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Teacher Leaders Network (TLN) Teacher Voices / January 2010
Caring Teachers and Confident Students
Teaching as an Act of Love
Newspapers (for those of us who still read them) and online reports provide a steady flow of stories that might induce stress in teachers and students. I find I can immerse myself in this constant stream and become dizzy — or step aside and feel marginalized when the education policy conversation is dominated by talk of data systems, national standards, and racing to the top without leaving a single child behind.
Meanwhile, the juniors and seniors I advise at my high school, and their families, are looking at the spiraling costs for public and private higher education and reacting with anxiety as they hear about increasing competition in college admissions.
With that backdrop, I’m glad I took the time to read a pair of books that were recently sent to me. Richard Lakin is a former teacher and principal whose self-published collection of anecdotes and reflections seems almost provocatively titled in this educational climate. Teaching as an Act of Love (iUniverse) provides a variety of vignettes and affirmations that span 40 years of educational experience. For the high school student and family, Kristin M. White’s The Complete Guide to the Gap Year (Jossey-Bass) provides plenty of information and resources to encourage students to look into other options besides heading straight to college after high school — options that can lead to greater confidence and maturity.
 It’s sad to think how it almost seems trivial, if not frivolous, to talk about caring or love in education today. Richard Lakin challenges this trend toward emotional detachment in education by illustrating what teachers know and what so few non-teaching education reformers seem to realize: When relationships of caring and trust are in place, pedagogy and curriculum are much more likely to achieve the results that reformers demand. Without those relationships, there is no perfect system, no foolproof textbook or software, no scripted curriculum that will yield the broad and lasting effects we all want for our youngest citizens.
The bulk of Lakin’s book focuses on his experiences as an elementary school principal. His approach to problem solving and school improvement featured an admirable balance of practicality and humility. Small stories about seemingly inconsequential matters like a class pet may seem uninspiring at a glance, but as the parent of a third-grader and a first-grader, I am often reminded that Carmel the Guinea Pig and Jake the Snake figure much more prominently in my sons’ minds than do any state standards or publishers’ pacing guides. Thus, when Lakin describes how he negotiated with students and their teacher to reach a mutually acceptable solution to a problem with pet mice, we can see the benefits that follow from his willingness to change his mind and to consider the children’s feelings as a relevant factor in running a school. Lakin continuously asserts that his success in this situation — and in the larger context of promoting goals like conflict resolution and school literacy — came not from having guidelines or standards that were handed down “from the office,” but from remaining faithful to a belief that we must educate from the heart.
Lakin’s commitment to parent-school partnerships also resonates. He recounts the efforts that went into transforming a school culture of distrust into one of caring and communication. After describing what it took to be successful — detailing both the improvements and a few mistakes along the way — he concludes by noting that the effort took three to four years before really taking hold.
I paused for a few minutes after this chapter and reflected on the current climate I see and hear about in education. First of all, in those three to four years, many of our struggling urban and rural schools might see more than a 50 percent turnover in staff and families. Yet we know that building trust depends largely on stability. Secondly, I’m concerned that our systemic obsession with data actually becomes an obstacle to trust. While it is true that we must rely on more than feelings to measure educational outcomes, my trust in a school or teacher is rooted in my belief that they know more about my child than his test scores. When we churn through teaching staff and make a fetish of test scores, we do not arrive at a system that knows and cares about children as people.
Reviewed by David B. Cohen,Teacher Leaders Network
David B. Cohen is a National Board Certified Teacher at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto CA (High School English & Counseling)
He is a co-founder of the Accomplished California Teachers leadership network.
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