Why is an emotion like “love” so much stronger than other emotions? In the Buddhist tradition it’s really all about intention. If you “love” a teacher it may be more of an inspiring-love, or respectful love. Not passionate love. So love really is a dynamic idea.
But love attached to a strong intention, with a tinge of “wow” “awe” “respect” “perceived truth” creates a much deeper imprint and the effects of that imprint are much stronger.
Thanks for this!
17
Why is this a surprise? Using strictly patriarchal models might produce a “result,” but injecting that with Matrirchal culture values produces caring and empathy. Any employer knows that if you treat people strictly as drones, you get standardized results from them. But if you treat them like family, they’ll go to the ends of the earth for you. And including people in your emotional bubble is akin to treating them like family. Suddenly you become a person, and people can care about other people. They do not care nearly as much about stiff-as-a-board-authoritarians.
12
At our school, we find learning IS social and emotional. Our work centers around student voice - asking students about the skill sets they have and need help developing in order to grow and to be efficacious in their own academic, social and emotional development. Our teachers use their lens to view students' social and emotional health as a portrait of a graduate (rather than GPA or test scores), so we can honor their needs, address their wellness, and approach their learning through a developmental lens. How fortunate that in my lifetime we as educators have education research leaders at Aspen, CASEL, and universities climb down the proverbial ivory tower and provide usable knowledge to school-based leaders! #StudentVoice #SEL #StudentsFirst
7
I wouldn't say "love," but "admire" or "trust."
15
The United States is and anti-intellectual country. They love sports, education and knowledge not so much.
21
Ha, ha, ROTFL. College education is moving about as far away from social and emotional context as possible. Administrators keen on cost savings, and students keen on not putting behinds in seats if they can avoid it, are making online education (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) an ever larger part of higher ed. So, now college students can be just like the infants watching Chinese speakers on a video screen. And as an added bonus, with more and more classes being taught by adjuncts cobbling together gigs on multiple campuses, office hours are disappearing too. As usual, Mr. Brooks needs to get out of his privileged bubble and see how things go for those in the middle and lower tiers. Nobody is paying attention to their emotional development, except maybe overworked mental health counselors in the student health office.
33
Thank you for this, David.
7
Science Magzine interviewed me on this topic. They used the term Belonging.... instead of love. But take home messagevis same.
Thank you Mr. Brooks
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/01/sense-belonging-matters-s-why-academic-culture-needs-change
8
Another clueless column from David Brooks. Doesn't he know that most teachers now a days come from the bottom third of their graduating class. (This statistic is disguised by blatant grade inflation.) Doesn't Brooks know that most teachers quit within five years due to our dysfunctional schools?)
Brooks is obviously relating to some majority white, private school, where white teachers thrill intelligent upper class kids with stories from ancient Greece and Shakespeare. So yeah, there's an emotional connection between upper class white teachers and upper class white students.
But in real world public schools? The teachers are lucky if they just get half the the kids reading at grade level. (And don't get mugged in the parking lot.)
14
David's op-ed reminded me of this new book by Nat Damon that is all about relational teaching. It should be read by all teachers as a shot in the arm and a reminder that learning is cognitive and emotional.
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Teach-Teachers-Relational-Teaching/dp/1999663705/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MZJFNZ3L9WPZ&keywords=time+to+teach+time+to+reach&qid=1547807541&s=Books&sprefix=time+to+teach%2Caps%2C138&sr=1-1
From the expert teacher's point of view and a refreshing look at what teaching really is. Falls in line with everything in David's op-ed and hopefully present and future conversations at back to school nights with teachers and parents.
5
When I most recently taught at a good community college, students always mentioned the passion I brought to teach Literature and Humanities.
Unfortunately, the student reviews became more and more numerical, and people I gave a "mercy D" to accused me of unfairness, racism, etc. Rate my Professors.com is like Twitter--people who loved me never posted, but anyone who got less than a C said terrible things.
