Student-Teacher Relationships, part 2

Hello everyone,

I wrote yesterday about how I think that the connection between the student and the teacher is the most important thing (after the parents) in determining success on the California Standards Tests.

If I were reading, not writing, my own emails, I would have several questions, and I want to follow my instincts and answer those questions, just in case you are thinking the way I would be.

First, why focus on the CSTs?

For those of you not at Garfield, I ought to explain that Garfield has one chance this year to raise our CST scores, or we plunge deeper into state sanctioned hell. I've written to the Garfield teachers about it a few times.

I do not think that the CSTs are the most important thing in education, nor do I think that our entire focus should be on how well we do on them. However, I happen to think that it's quite possible for us to do well on the CSTs and give our students the best education possible. I don't think the two things need to be mutually exclusive; I do think that some of the skills applied to one thing carry over to the other.

I believe that a strong connection between students and the teacher is a good thing educationally; I also believe that it may solve many of the problems that high schools have with motivating students to do well on the test. (Believe me, Garfield isn't the only high school in the United States that shows a drop-off in scores from the middle schools. Lack of motivation to do well on the test is a significant factor in causing that drop.) There is a large body of research that shows that students' success in the classroom is directly tied to their attitudes toward their teacher.

This brings up another question: What do I have to do to gain a connection with my students? That question is related to a series of questions: Do I have to parent my students? What if my students hate me? Do I have to try to make my classroom like a video game/TV show/website/party spot in order to gain my students' affection? Isn't this idea like some of the discredited self-esteem training from a generation ago?

With those questions in mind, I want to make it very clear that a teacher who cares does not stop being a teacher. (Remember the old saying, "Students need a teacher, not a friend.") In fact, teachers who try to be friends, who try to be peers, who try to be cool, invariably fail at being teachers, friends, peers, or cool. Still, there is a connection between the teacher and the student that is as powerful as, though different from, the connection between two friends.

Additionally, teachers who try to enter the private worlds of their students without the students' permission will fail. You have no right to the secrets and private dreams of your students. When they trust you, they will share with you, but you can't rush the trust. Once they have shared, if you violate the trust, you will permanently damage all aspects of your relationship. (In some cases, like abuse or imminent harm to self or others, you may have to violate a trust; even so, if you have set your class up properly, students who reveal things that you must legally report will understand why you have reported something--even when they tell you in confidence.)

You must be a teacher; you must control your class; you must teach the content; you must be consistent with your rules and consequences; you must be just before you can be merciful; you must have high expectations; you must not allow laziness; in short, you must be all the things a professional teacher is.

But you must care. And over time, though not always at first, they will come to care, too. They will care what you think; they will care how they seem to you; they will care about you. Then the real teaching begins.

Jeff Combe