hopeless musings

if a gen ed teacher doesn't want to work with a specific child (for various reasons), then he will paint the child's performance in consistently negative terms, and possibly not work to construct real solutions (i.e., "she's hopeless... i think your child should be pulled out of my class... she's too much to handle, she shouldn't be MY responsibility."). if the same teacher thinks that that same child has nowhere else to go (i.e, "the buck stops here") and he has to make the best of a perhaps nonideal situation, then he will be far more invested in working on a solution.

what i'm trying to say is: hopelessness (of escape) is the authentic crucible for the creation of hope. hope (as escapism, as some vague "other person, other answer somewhere out there") is abdication, and true hopelessness.

***

as an educator, i've realized that the biggest tool i have to work with is hope. hope is what i have to cultivate within me, and it is what i have to ignite my students with: hope that they can do something challenging, hope that they aren't limited to what people say they are, hope that their lives can be fulfilling and that they are in control of its direction.

like water, or any medium that functions to pass from areas of high concentration to lower concentration, hope is most effective when "pressurized" and then released in specific streams, to specific purpose. when hope is vague and diffuse, then it is like the faintest of drizzles: you can't feel it, and it might as well be not raining...

in order to "pressurize" hope, a person HAS to accept a certain amount of responsibility for the moment. and it's not an "active responsibility" (or it doesn't have to be). it's more of an openness, a realization that you are connected with everything, and that the suffering of one (particularly with regards to the feeling of hopelessness) is intimately tied to YOUR suffering. once you accept this responsibility, then you really have no choice but to help the person who is ostensibly "hopeless."

that's why it is never "good practice" to describe a student as "hopeless." to do so is to cut the tether or lifeline from the student. to do so is to say as much about your power and passion as an educator as it is to say anything about the student.

there is always hope. there must be. the work of an educator, again, is to deal in hope. it's not to fill a student's head with such-and-such information to pass the hsa test; it's not even to make him/her an "independent" or "complex thinker." i mean that it is this, and it isn't. these things are just the branches, the leaves. the real root we need to nourish is the child's hope: hope in the self, hope in the teacher, hope in all relationships, hope in the world, hope for a place in that world.

***

i'm a parent as well as a teacher. i once mused that, in order for parents to be good parents, and teachers to be good teachers, parents must be more like teachers, and teachers must be more like parents. just so i'm not misconstrued:

"parents must be more like teachers": i think that parents are, ultimately, the child's teachers. unfortunately, i think that some parents are not fully aware or conscious that they are playing this role. especially when it comes to academics, many parents (including me, unfortunately) tend to think that the child will "figure things out" independently, or at least eventually at school ("that's what the teachers are paid for"). in other words, parents don't take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the performance of their child.

this is one thing i have realized. you can't necessarily count on the child to "realize" things on their time table. i was once a heavy proponent for what is called the constructivist model of education, the "if you build it, then the child will learn" philosophy. i still believe in many of its tenets, but i don't hold to it exclusively any more. sure, you can surround a child with great books to read and art supplies and whatever, but there are many children who will NOT spontaneously develop an interest in literature or painting or whatever just because the materials are there. SOMEONE has to explicitly teach, and yes, at times PUSH the child to do something, to learn something. as we often mentioned in religion class, "nothing gives," i.e., nothing happens on its own.

you also can't rely on the school or teachers. heck, they are overworked and underpaid. how are they supposed to know the specific needs of your child, and address them one on one? they CAN'T. if they are good teachers, then they may be better at this, but they only have a small amount of time with your child. ultimately, you as the parent are responsible for this. the parent is, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, a child's first and primary teacher. accept the role. embody the role.

parents should know what a child's strengths and weaknesses are, and do as much as possible to bolster those weaknesses... whether it is "encouraging" reading, restricting access to mind numbing television or nintendo dsi or wii, etc.

okay. "teachers should be more like parents." i debated this one for a while. at one interview, i carefully delineated the two roles, basically saying that teachers don't and shouldn't share the same sort of responsibility that parents do. now, i realize that things aren't and shouldn't be so clear cut. teachers ARE the student's parents- in the context of school, and for the period of the school day. (oftentimes beyond).

it would be nice and convenient if the work of a teacher were limited to passing on the curriculum. i suppose in higher education, this is the case, and it is as it should be, because we are presumably dealing with responsible adults. but in truth, no matter what we are teaching, we can never limit what we teach to the syllabus. we are dealing with people. we are, in essence, responsible for people, in the same way that parents are "tied to" their children. our students, and the performance of our students, represent us, just as much as they represent their parents.

if teachers truly feel this (often painful) responsibility, then they may despair (like many parents do), but they will be far more invested in making the child a better person (they HAVE to). but then again, this makes a great teacher: someone who REALLY cares for the child, who advocates for him/her, etc.

the sign of a poor teacher, or at least one who is nonideal for a child, who will not ultimately help a child grow, is one that throws up his hands and says, "i give up on this child... she is just plain stupid/unfocused/incorrigible. her test results shouldn't reflect upon my performance. she is just a bad seed. she is... HOPELESS."

***

here's another piece of advice: when you communicate bad news that is potentially damaging to a person's self-esteem (criticism), as much as possible, you should always sandwich it in positive statements. you should also be sensitive to timing, to setting, etc. also, if you do have a criticism, you should offer a possible solution. otherwise, you leave the recipient feeling wounded and hopeless...

i wish a few layoffs would have been delivered with more sensitivity...