25
I would start by paying teachers a lot more money. You can't have enough positive emotions to offer your students if you're not in a secure position yourself. Working for low wage, they're at the mercy of rent increases. Having to pay for school supplies out of their own wallets, that really has to be an emotional drain on teachers. Remove these financial stresses from the lives of teachers and then we can decide how best to channel the positive emotions that emerge.
39
I would say students learn from people they "respect" rather than "love." When I was in college, I asked Walter Berns, a well-known conservative authority on the Supreme Court to be my adviser. He was strongly taken aback and tried to talk me out of it. He simply could not comprehend why one of the relatively few, outspoken campus liberals wanted him. (I think Berns actually felt he must have done something "wrong", somehow had failed, if a liberal wanted him as adviser.) I insisted, and he relented. It was all about my respect for Berns, having had a course with him, having watched how he operated, knowledgeably encouraging us to think and disagree with him, which I did, teaching me much in the process. For which I shall always be grateful.
Long ago I was fortunate to realize that we learn from those who think differently from us, not primarily from those who are our echo-chamber comrades. Of course it is very important that those who think differently are willing to engage and to do so with integrity. But I would hold to the same standard those who would agree with me.
Respect, credibility, intellectual introspection, humility, "old-fashioned" concepts whose time may not be now but, I have no doubt, whose time will come again. Why no doubt? Simple. I really do believe in progress, albeit through a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine steps backward process. Without a return to a culture embracing those concepts, the steps forward will not occur in the near future.
26
I am a senior in high school and can very much attest to this. Too many classes feel like an obligation to both me and my peers precisely because of a feeling, in students and teachers, of general apathy towards the subject matter. The most rewarding and informative classes that I have taken have in some way captured my imagination, not suppressed it. Effective education should be about interest and emotional attachment, not grades or test scores. Too many students show up for the grade, not enough show up to learn.
13
We learn from people who care about us, and we care about people who care about us. Love and respect don't happen without CARE.
10
I would say students learn from people they "respect" rather than "love." When I was in college, I asked Walter Berns, a well-known conservative authority on the Supreme Court to be my adviser. He was strongly taken aback and tried to talk me out of it. He simply could not comprehend why one of the relatively few, outspoken campus liberals wanted him. (I think Berns actually felt he must have done something "wrong", somehow had failed, if a liberal wanted him as adviser.) I insisted, and he relented. It was all about my respect for Berns, having had a course with him, having watched how he operated, knowledgeably encouraging us to think and disagree with him, which I did, teaching me much in the process. For which I shall always be grateful.
I love learning, and long ago I was fortunate to realize that we learn from those who think differently from us, not primarily from those who are our echo-chamber comrades. Of course it is very important that those who think differently are willing to engage and to do so with integrity. But I would hold to the same standard those who would agree with me.
Respect, credibility, intellectual introspection, humility, "old-fashioned" terms whose time may not be now but, I have no doubt, whose time will come again. Why do I have no doubt? Simple, I really do believe in progress, albeit through a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine steps backward process, and without a culture embracing those concepts, those steps forward will not occur.
6
I agree, Mr. Brooks, and, if I may, add an important caveat: however, we cannot be their "friends". We are their teachers, mentors, tutors, mandatory reporters, caring adults, advocates, professors, and learning facilitators, but we can't be their friends.
18
Many teachers had had that moment when they really connected with a student and hopefully, really make a difference. For me, anyway, that's the why.
4
That's why we need small class sizes. Especially in the younger years. Especially in districts with a large number of struggling students.
That's why we need to invest in the support staff that can support the classroom teacher and build relationships with students: nurses, counselors, playground supervisors, social workers, therapists.
We teachers KNOW how important it is to build these relationships. It is rewarding, but a lot of work. When class and race/culture differences exist, is can be exhausting and fraught. In order to do our job....REALLY do our job, we need a working environment that doesn't stress us out so much that we have very little left to give.
23
They also learned from those with paddles made of 2x4's, like my English teacher, Mrs Doddie. It was all good fun though back in those days.
