well good afternoon before I begin
working on my PhD I spent over 20 years
teaching some level of English or
language arts and reading I started my
career with middle schoolers spent most
of it with high school students and a
little bit with junior college students
so I hope you’ll bear with me for a
couple of minutes but I’m gonna go back
to those roots and begin with a brief
vocabulary lesson so raise your hand if
you know the meaning of the word care
really I’m not gonna call on you all
right
and if you don’t feel like you could
give a textbook definition of the word
care and I would imagine you feel you
could demonstrate care if you had to so
kale is a word that has denotative
meaning that is clearly printed in most
dictionaries kara is also one of those
abstract words that has connotative
meaning subject to the emotional
experiences and reaction of the person
defining the word as such a study of the
word care comes up with two opposing
sets of synonyms on the one side you
have words like sympathy affection
compassion and empathy but on the other
side we have words like burden load
worry and duty so the word Care can
bring about those warm fuzzy feelings
you get when someone says I care about
you I really care what happens to you or
you can also invoke feelings of weight
and encumbrance as in I can’t hang out
with y’all after work or class tonight
because I need to go home and care for
my pet my husband and I have two boxers
and there have been plenty of times that
we’ve had to cancel out on friends or
leave early because we had to go home
and take care of our boys it’s because
they’re our responsibility which leads
me to the second word responsible what
does it mean to truly be responsible if
you look up responsible in the
dictionary you’ll find phrases like
having an obligation to do something or
being control over the care of someone
or something as part of one’s job or my
favorite definition of the word
responsible being the primary cause of
something and
for able to be blamed for it or credited
for it so I’d like for you to keep those
two words in mind care and responsible
and the definitions as we move forward
so in a very popular TED talk
Rita Pearson says that kids don’t learn
from people they don’t like this comment
was met with laughter and applause but
in reality this is a very accurate
statement that is no laughing matter at
all
children and adolescents tend to operate
on feelings and social influences if
they like a teacher they’ll work really
hard to be a good student to make that
teacher proud but students who have
conflicted relationships with their
teachers tend to like school a whole lot
less and show lower levels of
cooperation in the classroom setting so
students need a positive relationship
and a secure attachment to their
teachers one that is characterized by
high expectations social and academic
support authentic caring and genuine
interest in order to feel safe and
secure enough to explore their academic
capabilities stretch their intellectual
muscles reach beyond where they are and
achieve new levels of learning I kind of
like that
explore stretch reach and achieve but
students need teachers to be a help not
a hindrance as they go through this
journey and believe me whether we choose
consciously to be or not we are one or
the other a help or hindrance in fact
researchers examined the effect that a
positive teacher-student relationship
has on a student’s social emotional
cognitive behavioral and overall
academic growth and development and what
they found is that the type of
relationship that a student has with his
or her teacher has a significant and
definite effect on their overall school
success in fact students who have a
positive relationship with their
teachers tend to have higher grades
better standardized test scores a
greater willingness to take on new
challenges greater social competency
and fewer displays of misconduct in the
classroom so in other words a caring
responsible teacher one who builds
relationships and fosters a safe and
nurturing learning environment leads to
secure confidence students who trust
their teacher enough to work towards
academic and social growth which
ultimately leads the student to their
academic goals now since my academic
interest and research emphasis is in the
area of urban education and how to
create equity in education so that the
potential for academic success is
maximized for all students I want to
take a moment to point out how important
that teacher-student relation is for
historically marginalized students and
actually a positive student-teacher
relationship may be even more essential
in urban school settings where students
are faced with the additional challenges
of high poverty environments and
actually what has been found is that a
positive supportive teacher-student
relationship may actually lead to
academic resilience among students of
color and students of low socio-economic
background who are at a risk for lower
academic achievement
additionally african-american and
Hispanic students are said to benefit
more from close relationship with their
teachers than do white students yet in
urban school settings where a large
percentage of the students are of color
and from low socioeconomic backgrounds
and yet the teachers are mostly white
and middle-class there exists this
cultural mismatch that leads to a
distrust and a separation making that
secure positive relationship more
challenging to build and teachers
actually report higher levels of
relational negativity in their
relationships with children of color in
general and african-american students
and particularly are reported to have
poorer quality relationships with their
teachers consequently the very students
who need this positive supportive
relationship the most
are the ones who are experiencing it the
least the implication is that teachers
must be willing and able to initiate
encourage support and maintain positive
relationships with all of their students
especially those who are at risk for
negative outcomes so that’s me I went to
two elementary schools when I was little
