Overview:
The most important role of teachers is not only to teach academic content but to promote self-confidence and guide students to achieve their potential by supporting them in the challenges they face inside and outside the classroom.
All teachers know that there is much more to teaching than achieving a clear syllabus outline. In fact, the most important achievement is highlighted by an email I received from Logan’s mother after teaching him math: “…Logan ended up with a 91 in math!!!! …You have changed Logan’s confidence, drive and school approach.” For teachers, helping students find a path that leads to the best version of themselves is the most important contribution we can make to the development of our students. Perhaps most strikingly, this effect can be seen in the 16th century oath taken by French knights who were initiated into the Order of the Holy Spirit. Surely this part of their oath will be heard by the teachers: “Our paths are bright because of those who were before us.”
My first experience lighting the way for a middle school student was in 2003. My day job was at a bank and I taught at local colleges in the evenings. An advanced opportunity to teach a four-week marketing module to graduate pharmacy students. The first night a mother brought her middle school daughter to class because she wanted an aide. Maria stayed close to her mother and when Maria finished her homework she focused on me. In response to the question I asked, Maria raised her hand. Calling him, he gave the correct answer and during the remaining three periods he shared equally with the other students. In the last class I gave him a medal for his outstanding contribution (Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince).
Reviewing the students’ coursework after the last session, one with very neat printing and creative spelling and wording caught my eye. I’m watching it now. In the question – What, if anything, was the most important thing you learned in this module? – Maria answered, “I’m smart!” Knowing Maria, I knew there was no bragging about her answer and how amazing it was to be a part of helping Maria reach that conclusion!
Because Maria went to our first session because she didn’t have someone to sit with, I asked myself, Where is her father? It was the first time, perhaps because of his age, that I thought seriously about a student’s life outside the classroom. In 1961, when I was in the 6th grade, my warm and kind-hearted father died. Cancer uses painful and frightening arithmetic; always reduces. I saw my father getting thinner and thinner and I knew that his days were getting shorter. Of course he knew that much better and more intimately than I did, especially at the end. With a voice full of fear, my mother recalled that on the last night, my father’s usual speech of “See you tomorrow” was replaced with “Goodbye.” The day he died was a school day and my mother must have thought it better to let me come home as usual rather than having someone pick me up in the morning. So, as usual, I took a 10 minute walk from the bus stop to home. When our house came into view, I saw cars parked closer than usual. The cars told me that my father had died, but they did not comfort me. How my father’s passing affected my school life, or if anyone at school, students or teachers, said anything about it, I don’t remember.
I know I will never forget the lesson Josh’s father taught me, even though I never met him. I had volunteered as a teacher at St Michael-St Clement primary/middle school after retiring from banking in 2017, and taught Josh at middle school. Josh’s performance in math was almost the same and as this soft-spoken young man is determined to try to improve he qualified as one of my favorite students. After our sessions in the second floor classroom we would walk down the stairs and talk. Then enter through the doors and enter the side path on the private road of the school. It allows parents to drop off and pick up their children more safely than doing so on the road in front of the school. But Josh’s father always parked on the street far from the school, even when the driveway was clear. Finally, I asked Josh about it. Josh casually replied that his father did not want to be captured by the security cameras. It’s funny on one level and disturbing on another. Either way, I was reminded that many of the factors that influence a child’s ability to learn are beyond my control and that I need to be sensitive to what a student may be experiencing outside of school.
Like Josh, Jason is different in many ways. He is the only student I know who love stats despite his below average performance. Jason has learning difficulties that are reflected in the accommodations he has provided to use a calculator even in situations where other students are not allowed to do so. However, he always asks me to show him how to do math without the help of a calculator. So we work on a problem together, and I give him the same type of problem (long division, for example), but with different numbers. Unfortunately, if he is given different numbers, he cannot follow the steps from the example, he does not remember how to go from one step to another. So, we work together and he asks for another long division problem to solve on his own. Any mathematical mastery that Jason achieves is part of his personal development. Will his confidence grow? Will he fully appreciate what I repeatedly praise him for, his desire to learn and his commitment to achieving that goal?
Recently, Jason expressed regret that I don’t teach high school math. The good-hearted 8th grader simply said, “I’ll miss you next year.” After talking with his stepmother it became clearer that Jason wasn’t just asking for help with high school math. His thoughtful, unspoken request was reflected in how Logan’s mother believes it helped her son: “You changed Logan’s confidence, driving and school approach.” In addition to the specific course we teach, isn’t that the greatest outcome of helping our students achieve? And if we do, will we not really fulfill our unspoken vow to ‘light the way for others’? And yes, I will be tutoring Jason in high school!
