Creating close bonds with others is the key to teaching and learning.
What is a teacher and what does she teach?
This is my final reflection before I retire. I address it to my former students, especially those who are teachers or plan to become a teacher. It is a personal one for me. I believe that a good teacher must be sincere, honest, and personal and there is nothing more important than the bonds we create and maintain. For some, being a teacher is about having an opportunity to teach others and to impart knowledge and skills. I hope that I did that, of course, but for me, teaching was more about continuing to learn, spending quality time with other learners and trying to create the best possible environment in which we could all learn. I learned from world-class writers, artists, and theater practitioners, from (and with) master teachers (including my mother), and most importantly, from my students. Most significant to me was the prospect of cultivating a positive relationship with each student. This is a lesson that I learned from my mother and I’m glad that I learned it early in life.
My mother was a very tall third grade teacher with a voice deep enough that strangers called her “Sir” on the phone. Her “kids” were always scared of her at first because she towered over them, but she treated them as individuals and they learned quickly that they could trust her, perhaps like no other adult in their life. They loved her. Kids other teachers called “problem children” loved her perhaps the most because she was the first one who never gave up on them and she treated them exactly like the other pupils. They rose to the occasion for her and felt good about themselves; perhaps it was the only time. One of them drove across the country when he was 40-some years old to attend her funeral; he couldn’t afford to fly and didn’t own a car, so he rented one and drove from Nevada to Michigan without stopping. I don’t even know how he had learned that she had died, but on the morning of her funeral, I woke up at 4AM to find a rental car in our driveway with him sleeping in the driver’s seat. He said he had come to say goodbye to her because she was the only person who had ever believed in him. That’s the type of bond she created.
Mom was a teacher who stood in the doorway of her classroom and said goodbye each day individually to her pupils, shaking their hand, looking them in the eye, and saying something personal to each one. In High School, I had to go to her classroom if I wanted the keys to the car, and when I witnessed this daily ritual, I always had to wait. She didn’t mind making me wait, either. Her pupils were more important than my getting those car keys and she wanted them to know it! Who knows? Maybe she wanted me to know it! I once asked her why she did this every day; chances are, I hinted that I found it corny. She didn’t respond then, but she reminded me of that question years later when I was a teacher. “Do you remember how I used to say goodbye and shake hands with each pupil?” she asked, “It was because I learned so much in that moment from each child—I could tell how the child was feeling by the way they took my hand and the way they looked at me. I showed that child that I cared, and I figured that I may have been the only adult in that child’s life, who did so. I wanted my pupils to know that they could turn to me if they ever needed to.” I believe that the heroics her one former pupil went to to attend her funeral illustrates that her pupils got the message. I have no doubt that my mother was a good third grade teacher and this was confirmed time and again by her pupils, whom I still encounter on occasion. What they remember about her is the person, not that she taught them. I remember that, too.
As a teacher I always worked hard to emulate my mother. People often say things like: “Well, University of Michigan students must be easy to teach because they are all smart and they come from good backgrounds.” I can’t even begin to unpack that. All people need to be treated the way my mother treated her third graders. We’re all still third graders inside, when it comes down to it.
Why was this lesson such an important one for me? Because I found that cultivating a good relationship and expressing willingness to be there for each student created the only way to put myself in a position to possibly assess where that student “was” and what that student needed. That student was the kid exiting my mother’s 3rd grade classroom as she extended her hand. Taking the time to really get to know a student as a learner not only strengthened our bond, it also sharpened the memory and set up future lessons. If you are still following my reasoning here, you will see how interconnected knowledge, communication, assessment, and curriculum development need to be. The bonds I created in my own teaching career served another purpose for me as I look back. My students-turned-alumni-turned-friends are a daily part of my life and they leave me with more than a lifetime worth of memories. Whatever small gift I may have given them, they continue to give back to me in spades. They make my next step (away from academia) an easier one because I carry them with me, or perhaps, they carry me.