1
@BillH,
If that's the case, does you boss hit you when you mess up? How about the police. Should they be allowed to smack you around when you are caught speeding or failure to signal? How about your spouse? Do you whack each other? My neighbors dog constantly gets away from them (supposedly) and dumps upon my lawn. Can I go out and kick their dog, then deliver a good whack to him/her?
No.
You wouldn't stand for that.
In a civil society we don't hit each other.
Why is it considered ok to hit a child?!
10
I think the word "love" is a bit over the top. Its a word that we toss around way too much, and for me is near meaningless in the general populations usage. We love pizza! We love our phones! We love a lot of things all day and then the next we don't. Lots of people fall in love with other people way too often, way too quickly.
I prefer respect. Or a recognition of vulnerability, of our collective humanity. But love...not so much.
I agree with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Brooks. Students do learn from teachers they can strongly bond with, or at least find some form of human connection. Adults do too. But are prone to having a harder shell.
What always got me to pay attention and want to learn was a teacher that showed genuine passion in their subject, and in turned wanted others to see why. Look at a guy like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. His exuberance is his way in. It lights him up, which draws out the desire to learn in others.
I know several teachers, and most are bored by their jobs. They barely keep up with the changes in their disciplines. Not all because of the stresses of the job, but because they went into the profession for all the wrong reasons. Its become a clock-punching routine. They complain about the kids lack of interest, and attention.
I can guarantee their students smell their indifference.
Teaching children, many with "issues", is not easy. And its not all about their pay, as so many wish to make it.
Teaching needs to be a vocation.
6
The teachers who influenced me most inspired abiding respect and appreciation, not what I'd call "love."
Margaret Casey (Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Bethesda, Md.), for example, put her senior Honors English classes through a terror-filled, criticism-filled, first marking period, and handed out mostly low grades to outstanding students. One of them, a Class behind mine, called it "boot camp." Only when we began to live up to her standards did the pressure ease up in tandem.
She was a great and influential teacher – of literature, good writing, clear thinking, and their interrelationships. Rigor was an important element of her remarkable success. She received an award from Yale University, nominated by former student.
Formidable, admired, and deeply appreciated by her students, Miss Casey influenced many of our lives – but *loved*?
Relationships are important in successful education, but successful educational relationships can take many forms.
11
The quality of the relationships between students and teachers are absolutely decisive to learn properly.
And that is the reason why teachers are very much needed even though some people start arguing that we could study just as well with computers... It is true that we can learn on our own. But nothing could ever replace the atmosphere of the classroom, the laughs we sometimes share with the whole class when learning something surprising - and which actually help us remember that thing-, the way the teacher said this particular thing, the intervention of such-and-such student etc. It is easier to learn when the knowledge is linked with a context, with the emotions we felt when finally understanding how the tenses work in English (seriously, it is awfully difficult for us non native speakers...) or when learning about the Roaring Twenties with Fitzgerald with our friends.
But at the same time I am not quite sure it is good to have too close relationships with teachers. I feel like respect, admiration, and thus some distance are necessary to study conscientiously, so that the classroom does not become some sort of café. Teachers are not our buddies, and this dimension of respect is unfortunately increasingly overlooked in France, and we have to acknowledge that the level is gradually sinking...I guess this is no coincidence and, well, it shows how much the relationship between the students and the teacher is decisive to study properly. Looks like the circle is complete!..
3
I would say students learn from people they "respect" rather than "love." When I was in college, I asked Walter Berns, a well-known conservative authority on the Supreme Court to be my adviser. He was strongly taken aback and tried to talk me out of it. He simply could not comprehend why one of the relatively few, outspoken campus liberals wanted him. (I think Berns actually felt he must have done something "wrong", somehow had failed, if a liberal wanted him as adviser.) I insisted, and he relented. It was all about my respect for Berns, having had a course with him, having watched how he operated, knowledgeably encouraging us to think and disagree with him, which I did, teaching me much in the process. For which I shall always be grateful.
I love learning, and long ago realized that we learn from those who think differently from us, not primarily from those who are our echo chamber comrades. Of course it is important that those who think differently are willing to engage and to do so with integrity. But I would hold to the same standard those who would agree with me.