my dad was in the military and right
when he decided that he was going to
retire I and my mom and my sisters
packed up and moved to my mom’s hometown
it was a small town and her mother was
very ill so she wanted to be close to
her mom we moved right next door to my
grandparents it was in a very low-income
area and I went to a very diverse school
y’all I loved school I had lots of
friends most who looked like me a lot
who didn’t I made excellent marks and I
don’t remember any negative interactions
or feelings about my teachers so my dad
finished up his service he came home and
we all packed up together and moved to
the other side of town now it was a
small town so the other side of town was
about five or ten miles away but it was
the other side of town so on the other
side of town in my new school I was one
of very very few children of color
I understood absolutely nothing that was
going on in the classroom even though I
had just transferred from the same grade
just a different school less than 10
miles away and I actually remember going
into the bathroom almost every day
especially during math and crying I went
from being smart confident and happy to
feeling dumb being teased about my
ponytails and being very sad at school I
believe that there are two major
influences that influence the sudden
degeneration of my academic intellect
and I did
development number one I think it was
the diverging levels of expectations
between the two schools which is a whole
dissertation in and of itself but also
it was my teachers lack of interest in
concern for our investment in me as a
student and my personal and academic
growth I can still see my teachers faces
as they looked at me with frustration
and disdain because I was so far behind
the other students in my old school they
set low expectations for the children
that were in that environment I met and
exceeded those expectations in my new
school they set no expectations for me
and I met those as well I believe that
if just if just one of my teachers had
taken the time to build a relationship
with me to be concerned to be to care
and took responsibility then they would
have seen that I was not less than I
just had some educational gaps due to
the systemic inequities between the two
schools across town and those gaps
needed to be filled but my experience in
that school and my encounter with those
teachers affected the rest of my
academic career up through my
undergraduate degree because I felt
unintelligent through much of that
journey and I struggled to succeed now
you might say but you did it you’re
standing in front of us and you’re
working on your PhD and that’s true my
parents encouraged me and that
encouragement was called restriction
punishment grounding loss of privileges
loss of phone privileges and we didn’t
even have cell phones so don’t touch
that dial couldn’t go up to dial the
phone but I muddled through but my
teachers were not a help they were a
hindrance and it had significant
negative effects on me so I believe that
in order for teachers to help their
students to succeed and to build those
positive relationships they have to show
care and be responsible I believe
that care can be the beginning of the
end of everything from school bullying
to high dropout rates and from the
disparities and disciplinary practices
to the so called achievement gap but how
do we show genuine care I’d like to
answer that question by looking at what
it means not to care
hurting ignoring disregarding neglecting
showing dislike injuring and hating I
don’t believe that any teacher goes into
the teaching profession wanting or
believing that these will be the words
that describe their relationship with
their students but these are the
opposite of caring and if we don’t
believe that we’re exhibiting these
damaging and detrimental behaviors by
not caring for our students the maybe at
the very least were being indifferent
and how does that sound
a teacher who is indifferent to the
academic and personal success of their
students and remember at the beginning
when I talked about the two opposing
sets of synonyms for the word care when
we truly care for our students we’re
going to experience this spectrum of
those words we’re going to have
compassion for our students we’re going
to have affection for our students we’re
going to sympathize with them and
empathize when we can we’re also going
to worry about them and sometimes we’re
going to feel burdened by what we have
to go through and deal with and work
with as teachers but we’re going to know
that it’s our duty and our
responsibility and so we’re going to do
it and remember my favorite definition
of the word responsible being the
primary cause of something and so able
to be blamed or credited for it okay
we’re gonna have students in our class
who didn’t come from literacy rich homes
students who didn’t get taught how to
count to 10 or write their letters or
write their name at the secondary level
we’re gonna come across students who
have yet to have that teacher who cared
and was responsible and so they’re
struggling
at the moment that that student becomes
your student whether or not he or she
continues to plummet or begins to rise
up may be contingent on whether or not
you care and take responsibility so if
we want to be quality teachers once
whose pedagogy is rooted in beliefs and
values that allow us to build positive
relationships and help our students to
succeed then we have to take some time
to do some critical reflection we have
to discover whether or not we have the
heart the heart to be in this caring
profession that we find ourselves in we
need to decide if we have the capacity
to care for all of our students and if
we don’t have the heart and we don’t
have the capacity then we need to be
humane enough to find another career so
I would like to make a call today I am
calling all responsible educators
calling on you to stand up and provide
your students with the care they need to
succeed calling on you to be responsible
calling on you to make a positive
difference in the life of your students
thank you [Applause]
