A Lesson That Can't Be Graded
The air is thick these days with talk of education reform, of adding exit
exams and raising standards and providing tougher discipline. It’s good to
hear, as far as it goes. But there’s one thing missing, one element more
likely to come from Mister
Rogers than from Bill Clinton or Gray Davis. Caring. “It’s not talked about,
not by teachers, parents, not by politicians,” says Bruce Dickson, who in
four years as a substitute teacher has been through 300 classrooms in
more than 100 schools.
“It’s going to make the difference whether we produce decent citizens. But
it’s not
going to make headlines, not going to get votes. Can’t you just imagine some
politician saying ‘Elect me; we’re going to have caring in the classroom.’ ”
When Debby Collins came to Monrovia’s Plymouth Elementary as a new principal
11 years ago, she inherited a struggling public school with a dispirited
staff and
dismal test scores. She convened a meeting and asked her teachers: “What’s
keeping you from teaching these kids?” Their answer: the kids’ behavior.
Collins had spent 11 years in the classroom and knew what they meant. It’s hard
for even the most diligent teacher when a class is constantly interrupted
by squabbles, students flouting the rules. “We tried every kind of
punishment you could imagine,” Collins recalls. But anger only begat anger.
Now, each day at Plymouth begins with classroom meetings, where students
shake hands, greet one another, sing songs, tell stories, share. The teacher
offers praise and
encouragement and explains the day ahead. It only takes about
20 minutes, but its influence ripples through the rest of the day.
“We’ve found it creates such a community of shared learners,” says Collins, “that
you don’t have the fights, the arguments that used to take up so much class
time.”
Lessons in caring. You can’t tack them onto a lesson plan. “What you’re really
teaching is empathy,” explains teacher Marty Kirschen, “and you have to model
that for your students. You have to teach yourself to be patient, to
really listen.” Kirschen spent eight years moving through dozens of schools as
a substitute teacher–his second career, after 20 years as a finance manager
in the entertainment industry. In every school, he says, he found “a handful
of teachers who are naturally nurturing and giving. And there’s another group
that wishes they could be that way.”
That’s the group Kirschen and Dickson are trying to reach with a series of
Saturday morning workshops called “Teaching From Our Hearts.”
So far, attendance has been disappointing–only about eight to 10 teachers at each
session. But Kirschen thinks that reflects not teacher apathy, but his and Dickson’s
difficulty spreading the word. They pitched the concept to the school board
and the teachers’ union but, Kirschen says, neither was interested. “So we
decided to start where we are–teacher to
teacher–and let it grow.” Kirschen began his first full-time teaching job in
the fall.
“It’s difficult, and I don’t always like myself when I’m in front of that
classroom,” he admits. “But I apologize, say to the children, ‘I don’t like
the way my voice sounded just then, so let me try that again.’ ” He’d like
every teacher to have a chance to meet regularly with peers, to have a place
“where you could say, ‘I yelled at Johnny today and I know there’s a better
way to deal with him,’ and we could share ideas, help each other. . . .”
It’s not clear that practicing caring will produce smarter, high-achieving
kids. The
test scores at Plymouth Elementary continue to hover around the 50th percentile–not
good, but not shameful either, for a school with such low income and high transiency.
But Collins is not too concerned about test data. She’s betting instead on
what she
sees on the playground, and in the class where she teaches fourth-grade
science.
“I believe you can have children who care for one another and who achieve. . . .
The other day we were learning about simple machines, and I talked to the students
about working cooperatively, about sharing. And I said, ‘Maybe sometimes you don’t
want to share with somebody, because they’re not your friend or you don’t like
them.’ And one child raised his hand and said ‘Miss Collins, we’re all friends
in this
classroom. You don’t have to worry about that.’ “Now I can’t write that on a
data sheet and use it to say my school is succeeding. I can’t prove it, I
can’t quantify it. But I wouldn’t trade it.”
* Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail
address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.
– Sandy Banks – LA Times