Respect, credibility, intellectual introspection, humility, "old-fashioned" terms whose time may not be now but, I have no doubt, whose time will come again. Why do I have no doubt? Simple, I really do believe in progress, albeit through a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine steps backward process, and without a culture embracing those concepts, those steps forward will not occur.
3
I believe love and respect are interchangeable. You can’t truly have either without both. To a degree. Children today and historically often lack love in their homes because of systemic mental health issues coupled at times with economic problems. There’s a book by Bell Hooks that really shook up my world called “All about Love” there is also some interesting work by Sharon Salzburg too.
Love is primary and yet we over look it for the more “reasonable” emotions. But I think love is at the heart (pun intended) of many good emotions such as confidence, happiness, humor ( the good natured kind).
Sending love to all the readers.
3
I was an adjunct professor for 30 years. Which means at the colleges I taught at, and there were many, I was payed less than full time faculty and treated by administrative staff like a migrant worker. In most classroom performance measured I was rated in the top 5%. I loved the work and it showed in my students academic performance and later in life their professional performance. I miss that emotional connection between me and most of the students.
Let Knowledge Serve The City
134
We also need to put relationship quality at the center of economics. Perhaps people work best for people they love, or at least for people with whom they share a commitment to doing something worthwhile and excellent. The quality of a relation based on the bottom line is intellectual rather than emotional.
How would you design a business (or an economy) if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core? You would have to make the bottom line secondary; increasing shareholder value would have to be dethroned. And with respect to the economy, how (besides unions) do you induce people who do not want to put relationship quality at the core to at least pretend to do so anyway?
78
@sdavidc9: Seems to me that from the end of WWII until the Reagan presidency, we enjoyed economic relationship equality. Corporate employees were included in the division of profit. Some to labor, some to labor, some to shareholders. What’s wrong with that? Wall Street complained; CEOs learned they could, by eliminating employees by the thousands, pay themselves millions. Why does anyone think that an investor is entitled to all of the profit of a company at the expense of The company’s employees? It’s economically unsound and morally wrong.
21
"Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." - John C. Maxwell.
127
Thank you for writing this, David.
1
Have you read John Dewey and the Progressive Era in education? Please see the results of the Eight-
Year Study......We have known this for a long time and have worked hard for independent and public education to embrace good research on developmentally appropriate practices and consonance between mission and practice. A school is most effective when the entire community lives and embraces each other and the values they share. Unfortunately, at the university level this is rare.
4
Being a teacher at Musical Theater academies over the past 13 or so years, the work is, by nature, emotional. But above all is exactly that passion and love for the career that is shared, taught, and absorbed.
One must make connections with their students. One must not be afraid to show the vulnerability, as well as the passion for the subject at hand. That’s how it best works. And, in the end, the gift to the teacher is witnessing those moments when a student gets it. There is nothing better.
4
Thank you for this, Mr. Brooks! My daughter went to one of the top engineering schools in the US, but dropped out and got a degree in Mathematics because she felt called to teach. Now she teaches HS Math and loves it, (in spite of the derision she takes from people who think she 'could have done so much better').
She tells her kids every year that she'd happily take a bullet for them and I believe it. (Though, as her mother, I hope she'll never have to.) It breaks her heart when one of her kids falls behind.
And the love extends beyond the classroom. She goes to their plays, their sports venues, prom, graduation, and (sadly) their funerals. She sends notes of encouragement even after they graduate. When her school took an anonymous poll, the majority of the students said they'd go to her if they had a personal problem.
A computer can't do that, someone who's just punching a clock won't do it. Only someone who really loves you will cheer for you when you win and listen when you lose and cry over your obit wondering if they could have done more. That's what teachers do.
16
In almost all other OECD countries teachers earn a much higher income. Money is not wasted on guards, nurses and most other non-teaching personnel.
Most pupils from K-12 don't love their teacher, but they respect them.
I remember a hilarious comment by Larry King on his show that European children were respecting their teachers so much, they addressed them as Doctor.
