Preaching to the Choir

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. ~John F. Kennedy

Every education conference I go to always contains some form of the following condescending "motivational" topic: loving our students. People who don't know my students, people who haven't been in a classroom in the last ten years if EVER wish to tell me what it is that I'm doing wrong and how to become the super teacher for whom kids will jump of bridges if asked. They all have an activity or a game or a magic classroom procedure that will spark love in my heart and the hearts of my students.

We are told that if we just "love" our students enough, they will perform past every standard and expectation. If we were just "loving" them enough, they'd all make Advanced scores on state testing. If we were "loving" them as we should, they'd all be on honor roll and choirs of angels and winged horses would float up and down our halls. Peace on Earth would reign, lions and lambs would lie down together, world hunger would end, and the planets would align in perfect harmony.

There is such a superiority in these speeches. The double-edge of them is that, apparently, since none of these great Nirvanas have been reached, we as teachers are not doing our jobs. We as teachers have failed our towns, America, and the universe in perpetuity through our lack of "love."

These ivory-tower experts have good intentions, I think, but so few of them seem to have any idea of "love" that is going to be helpful for a student. If a student has always failed, and you continue to pat that student on the head like a wounded dog and say, "Baby, that's just the best you can do. You just go right ahead and don't even try. We'll pass you anyway," you are not loving that student. You are not trying to correct what's going on with that student to allow success to come. Instead, all you're doing is hammering down the notion the student has that he or she will never amount to anything and is doomed for failure.

We as teachers have to be worried about more than just whether or not the student "feels happy" all the time in school. There are times in life when you feel great frustration as you struggle to overcome an obstacle. That temporary challenge leads to the satisfaction of mastery, and I think it's a lot more valuable than any saccharine, manufactured, patently fake, frou-frou praises. Our purpose, the way we truly love our students, is to help them hold the course through the frustration, through the first steps, until they can begin to appreciate that the struggle leads to lasting gains.

Today, over and over, we were told to be our students' friend. There's a line here and it's a tricky one to walk. I believe in building relationships with students, but they are not my friends. I love my students and I want the best for them, but I am not going to text message them for kicks. I don't want them to think of me as "one of the gang." I am not. That is one of the prices paid to do this job. A teacher has to be other and should be other. A teacher has to correct and sometimes grab by the collar and shake when he or she sees a student headed down a path leading to pain and destruction, and these are things that friends can't really do.

Teenagers and younger children know when something is a lie. They have come to expect sugary platitudes delivered in a sing-song voice from their teachers. They know it's not genuine. They tune it out and lose all the knowledge about life and our subject matter that we have to pass on. As teachers, we have to move away from that. We owe it to them.

Love our students? Alright, but love them with real love, love that holds them to high standards and helps them get what they need to reach them, not love that only looks glossy on the outside but has a secret center of silent prejudice and apathy inside. The type of love I am talking about does involve holding the hand when life, as it does for teens and adults alike, goes to pieces. However, this love also involves kicking the butt when needed. This is the love that you never hear about in lectures and conferences. My guess is that none of those exalted experts want to get down here in the trenches with us and dirty their hands on the realities of what true love for our students involves.