Meeting standards and showing caring, compassion, and respect do not constitute an either/or situation in the classroom. In fact, both are necessary. Unless students experience a positive and supportive climate, some may never achieve even the most minimum of standards or realize their full potential.
I have not always felt this way. When I began teaching, I set specific standards for my students, and it was up to them to meet those standards. Did I care for my students and show compassion? Yes. Did I respect my students? Yes. But what I felt for my students did not affect my insistence that they meet my standards or fail my class. Not until six years after Eugene Brown left my 10th grade English class did I realize that I needed to reevaluate my thinking about the importance of standards and the role that caring, compassion, and respect play in the classroom. It was Eugene Brown who changed my concepts of what constitutes the heart of a good education and what constitutes success.
Eugene wasn't the biggest trouble maker I have ever had in my English classes, but he was one of the most frustrating. He wasn't mean or rude; he was just always doing something he wasn't supposed to do—or not doing the things that he should. At least three days a week, Eugene was late to class. He always had an excuse—never valid, but always entertaining. Eugene was the class clown, and he knew how far he could push me. Only rarely would he cross the invisible line between barely acceptable behavior and totally unacceptable behavior that would send him to the front office. He never had his homework done on time, and his failure on tests was the norm. And yet I knew that Eugene was smart. And I knew that if Eugene would just settle down (the way I wanted him to) and that if he would just do what he was supposed to do (the way I wanted him to do it), he could and would succeed in my class. Because I was fairly new to teaching, and because I was sure that I knew what was best for Eugene, I decided to make him see the error of his ways, to help him change those ways, and to watch him as he found his path to success and happiness.
I don't remember how many times I took Eugene into the hallway to discuss his behavior. I don't remember how many excuses I listened to, and I don't remember how many times Eugene gave me a big smile and promised to do better. I do, however, remember the frustration I felt every time Eugene got into trouble in my class. But despite my exasperation, I refused to give up, even when his behavior pushed me to the wall. I couldn't accept failing with Eugene, and I didn't quit because I knew that it was important that I believe in Eugene, even when he didn't believe in himself. The weeks with Eugene turned into months, and as the year moved toward a close, I realized that his behavior hadn't changed much. Instead of getting Eugene to reach his full potential in my class, I had barely gotten him to pass. I had failed with Eugene, and I was disappointed in myself as a teacher.
Redefining Success
I did not see Eugene after that year. I knew that he stayed in school, and I heard stories about him from time to time. I regretted my lack of success with Eugene, and I wondered how I might have gotten through to him. After he graduated, I lost track of Eugene. Six years later, I ran into him again.
My husband's grandmother needed surgery for a broken hip that was not healing properly. I knew that she was frightened and in a lot of pain, so when I went to visit her in the hospital on the day of her surgery, I expected to find a distraught woman. Instead, as I approached her room, I heard her laughing. When I entered, I learned the source of that laughter—the orderly who was preparing to take her to surgery. Imagine my surprise when the orderly turned around and I recognized Eugene.
Eugene continued to have contact with Grandma during her hospital stay, and I enjoyed watching him work with her, distracting her from her pain and making her laugh. He could not have shown more caring or compassion to his own grandmother. When I tried to tell him how grateful I was to him, he stopped me and told me that it was he who was grateful to me. He said that I had been the first teacher who had ever believed in him and that even though he continued to give me a hard time in class, he had paid attention to what I said and stayed in school. He had enlisted in the army after high school and had trained as a medical corpsman. Eugene now worked at the hospital and attended school at night.
I tell this story about Eugene to illustrate the importance of caring and compassion in education. What I didn't understand at the time I had Eugene in class, and what I would not understand until I became reacquainted with him years later, was that I had been successful with Eugene. I just hadn't understood that more than one definition of success was possible. I doubt that Eugene would have done well on the state tests that are mandatory for many students today, and I know that Eugene did not fulfill the academic potential that I believed he had in high school. Eugene had, however, stayed in school, acquired the basic skills he needed, and fulfilled his potential later in life—when he was ready.
Spreading the Message
My involvement with the Coalition of Essential Schools has given me the opportunity to facilitate study groups throughout my district. At these voluntary monthly meetings, participants discuss school reform at the individual school level. They care about their schools and want to make them better. Discussions center on the Ten Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools and on how schools can best integrate those principles to better educate all students. But I always begin by asking the groups to envision what they believe "typical graduates" should look like.
Instead of focusing on national or state skills and competencies, participants always talk about the importance of helping students become happy, productive, well-rounded citizens—citizens much like the ones originally described by John Dewey in Democracy and Education (1916) and elaborated on by Mortimer Adler in The Paideia Proposal (1982). As stated by Adler, students need to get more than specific bits of knowledge in school. They also need to obtain "habits of learning" and to prepare themselves to become lifelong learners because "education is a lifelong process of which schooling is only a small but necessary part" (p. 10).
All teachers know that they teach far more than subject matter in their classrooms, but they don't always know what they have taught. A popular question these days is, "If all students can learn, why aren't all students learning?" When someone asks me that question, I reply that they are learning—they just aren't always learning what we are testing, or they aren't being tested on what they have chosen to learn.
Students benefit more from caring, compassionate educators who respect them as individuals than they do from raised standards. It is up to us as educators to reevaluate our own concepts of learning and success and to realize that each student must follow his or her own educational path. Then and only then will we understand what is truly at the heart of a meaningful education for all students.