Indeed, in high, at that time grades 5 to 13, my classmates and I addressed our math/ physics teacher, our German/geography teacher, our chemistry/ biology teacher as Doctors because they all had a Dr. in front of their name.
Imagine, and they all had a Major in each subject they were teaching plus a dissertation in one.
And heck, I really despised my German / geography teacher because he was utterly boring.
3
Teachers around the world warrant a lot more respect than in America. I was able to go to Nepal and teach they really are “loved”!!❤️
Besides childhood chums, college used to be - probably still is to many amid the advent of the digital and social media age - an environment in which many people form lifelong relationships if they don't belong to certain organizations like churches and temples.
However, it can also provide many with lifelong scars and regrets because some people are too open. It is not that they bump into bad people. We are not talking about roommates spiking your food out of spite! Rather, some may bump into people who are themselves damaged or too needy for everyone's good.
So, while the communal environment in college is a great place for many, students are still in the formative and require supervision and guidance.
Sure, students can be nurturing too. So I am glad your students were a caring sort, Mr Brooks. Personally, I still remember one of my professors fondly, whose guidance has provided me with a lifetime benefits. And I believe she has derived a certain satisfaction of teaching her students, especially those of us who took her courses seriously. So I can certainly attest to your column, Mr Brooks.
However, there is always the danger of teacher-student relationship is always a tricky one, in light of the recent scandals ad nauseam. So, definitely it is good to have something like a "To Sir With Love" or "Goodbye, Mr Chip," we need to know the boundary
2
I disagree
I learned from teachers I respected. For mastery of their subject and being straight as an arrow in dealing with their students.
2
Aren't you patting yourself a bit on your back, Mr. Douthat, by revealing that a private matter has kept you from your "office hours"?
And as a matter of fact students don't have to love their teachers, liking the suffices quite well.
And there is a big, big difference of being a teachers, oops, professor, at Yale, than teaching K-12 in far too large classes with underpaid teachers.
5
I think humanizing the relationship between students and teachers is mostly a good thing, but I don't think loving/liking your teacher is necessary. It's great, of course, if you do, but the key for me is effective teaching.
I had teachers over the years that I loved, and I still remember them fondly, decades later. However, they weren't just personable, they were also good teachers. Their personalities made me engage more, but they were also good at organizing content, creating assignments, explaining clearly.
Similarly, I had look back with gratitude, if not fondness, on a couple curmudgeonly teachers. I certainly didn't love them. I didn't even like them. They were no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners types, who pushed us to be better, whether we liked it or not. However, they were good teachers. I respected them and learned just as much from them as from the ones that made me laugh and look forward to class.
5
Former teacher here. Of course, we know that positive relationships with students enable them to learn in the best way possible. But, this article seems to be written in a vacuum..teachers can't even begin to truly foster and nurture relationships with students with parents and administration on their backs 24/7. I mean, yes, you try to personable when teaching, but you are always aware that you have to meet cover all the objectives on their upcoming standardized test. It really inhibits all of your creativity and the students thinking out of the box. This, then, ultimately makes students feel like they are not heard which results in a negative view of school. It's sad that learning has become stressful in American schools. I know other countries handle it differently and their students are still enthusiastic about learning. I mean, really, what else is more exciting that learning??
3
As a retired high school math teacher and a jumped-up working class kid, I can say that Brooks is right in nuance but wrong in principle. He is right in asserting the importance of the emotional state of the student in determining their ability to learn. However, he is dead wrong in the prescription of what emotions are important and what creates or ameliorates those emotions. He mentions algebra. It's a good example. A student can do well in that class or any other math class if (a necessary condition) they can look ahead. They need to be calm enough and practiced enough to ask and answer the simple question of where am I going and how can a get there. But if they live in an economic environment, such as most of the working class does, where they have no control and no ability to predict what their lives will be tomorrow, it is psychologically impossible for them to develop that habit. A comparable example is of a soldier going into battle. He/she focuses on the here and now-not the thereafter. And if he/she is in enough battles, the focusing only on the now becomes a habit of mind that is difficult to change. That idea that a school can conduct a week long session and that will undo the past experiences of a life time, and often of the present, is ludicrous. Brook's intent, as always, is clear. He wants to obscure the fact that the economic system can have profound effects on not just the physical health of the people, but also the psychological.