working on my PhD I spent over 20 years
teaching some level of English or
language arts and reading I started my
career with middle schoolers spent most
of it with high school students and a
little bit with junior college students
so I hope you’ll bear with me for a
couple of minutes but I’m gonna go back
to those roots and begin with a brief
vocabulary lesson so raise your hand if
you know the meaning of the word care
really I’m not gonna call on you all
right
and if you don’t feel like you could
give a textbook definition of the word
care and I would imagine you feel you
could demonstrate care if you had to so
kale is a word that has denotative
meaning that is clearly printed in most
dictionaries kara is also one of those
abstract words that has connotative
meaning subject to the emotional
experiences and reaction of the person
defining the word as such a study of the
word care comes up with two opposing
sets of synonyms on the one side you
have words like sympathy affection
compassion and empathy but on the other
side we have words like burden load
worry and duty so the word Care can
bring about those warm fuzzy feelings
you get when someone says I care about
you I really care what happens to you or
you can also invoke feelings of weight
and encumbrance as in I can’t hang out
with y’all after work or class tonight
because I need to go home and care for
my pet my husband and I have two boxers
and there have been plenty of times that
we’ve had to cancel out on friends or
leave early because we had to go home
and take care of our boys it’s because
they’re our responsibility which leads
me to the second word responsible what
does it mean to truly be responsible if
you look up responsible in the
dictionary you’ll find phrases like
having an obligation to do something or
being control over the care of someone
or something as part of one’s job or my
favorite definition of the word
responsible being the primary cause of
something and
for able to be blamed for it or credited
for it so I’d like for you to keep those
two words in mind care and responsible
and the definitions as we move forward
so in a very popular TED talk
Rita Pearson says that kids don’t learn
from people they don’t like this comment
was met with laughter and applause but
in reality this is a very accurate
statement that is no laughing matter at
all
children and adolescents tend to operate
on feelings and social influences if
they like a teacher they’ll work really
hard to be a good student to make that
teacher proud but students who have
conflicted relationships with their
teachers tend to like school a whole lot
less and show lower levels of
cooperation in the classroom setting so
students need a positive relationship
and a secure attachment to their
teachers one that is characterized by
high expectations social and academic
support authentic caring and genuine
interest in order to feel safe and
secure enough to explore their academic
capabilities stretch their intellectual
muscles reach beyond where they are and
achieve new levels of learning I kind of
like that
explore stretch reach and achieve but
students need teachers to be a help not
a hindrance as they go through this
journey and believe me whether we choose
consciously to be or not we are one or
the other a help or hindrance in fact
researchers examined the effect that a
positive teacher-student relationship
has on a student’s social emotional
cognitive behavioral and overall
academic growth and development and what
they found is that the type of
relationship that a student has with his
or her teacher has a significant and
definite effect on their overall school
success in fact students who have a
positive relationship with their
teachers tend to have higher grades
better standardized test scores a
greater willingness to take on new
challenges greater social competency
and fewer displays of misconduct in the
classroom so in other words a caring
responsible teacher one who builds
relationships and fosters a safe and
nurturing learning environment leads to
secure confidence students who trust
their teacher enough to work towards
academic and social growth which
ultimately leads the student to their
academic goals now since my academic
interest and research emphasis is in the
area of urban education and how to
create equity in education so that the
potential for academic success is
maximized for all students I want to
take a moment to point out how important
that teacher-student relation is for
historically marginalized students and
actually a positive student-teacher
relationship may be even more essential
in urban school settings where students
are faced with the additional challenges
of high poverty environments and
actually what has been found is that a
positive supportive teacher-student
relationship may actually lead to
academic resilience among students of
color and students of low socio-economic
background who are at a risk for lower
academic achievement
additionally african-american and
Hispanic students are said to benefit
more from close relationship with their
teachers than do white students yet in
urban school settings where a large
percentage of the students are of color
and from low socioeconomic backgrounds
and yet the teachers are mostly white
and middle-class there exists this
cultural mismatch that leads to a
distrust and a separation making that
secure positive relationship more
challenging to build and teachers
actually report higher levels of
relational negativity in their
relationships with children of color in
general and african-american students
and particularly are reported to have
poorer quality relationships with their
teachers consequently the very students
who need this positive supportive
relationship the most
are the ones who are experiencing it the
least the implication is that teachers
must be willing and able to initiate
encourage support and maintain positive
relationships with all of their students
especially those who are at risk for
negative outcomes so that’s me I went to
two elementary schools when I was little
my dad was in the military and right
