Every student needs a caring teacher
MY mom was a teacher, one of my uncles was a teacher, my wife was a teacher and so was I. I’ve had a chance to look at education reforms. Some have been good. Some of them have been not so good. And we know why kids drop out. We know why kids don’t learn. It’s either poverty, low attendance, negative peer influences ... we know why. But one of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection. Relationships.
James Comer says that no significant learning can occur without a significant relationship. George Washington Carver says all learning is understanding relationships. For seven years, I have watched people teach. I have looked at the best and I’ve looked at some of the worst.
A colleague said to me one time, “they don’t pay me to like the kids. They pay me to teach a lesson. The kids should learn it. I should teach it, they should learn it, case closed”.
Well, I said to him, “you know, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like”.
He said, “that’s just a bunch of crap”.
And I said to him, “well, your year is going to be long and arduous”.
Needless to say, it was. Some people think that you can either have it in you to build a relationship, or you don’t. I think Stephen Covey had the right idea. He said you ought to just throw in a few simple things, like seeking first to understand, as opposed to being understood. Simple things, like apologising. Tell kids you’re sorry, they’re in shock.
I once taught a lesson on ratios. I went as a substitute as the maths teacher was absent. I’m not good with math, but I was working on it. I’d taught the whole lesson wrong. So, I came back to the class the next day and I said, “I need to apologise. I taught the whole lesson wrong. I’m so sorry”.
They said, “that’s OK Mr Mani. You were so excited, we just let you go”.
I have had classes that were so low, so academically deficient, that I cried. I wondered, “how am I going to take this group, in nine months, from where they are to where they need to be”? And it was awfully hard. How do I raise the self-esteem of a child and his academic achievement at the same time?
One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, “you were chosen to be in my class because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it”.
I said, “really. We have to show the other classes how to do it, so when we walk down the hall, people will notice us, so you can’t make noise. You just have to strut”.
And I gave them a saying to say: “I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I’ll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful, and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress, and places to go.”
You say it long enough, it starts to be a part of you. I gave a quiz, 20 questions. A student missed 18. I put a “+2” on his paper and a big smiley face.
He said, “Mr Mani, is this an F”? I said, “Yes”.
He said, “then why’d you put a smiley face”?
I said, “because you’re on a roll. You got two right. You didn’t miss them all”.
I said, “and when we review this, won’t you do better”? He said, “Yes Sir, I can do better”.
You see, “-18” sucks all the life out of you. “+2, said, “It’s not that bad”.
For years, I watched my mom take time at recess to review, buy combs and brushes and Pacific Breakfast crackers to put in her desk drawer for kids that needed to eat, and a washcloth and some soap for the kids who didn’t smell so good.
Years later, after she retired, I watched some of those same kids come through and say to her, “you made a difference in my life. You made it work for me. You made me feel like I was somebody, when I knew, at the bottom, I wasn’t. And I want you to just see what I’ve become.” And my mom would hug them.
And when my mom died at 82 in Sacramento, there were many former students of Nadi Sangam School who had migrated to the US, at her funeral. They hugged me and said, “your mom taught me in class 2”. It brought tears to my eyes, not because she was gone, but because she left a legacy of relationships that could never disappear.
Can you stand to have more relationships? Absolutely. Will you like all your students? Never. So teachers become great actors and great actresses, and come to work when they don’t feel like it and are listening to the policy that doesn’t make sense, and they teach anyway.
When I came back to Fiji in 2010, after 35 years, some people would ask me, “are you Mangamma teacher’s son? She taught me in Class 2. She was such a great teacher.”
Teaching and learning should bring joy. How powerful would our world be if there were kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had caring teachers? Every child deserves a caring teacher, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.
Is this job tough? Yes, but it is not impossible. Dear teachers, you can do this. You are educators. You are born to make a difference.
■ Arvind Mani is a former teacher who is passionate about quality education. He lived in the US for 35 years and was actively involved in training youths to improve their speaking skills. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper. He can be reached at theinspiredteacher9@gmail.com