Category: Teachers

“they don't pay me to like the kids”

8/9/2022

A few months before she died unexpectedly at age 61, Texas educator Rita Pierson gave a TED Talk and recalled a colleague telling her, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like."

We’ve known for quite some time that positive teacher-student relationships boost students’ academic achievement. We’ve always assumed that this is because students feel safe to take risks with someone they trust and are motivated to do their best work.

Research published earlier this month, however, explores a different explanation for the higher test scores and GPAs in classrooms where relationships are strongest: Are these students learning more because they are being taught more effectively? That is: do positive teacher-student relationships actually change the way that teachers teach?

It turns out the answer is “Yes.” This is some of the first research that really examines the effect of positive teacher-student relationships on teachers themselves.

The study recently published in the journal Learning and Instruction focused on evaluation data gathered over two school years for Missouri educators teaching grades 4-10. The researchers conclude:

Positive teacher-student relationships lead primary and secondary teachers to move effectively implement three complex teaching practices examined in this study: cognitive engagement in the content, problem solving and critical thinking, and instructional monitoring… teachers are more likely to check in, monitor, scaffold, provide more constructive feedback to students, have greater confidence in their students’ abilities and use better scaffolding strategies for critical thinking.

The researchers were also able to test “the direction of effect,” meaning they were able to show that the positive teacher-student relationships predict and precede higher-quality instruction. This was true regardless of the teacher’s years of experience, the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at the school, and the school-level proficiency rate on state tests.

Why do I bring this up right now? Because we’re heading into a new school year, and we would do well to spend some time in the first weeks attending to relationships. I don’t mean the traditional “fill out this questionnaire, Back To School Night” kinds of interactions: I mean prioritizing and investing the time it takes for teachers to deeply know their students, and vice versa. This investment will pay dividends all year long. Last August, I wrote about what this could look like. At the time I was thinking about its effect on students, but this recent research now has me considering its effect on teachers, too.

When I was a teacher a million years ago, conventional wisdom held that teachers should be especially stern the first few weeks of school. Lay down the law. Demonstrate that you are in control. This was especially true if you were a 23-year-old teaching high school students just seven or eight years younger than you.

There’s no question that teachers need classroom management skills. But they also need relationship skills, and the time to apply them, which I believe create the conditions for a well-functioning classroom.

Good relationships improve student learning. And it just may be that teachers have as much to gain as their students in the bargain.

“Your legacy will be what you love."

5/6/2022

On Wednesday, the Arlington Public Schools hosted its annual "Celebration of Excellence" to honor exemplary employees who have been nominated by their colleagues, students and members of the community.

As a School Board member, it was a treat to be at the ceremony and to recognize the eleven teachers, support employees and principal who were honored.

One of the honorees, Iris Gibson, is a business education teacher at the Langston High School Continuation Program, and she gave a speech that really moved me.

It's National Teacher Appreciation Week, and Iris's words remind me how life-changing, complex, and wonderful the work of teaching can be.

She says it better than I ever could, and she's given me permission to share her words with you.

I am beyond honored to be recognized for this award. I only have five minutes so let me quickly say thank you to APS and my colleagues who, in an incredibly difficult year, took on the extra work of nominating me for this award. And behind every award is usually an incredibly supportive spouse and I have that in spades. My community of colleagues, friends and family is the living embodiment of the Mark Shields quote: “None of us drink from a well we dug by ourselves.”

Thank you.

I feel incredibly fortunate to teach in Arlington with such an amazing array of schools and programs that attempt to meet so many different needs, be it IB or Spanish Immersion or the vocational education or life skills, or my own Langston which does amazing work to support students for whom the larger comprehensive high schools just weren’t the right fit. APS is truly trying to meet students where they are and I feel very blessed.

30 years ago, my husband and I went to a small church in Seattle to hear Dr. Cornel West speak. He said something that has stuck with me over the decades. He said “your legacy will be what you love.” Your legacy will be what you love. I love teaching. I love my students.

Before I began teaching at the high school level, I taught economics in college.

If you told me that I would learn to recognize when my student with schizophrenia was hearing the scary voices and when she was hearing the funny voices, I definitely would have looked at you side-eyed.

If you told me that I would be pulling a student aside to ask them in private if they were a danger to themselves, I might have panicked.

If you told me that I’d have to create in-class lessons that covered all of the required material without any homework because my students leave school, go directly to work and work 20, 40 even 60 hours a week to support themselves and send money to their families, I’d have looked at you incredulously.

If you told me I would be standing next to an open casket with my arm around my student while my colleague Erika tells her father how proud we are of his daughter….well you get the idea.

But then I also get to be one of the “parents” that accompany a student, who came to the U.S. on her own from Guatemala, to the Marymount University new student orientation.

I get the texts updating me that she made the dean’s list. Again.

I get to be picked up and literally spun in the air when my student passes my CTE exam, the last graduation requirement standing between him, his diploma and the Marines.

I get to see that student who went from being in the juvenile justice system to studying the juvenile justice system in college.

And I also get to see the simple gratitude on a student’s face when I use “he” instead of “she.”

I was even accidentally called “mom” once. And yes, I teach high school.

What a gift.

I’ve become more and more confident over the years that teaching is all about relationships. You are probably all familiar with the quote from Maya Angelou:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

A former student of mine gave me a small plaque when he graduated and it sits on my desk. Inscribed on it he says that he may not always remember everything I said, but he’ll always remember how special I made him feel. Secretly I’m thinking, can’t it be both? (I really want you to remember what I said about only making the minimum payments on your credit card bill…)

It seems these days all over the country, teachers are expected to perform superhuman feats. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s too much on our shoulders and I know it can be exhausting. Teacher burnout is real and we do need to speak up for each other and for what we need as educators and for our students.

But every day you matter.

Your legacy will be what you love.

Let’s make it a good one.

Thank you.

Speech by Iris Gibson, 2022 Arlington Public Schools Teacher of the Year, delivered at the Celebration of Excellence ceremony on May 4, 2022.

“they don't pay me to like the kids”

“Your legacy will be what you love."

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