when he decided that he was going to
retire I and my mom and my sisters
packed up and moved to my mom’s hometown
it was a small town and her mother was
very ill so she wanted to be close to
her mom we moved right next door to my
grandparents it was in a very low-income
area and I went to a very diverse school
y’all I loved school I had lots of
friends most who looked like me a lot
who didn’t I made excellent marks and I
don’t remember any negative interactions
or feelings about my teachers so my dad
finished up his service he came home and
we all packed up together and moved to
the other side of town now it was a
small town so the other side of town was
about five or ten miles away but it was
the other side of town so on the other
side of town in my new school I was one
of very very few children of color
I understood absolutely nothing that was
going on in the classroom even though I
had just transferred from the same grade
just a different school less than 10
miles away and I actually remember going
into the bathroom almost every day
especially during math and crying I went
from being smart confident and happy to
feeling dumb being teased about my
ponytails and being very sad at school I
believe that there are two major
influences that influence the sudden
degeneration of my academic intellect
and I did
development number one I think it was
the diverging levels of expectations
between the two schools which is a whole
dissertation in and of itself but also
it was my teachers lack of interest in
concern for our investment in me as a
student and my personal and academic
growth I can still see my teachers faces
as they looked at me with frustration
and disdain because I was so far behind
the other students in my old school they
set low expectations for the children
that were in that environment I met and
exceeded those expectations in my new
school they set no expectations for me
and I met those as well I believe that
if just if just one of my teachers had
taken the time to build a relationship
with me to be concerned to be to care
and took responsibility then they would
have seen that I was not less than I
just had some educational gaps due to
the systemic inequities between the two
schools across town and those gaps
needed to be filled but my experience in
that school and my encounter with those
teachers affected the rest of my
academic career up through my
undergraduate degree because I felt
unintelligent through much of that
journey and I struggled to succeed now
you might say but you did it you’re
standing in front of us and you’re
working on your PhD and that’s true my
parents encouraged me and that
encouragement was called restriction
punishment grounding loss of privileges
loss of phone privileges and we didn’t
even have cell phones so don’t touch
that dial couldn’t go up to dial the
phone but I muddled through but my
teachers were not a help they were a
hindrance and it had significant
negative effects on me so I believe that
in order for teachers to help their
students to succeed and to build those
positive relationships they have to show
care and be responsible I believe
that care can be the beginning of the
end of everything from school bullying
to high dropout rates and from the
disparities and disciplinary practices
to the so called achievement gap but how
do we show genuine care I’d like to
answer that question by looking at what
it means not to care
hurting ignoring disregarding neglecting
showing dislike injuring and hating I
don’t believe that any teacher goes into
the teaching profession wanting or
believing that these will be the words
that describe their relationship with
their students but these are the
opposite of caring and if we don’t
believe that we’re exhibiting these
damaging and detrimental behaviors by
not caring for our students the maybe at
the very least were being indifferent
and how does that sound
a teacher who is indifferent to the
academic and personal success of their
students and remember at the beginning
when I talked about the two opposing
sets of synonyms for the word care when
we truly care for our students we’re
going to experience this spectrum of
those words we’re going to have
compassion for our students we’re going
to have affection for our students we’re
going to sympathize with them and
empathize when we can we’re also going
to worry about them and sometimes we’re
going to feel burdened by what we have
to go through and deal with and work
with as teachers but we’re going to know
that it’s our duty and our
responsibility and so we’re going to do
it and remember my favorite definition
of the word responsible being the
primary cause of something and so able
to be blamed or credited for it okay
we’re gonna have students in our class
who didn’t come from literacy rich homes
students who didn’t get taught how to
count to 10 or write their letters or
write their name at the secondary level
we’re gonna come across students who
have yet to have that teacher who cared
and was responsible and so they’re
struggling
at the moment that that student becomes
your student whether or not he or she
continues to plummet or begins to rise
up may be contingent on whether or not
you care and take responsibility so if
we want to be quality teachers once
whose pedagogy is rooted in beliefs and
values that allow us to build positive
relationships and help our students to
succeed then we have to take some time
to do some critical reflection we have
to discover whether or not we have the
heart the heart to be in this caring
profession that we find ourselves in we
need to decide if we have the capacity
to care for all of our students and if
we don’t have the heart and we don’t
have the capacity then we need to be
humane enough to find another career so
I would like to make a call today I am
calling all responsible educators
calling on you to stand up and provide
your students with the care they need to
succeed calling on you to be responsible
calling on you to make a positive
difference in the life of your students
thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: