The first days of school have begun. All those nervous days of anticipation are behind us, and stretching before us now is a bright new year full of promise and potential. School is a time of growth, learning, and preparation for what is to come. How can we maximize what our students and children accomplish during these precious months?
Last year at this time, I wrote about the importance of establishing routines to ensure that a year’s worth of learning can take place. Now is the time to set up routines once again. But this year I’d like to talk about another important topic – relationships – without which nothing can be accomplished.
This summer, there was a confluence of events that were particularly meaningful to me as a teacher. I got an unexpected call from a former student and congregant. She told me she was asking my husband to be her mesader kiddushin. This past Sunday, at her wedding, as I saw her walk down the aisle, I remembered a piece of advice I had heard around the time when I taught her: Don’t treat your students like the immature and mischievous girls they are now. Imagine them as kallahs walking down the aisle to the chupa. Talk to them like a professional solving a serious problem. Think of them as a mother patiently caring for her child. Treat them with that level of dignity, and teach that person who is hiding inside them now.
As I watched my former student glide down the aisle, I realized that I was seeing the image of what I had imagined when she was in ninth grade. This student was always kind, smart, and talented so it hadn’t been hard to imagine her with the confidence she now possesses in reality. I was privileged to be invited to be a part of this momentous occasion, years later, on a perfect day in August.
I can go for years without hearing from former students. This week, everywhere I turned, students popped up. I got a message from a mother letting me know that a former eighth-grade student was making a bris in Baltimore (mazal tov, Adina!) on the same day as the wedding. As I drove home from the wedding, another student sent me a message that she had accepted a prestigious job offer. The following day, I was in a park, when a mother with her tween daughter looked at me and said, “I know you.” After playing Jewish geography, we realized she was in my first class of students. She introduced me to her nine-year-old daughter as Morah Hochheimer.
I had a chance to see that my students had become the kallahs, professionals, wives, and mothers I had imagined them to be. Given that they all reached out around the same day, it seemed that an important message was hiding there.
The message for me was that, in chinuch, there are priorities and PRIORITIES, and we can’t forget the big picture in our focus on the details. Years later, neither I nor they remember the content I taught or the tests I gave. I know I challenged them academically as they had potential they needed to fulfill and needed the knowledge to live Jewish lives. The content and skills are not what have stood the test of time, though. What has survived the years is the warm relationship we share.
Someone told me that the most important thing I could do was to see my students for who they could be and believe in them. I was taught that a child has an inherent dignity that must be respected. When you see a child in this way, you start to care about them deeply, and they can’t help but learn.
Parents and teachers are always juggling two conflicting demands – educating and loving. As a parent and as a teacher, there are times I must be corrective; a child cannot learn without boundaries. But if I am only corrective, if I am only noticing faults and flaws and feeling disappointment that the child does not live up to expectations, the child will avoid me and not want to learn from me.
Education must be built on a foundation of caring and respect. Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” When I care first, when I believe in a child, the child wants to become what I see and make me proud.
What does it mean to care? Here are some ways:
- Everyone is different: Caring means something different to everyone. For one child, a favorite dinner equals love. For another, quality time is important. A third wants private praise. Still another likes public recognition. As the adult in the relationship, I need to pay attention and notice the recipient’s reactions to my caring actions, and try, as often as possible, to give in the way that is appreciated.
- “What’s important to you is important to me”: This is how Rabbi Orlowek summed up how to show caring. Parents get many clues about what is important to their children. If a child likes baseball, going to a game together, even though we find it to be frivolous, says a lot. Teachers should start to build a caring yet appropriate relationship at the beginning of the school year that tells our students that we want to know them and will do so on their terms. One way to do this is to give out generic questionnaires that are not too intimate and personal but that let the child tell us what’s on his or her mind.
- Check-ins: Being present when something is going wrong says a lot. For parents, it may mean just listening after a child has had a rough day at school, or recognizing that a foul mood is not personal and doing something kind in return. A teacher I know has a daily check-in form, where students tell the teacher whether they had a great, fine, or bad morning. They have the option to share a concern if they choose.
- Magic Relationship Ratio: In a bank, you have deposits and withdrawals. If there are too many withdrawals, a bank account goes into overdraft. A “bank account” exists in all relationships as well. Positive encounters are deposits; criticism and correction are withdrawals. Psychologist Dr. John Gottman writes, based on his research, that in healthy relationships, there is a 5:1 ratio. This means that parents and teachers need to have five positive interactions for every one critical one. At the beginning of the year, if there is too much negativity, the bank account might just shut down for good. Therefore, if you have any chance to make a deposit, take it. This means smiling, greeting students at the door, saying their name, and complimenting them on a good job. Keep filling the bank account, as withdrawals are inevitable.
- Be Trustworthy: All relationships are built on trust. Relationships where trust is present can withstand more than those in which trust has been broken. At this time of year, integrity and respect are vital for long term success. Don’t share private information about a child with anyone else. Don’t be seen gossiping, as students and children will always assume you are talking negatively about them as well. Keep your word. Use uplifting and complimentary language. Judge favorably and generously.
This year, the start of the school year coincides with the month of Elul. We are in a month that stands for ani ledodi vedodi li – I am to my Beloved, and my Beloved is to me. Hashem is looking to build a relationship with us in anticipation of the Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah. In merit of our trying to build warm and loving relationships with all our students and children, may we merit to have that same relationship of warmth with the Master of the Universe, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and to receive a positive judgment this Rosh Hashanah.
