How am I going to connect with my students? It’s a question I’ve pondered over dozens of times, as I’m sure almost every other potential or established teacher has at one point or another. Ask any current or former student who their favorite teacher and why, I guarantee you that part of their reasoning will be that the specific individual related to them and thus gained their respect and admiration. As I was looking into this issue a little more, I stumbled upon a classmate’s blog post (and follow-up post) that I felt indirectly addressed some of the issues I was thinking about. Kim Cuppett’s blog post entitled “If Someone Hits You, You Should Hit Them Back,” reveals some of the frustrations she encountered while at work teaching at a low-income housing. She struggled and seemed generally awestruck whenever she was informed by one of her students that the little girl got into a fight on the playground because she was taught that if she’s hit, the right thing to do it hit back. I personally feel I would’ve had a very similar reaction to Kim’s. I feel that it is essential that Kim is trying to find a way to address this issue of a tendency to violence in these children, especially as an educator. Yes it is important for anyone and everyone to know how to defend themselves, ESPECIALLY those who live in troubled or dangerous areas. However, it is also key that we, as instructors, make our students’ safety our number one priority. In Kim’s instance, having a child who was hit or slapped bring the issue to an adult enables to the violence to be eliminated or put down. Yes, students often do respond to their peers being “snitches” negatively, but if the issue is addressed appropriately and if the students bring it up with the right authority (i.e. a teacher that they view as “cool,” the problem can be put down much more appropriately. More than anything, it is our absolute duty as instructors and caregivers for these children to eliminate any kind of violence as we see it. No matter what our backgrounds and past experiences are, the children need to come first, and their safety has to be a constant concern. So, I feel that what matters most is that Kim’s concern over how to address the issue showed that more than anything her main priority is to keep these kids safe and to help them learn and progress as much as possible in life. I think this really shows her priorities as an educator are just where they should be.
As I continued to think on this issue, I came upon a topic that I have often struggled with when I began to view myself as an educator: how do I relate to students who have gone through things or are going through things that I have never encountered in my own life? This past summer, I worked at an inner city tutoring program where, for five days a week, I helped students ranging from Kindergarten age to Seniors in high school. Going in to the position, I was terrified. A vast majority of these kids were part of this program because they were labeled as troubled students who had no motivation to do work or even try in school. They attend school in one of the largest school districts in my area, while I graduated in a class of a little over one hundred and twenty students. From the beginning, I knew that even at their young ages, many of these children had encountered many struggles in their lives that I really wouldn’t even want to imagine enduring. Many came from households of one or no parents because they had abandoned them or were in jail, some were impoverished, and many saw firsthand the abusive effects of drugs and alcohol. To make matters worse, many of the children had gotten into lots of legal trouble on their own, leaving me truthfully intimidated at times. As a substitute tutor in the program, I moved from the elementary school, to the middle school, to the high school teaching completely different children each week. This made my job even more difficult, as constantly being the substitute made gaining the students’ respect a challenge because they weren’t used to me and didn’t know me well. Though my first week or so was rough, I quickly found that my students built more trust in me because I didn’t grow up under the same circumstances that they did. They were well aware that I went to the costly private school and came from an upper class family. However, they came to respect me because they realized that I tried to understand what struggles they were going through and, more importantly, they recognized that I sincerely wanted to help them to do better. Because I treated them with respect and refused to accept laziness or unreasonable excuses for not giving me their best work, they came to realize that I was trying to do what’s best for them. And having those students work hard as part of an attempt to impress me and gain my respect was the biggest reward I took from that program.
Now, reflecting back on my own high school and grade school experiences, I found that when I look back to the teacher that to this day I still call “my favorite teacher,” I’ve begun to question myself as to why he’s my favorite instructor. Of course I think back to the jokes, the fun classes, the tests that I feel he might’ve made a little easier for us because he liked us. But, more than anything, I think back to a time that personally crushing for myself and my classmates, and most likely overwhelming for my young and relatively new teacher. Part way through the school year, my class suffered the loss of a classmate and my good friend to cancer. The loss was a shock and ultimately a blow to the small student body, and the teachers all obviously struggled in helping us cope. My teacher, Mr. Del, openly admitted to my class that he didn’t know Ezra and that he had never personally lost a friend at such a young age and couldn’t comprehend what we were going through. However, he admitted that he had only heard great things about Ezra and would love to hear about him, if we were willing to talk. Though the conversation began with tears and overwhelming sorrow, everyone in the room quickly found themselves laughing as we told our teacher about all of the crazy and fun things our lost friend had done while he was alive. He had taken the initiative to address our loss directly and was the only teacher to give us an opportunity to just talk about everything that was going on in our lives. He had no idea what we were experiencing in this loss, but because he showed us that he wanted to try to understand, we grew to respect him. He taught me that no matter how different you are from your students and their lifestyles, by showing them respect and a sincere concern for them, you can truly connect with them and impact their lives.
Everyone wants to be the teacher that allows students to leave their classroom with the firm belief t that this individual positively impacted their lives. However, I feel that because of age differences or differences in socioeconomic statuses, many teachers unintentionally give up on this opportunity because they think their understanding of their students is just too far out of reach. However, I feel that if we show our students that no matter what differences exist in our lives, we honestly want to understand their struggles and positively impact them so that they can be successful later on in life, these children will come to respect us and want to work hard for us. Once we establish this trusting relationship, I believe that we can overcome any kind of personal, social, financial, economic problems that our students face to give them a reason to try to eventually succeed, because, thanks to my always inspirational Mr. Del, I experienced this firsthand.
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