc., give lots of good suggestions for building relationships.  Many I’ve already come to in my development as a teacher/relationship expert – especially ones like don’t stick to textbooks (p. 127).  Others I would like to try. 

Cushman, Kathleen, and the students of What Kids Can Do, Inc.  (2003).
Fires in the bathroom: Advice for teachers from high school students.  New York NY: The New Press.
   
 

Back to Thoughts