5
I would say students learn from people they "respect" rather than "love."
Respect, credibility, intellectual introspection, humility, "old-fashioned" concepts whose time may not be now but, I have no doubt, whose time will come again. Why do I have no doubt? Simple, I really do believe in progress, albeit through a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine steps backward process, and without a culture embracing those concepts, those steps forward will not occur.
When I was in college, I asked Walter Berns, a nationally well-known conservative authority on the Supreme Court to be my adviser. He was strongly taken aback and tried to talk me out of it. He simply could not comprehend why one of the relatively few, outspoken campus liberals wanted him. (I think Berns actually felt like he must have done something "wrong", had failed.) I insisted and he relented. It was all about my respect for Berns, having had a course with him, watched how he operated, knowledegably encouraging us to think and disagree, which I did, teaching me much in the process.
I love learning, and long ago I was fortunate enough to learn from my interactions with people such as Walter Berns that we learn from those who think differently from us, not primarily from those who are our echo chamber comrades. Of course it is important that those who think differently are willing to engage and to do so with integrity. And I hold to no less of a standard those who would agree with me.
4
"Extreme negative emotions, like fear, can have a devastating effect on a student’s ability to learn. Fear amps up threat perception and aggression. It can also subsequently make it hard for children to understand causal relationships, or to change their mind as context changes."
Well, it's good to to know we won't have mockery of trigger warnings, safe zones and snow flakes now that the relationship between emotional states and learning conditions has been established. I was starting to get the impression from some conservative writers that such considerations were irrelevant.
1
My wife and I taught for a combined 74 years. 4th gr to Grad
Schools. HS and coaching basketball. Individual sessions over art. Individual attention to writing, comp and creative.
We were lucky, taught under reasonable conditions, though
we saw change coming for the worse. Deans hired from the business world? Presidents who are fund raisers and profit budgeters. Academia has always been suspect in the real world of Capitalism. The ivory tower.
Now, some of our students are teachers, even approaching retirement. They work under dismal conditions. Increased
number of classes per semester. Basic courses instead of
advanced, to compensate for weak high school prep. More
administrative work and evaluations. Larger class sizes.
Fights with admin over materials. Making up for low salaries
by taking on on-line teaching during "vacations." Depression.
I fear this is a general condition now in the US. And some schools ask this of teachers AND expect them to do scholarship and publish findings or creative work. The
Ivy league may keep teaching reasonable, but other state and private schools are run like Walmart. It's the money, stupid! Why a dean or Board of Regents might call students "units."
7
Actually, good teachers have always maintained that real learning happens in relationship. Hello, John Dewey. But then along came the bean-counters, the assessment mad, teach to the test, hire administrators and don't trust the faculty, Republican legislators. More short term, bottom line oriented, economic values where they don't belong.
7
Dear Students: stay away from the man offering candy, Brooks. He is a "gateway' republican, offering nice bromides and gently urging you to a moderate position, which does not exist.
1
You constantly make my head explode. Love, of course and TRUST. Something Republicans don't believe and that makes you a hypocrit in my book. I don't read your op-eds David, just the comments because people in general are onto your shenanigans, a favorite word of my maternal grandmother who I loved and trusted.
3
Nobody attending this gathering at the Aspen Institute probably worries about their child being in an underfunded public school where the student to teacher ratio creeps to absurd levels. Where their kids can't learn because they're hungry. Where the parents are worrying about whether to skip the electricity bill or the car payment. Those students who already made it into Yale will mostly be fine, maybe Brooks should try teaching at a rural community college. I'm sure most of his students choose his course because they mostly already agree with his politics. Yes, they're a minority but there's probably a club for Yale students who love the GOP.
