seeing students, classroom caring

When we teachers look out over classroom, what do we see? Half-civilized barbarians? Savages? A collection of deficits, or IQs, or averages? Do we see fellow creatures? (Ayers, 2001, p. 28)

Since I finished this week’s assigned reading - chapter 2 of William Ayer’s To Teach - a while ago, I sat down this morning to refresh myself on its content. As I did so, I was struck by the parallels between Ayers discussion of “Seeing the Student,” and this week’s readings for my Middle School Learners class, which centered on caring classrooms. One quote from these readings was “[E]ducation must focus on teaching all people how to live in an inclusive community where each person is treated with respect and dignity and enlisted to participate fully in the life of the community.” (Beck & Malley, 1998, p. 137) This and similar emphases ran throughout the readings. As Ayers discussed finding ways to engage students as whole persons, I recalled similar sentiments such as a particular passage which discussed how academic success is often difficult to achieve without ensuring students’ emotional and social well-being first.

To me, these kinds of thoughts dovetail nicely with Ayers assertion that we must strive to defeat the impulse toward deficit education - that “brainstorm[ing] a list of deficiencies” and then creating “a curriculum to correct these deficiencies” (2001, p. 29) is a destructive policy that strips individuals of their value. Focusing on correcting the deficits of our students grants educational strategies a distinct negative stance and says nothing about what students “know or care about,” or their “temperament or disposition of mind.” (Ayers, 2001, p, 30) Without knowledge of our students as whole persons, how can we incorporate a culture of caring in our classrooms? We run the risk of transforming students into checklists, marking success with an “X” in the box next to each insufficiency. As Ayers reminds - while not dismissing the real needs for students to learn certain skills - such a strategy only succeeds in making one feel rotten about one’s self.

In fact, in uncaring classrooms - such as might be created by transforming students into “to do” lists, - learning actually suffers. When students are seen as the sum of what they cannot do, when the fear is an inability to “measure up,” the result is too often exclusion from “participation in substantive academic interactions.” (Gay, 2000, p. 53) Ayers entreats us to construct an image, through careful attention and analysis, of our students as whole persons. He reminds us to base our observations “in many dimensions at once: intellectual, cultural, physical, spiritual, [and] emotional.” (Ayers, 2001, p. 33) When we have such a view of our students, learning both occurs more holistically, but also more deeply. When our students ‘ complex personal character - whether caring, patient, problem solving, or what have you - isn’t subsumed by his or her deficits, new approaches evolve, expectations are raised. As Gay writes, shifting focus toward caring supports strong academics: “[P]erformance expectations are complemented [by] uncompromising faith in…students and relentless efforts in helping them meet high academic demands.” (2000, p. 76)

One complaint I hear about this strategy of meticulous observation in order to “know the full measure of your students” (Ayers, 2001, p. 33) is that teachers simply don’t have enough time. In a classroom with 30 students and a packed curriculum, how do you manage to carefully observe each child’s individual interactions and document them carefully so you can compile a good composite later on? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that question, although Ayers suggestion to jot a short journal entry at the end of each day is probably one starting point I’ll attempt. I do believe that his strategy is an effective one and the effort, worthwhile. Without having been in a teacher’s shoes, however, it’s impossible to condemn an individual teacher’s conclusion that it can’t be done.

Classroom strategies suggested by Ayers really impressed me. Some of them may even suffice as a kind of response to objections based on time constraints. Some of his activities would be fine substitutes for a sociologically-styled pencil and notebook approach to observing students. For instance, one of the activities he suggests is teaching students how to interview one another, then giving them a microphone and a recorder and letting them have at it. All sorts of fascinating or even troubling insights could come from an exercise like this. You could learn that a student wants to be an astronaut or that one has an abusive home life. Both could frame your future interactions. Ayers is correct, in my opinion, when he concludes that “[w]hen teacher’s value their children’s opinions and experiences, children begin to think more openly, and we begin to see them differently.” (2001, p. 42)

Another great idea that I just loved was bringing in a “cultural artifact” from home. Selecting such an object would be a deeply personal choice for each student. As a result, knowledge of each individual student, of what’s important to him or her, and even of his unique culture, would all be divulged as the presentation of each object unfolded. This activity, in addition to being of enormous value to the teacher in gaining a sense of each of his pupils as persons, would also be of enormous value to the classroom as a whole. Activities like this help create a culture of caring in the classroom - they help students expand their worldviews to incorporate difference. Individuals also feel “validated…stronger, more able.” (Ayers, 2001, p, 42)

In all, I very much enjoyed Ayer’s chapter “Seeing the Student.” I believe he strongly advocated for and defended the notion of treating our students as the whole persons that they actually are, not just with weaknesses, but with unique strengths as well. I believe that by trying to incorporate some of the strategies outlined by Ayers in our classrooms, we can not only formulate a sense of who each of our students is a human being, but simultaneously foster a strong cooperative climate of caring in our classrooms. These dual strengths - creating positively attributed students who care about each other, will also help create a learning atmosphere capable of great academic achievements by its members. My hope is to become the kind of teacher who is able to see past the students’ deficits and deficiency- centered teaching and incorporate some these great ideas.

Ayers, W. (2001). To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher. New York. N.Y. & London: Teachers College Press.
Beck, M. and J. Malley (Fall 1998). “A Pedagogy of Belonging,” in Reclaiming Children and Youth, p. 133
Gay, G.(2000). Culturally Responsible teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.