Which party has consistently and steadily defunded education across the board, from public K-12 through less support for public universities? Which one rails against making sure the kids don't have empty stomachs? And which party does the author belong too, despite continually getting reamed in the comments section? All because he read an article or three about neuroscience, a topic which he evidently knows absolutely nothing about.
If I were having a beer in Aspen with David Brooks after a fun day on the slopes with and he gave me an earful of this tripe, he wouldn't need a neuroscientist, but a neurosurgeon might come in handy.
5
I had a similar learning experience with my International Trade Law class at William and Mary a few years ago. Several weeks into the semester I was diagnosed with a controllable cancer. Nevertheless the side effects of the chemo were unpleasant. I continue to teach and never miss a session. At the end of the semester during the last day of class I told my students something that was really true: that although I was under the effects of chemo, the one time during my day when I never thought about my cancer or my chemo was when I was teaching them. That their presence in my life was very important to me and I wanted them to know it. Almost everyone of my students lined up after class to tell me how much my comments had meant to them. I learned an important lesson then which I have tried to incorporate into my life: that some distance between a student and the teacher is necessary but making a connection on a human level is also necessary for optimum learning to take place.
4
What a beautiful and inspiring article, Mr. Brooks! When I first read the heading, it struck me as exaggerated or demagogic, but then the article itself hits the nail on the head every time. Lots of the comments are also really interesting and moving.
As a translation teacher at the University of Buenos Aires, I couldn't agree more with you, Mr. Brooks. In a setting where students are naturally scared of making gross mistakes in their translations of highly technical documents, it is essential to create an environment where they feel confident to share their versions and to discuss (and, why not, disagree with) the professor's.
Teaching is no longer (as many believed some time ago and still believe) about transferring knowledge from a wise know-it-all teacher to an ignorant empty-headed student. Far from that! The knowledge transfer part exists and is important, but it's not all, it's not even most of it. Another important part of teaching is arousing students' interest and passion, so that they'll keep learning and reading by themselves (more and better things than we could teach them). The third ingredient of good teaching is, in my opinion, giving students tools to face new situations that we can't even think of now. Since science and knowledge are always changing, it would be silly to believe that we can give students everything they need to practice a profession until they retire.
I'm happy to know that another teacher shares so many thoughts with me.
3
Thank you Mr. Brooks, a very good article.
“Extreme negative emotions, like fear, can have a devastating effect on a student’s ability to learn. Fear amps up threat perception and aggression. It can also subsequently make it hard for children to understand causal relationships, or to change their mind as context changes.”
Can you imagine how much effort by a teacher is wasted when children fear the neighborhoods they must live in or walk through, to get to school? All the more relevant in the context of school shootings...education in reverse.
“How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core?”
Immersive, hopefully with the joy of learning at its core.
“Come to think of it, how would you design a Congress?”
Via 4- year public college degree in Public Service minimum. Probably Masters degree in Governance (not kidding), taught by ex Senators, Representatives, Presidents, etc.
3
David Brooks -- wish I could tell you about the 20 year work we have been doing on helping teachers in just this way. In the UK and Northern Europe these skills are widely respected. In the US we have been working for 20 years with an emotion-based approach to teacher education to get traction. Any chance of 10 minutes with you on our next visit to NYC? I think you'd love what we do.
1
I taught elementary school for 30 years. I learned right away to make an emotional connection with my students. Why would they want to learn from an uncaring teacher? I especially got to know and understand my energy consumers. Why were they acting out? I kept them in from recess, not to punish them, but to get to know them in the private safe setting of the classroom. They knew I cared and usually I got good results.
As far as teaching with passion, the focus on test scores put a huge dent in the fun of learning. It was disheartening to watch the pendulum swing away from thematic hands-on learning to filling out benchmark tests every week so the kids would score well at the end of the year.
As far as Congress goes, they need to do their job and put a check on executive powers. And do it with reason and emotion.
2
Effective teaching involves engaging the whole student. As a math teacher, I am often confronted with teaching a subject that many, if not most, struggle with, but which is still essential to a well-rounded education. Without really thinking too much about it, I had a mind-set that sought to teach the whole student, which includes being open to what each student's "needs" were, and that varied with each student. Another teacher once said to me that, "I couldn't get my students to care until they knew I cared". That thought has always guided my teaching, and whatever success I have achieved has come because of it. Thank you Mr. Brooks, for an excellent piece.
3
The semester I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I felt the same empathetic connection from my college students. From the introductory, "I had a really rough doctor appointment, and I just can't teach tonight / we'll just do this online" to being able to express the diagnosis in words some weeks later when the initial 90% chance became 100%, they helped get me through the term. I'm forever grateful for that, and I realize that they taught me more than I taught them.
2
As a curious autodidact who also loves classroom learning, this crystallizes what I’ve innately known.
Reading, studying and writing quietly with inner thoughts buzzing is what my introspective introvert needs. But my interactive extroverted side will fly in a classroom as long as the teacher is inexplicably fired up with passionate love for their subject, which in turn, makes me adore them.
That transmuting directly into both my heart and brain is essential. If that’s absent, I will find myself wanting to leave early and go home to find that energy on my own.
I’ve also spent a good portion of my life teaching in after school settings. During those hours when children may be exhausted, you have to bring your own fervor for the love to be contagious.
1
Thank you for this column, Mr. Brooks.
When I think of my high school years (college not so much...) I think of many teachers that I liked but two teachers whom I loved. They were not 'easy'! They expected a lot from me but they were kind and seemed to totally believe in my ability to rise to their expectations. So I did.
When teachers act like this--emotionally intelligent--the student learns that that is how we succeed and carries that on in their own lives.
My hope is that we are on the cusp of a new era of education that focuses on what it should: wholeness and humanity.
1
And this is one of the reasons why class size is so key. When the emphasis is solely on academics and top down curriculums, there is a connective tissue loss between students and teachers. Most good teachers know this already. It's imperative to establish your vulnerability with your students so they are freed to share theirs. The big message is that we are all learners in the process.
2
True, but how many people want their school or employer involved in their family relationships and personal business?
2
A rhetorical question: Do we read to learn or glean the words and parse the points made against our own particular sensitivities?
To be fair to the author, we should do more of the first and try not to do the second as much, though I know that's inescapable.
I try to avoid the comment section on Mr. Brooks' articles because a lot of it tends toward the "pick it apart" approach to reading. I wanted to read the comments this time because I was amused thinking Mr. Brooks deliberately chose to be uncontroversial during these divided times. Yet it appears he still "stepped in it". I appreciate the basic truth espoused in the article. I wish it had been so in my schools.
On the day we learn that the President Of The United States ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress, the last thing I am interested in seeing on the NYT editorial page is a column about the "social and emotional learning movement" (which by the way is not at all new, considering that I myself reaped its benefits as a student in an alternative Montessori school in the 1970s. We understood very well all the concepts David tries his best to make sound new and unconsidered. Fear affects learning ability? Does he think people throughout history were so stupid that they didn't understand this basic concept before he applied a new label to it?)
There is, however, a second level to my dissatisfaction with this column. It's not just that the topic is off. It's that it is deliberately avoiding unpleasant news. I believe any successful social and emotional learning program would teach us to start with honesty. That includes honestly facing the facts when you were WRONG TO SUPPORT A CRIMINAL. You can't say you didn't know he was corrupt. It was obvious from the beginning to anyone who followed the news. But you chose to push it away and ignore it as long as you could - about 2 and half years as it turns out.
2
Another reason why Deut 6:5 makes so much sense.
The hardest part of being a teacher is losing students to accident or illness. It's like losing one of your own children.
1
When I was a graduate student, I attended a talk about testing teachers for competence. It was in Pittsburgh. Mr. Rogers, the Mr. Rogers, attended the talk. We were all in a flurry that he was there. At the end of the talk, he raised his hand, and asked in his Mr. Rogers voice, how do you test how much the teachers love the students, because I found that I always learn best from the teachers who loved me. So, there you have, Mr. Rogers, once again vindicated.
6
Thanks for this, Mr. Brooks. After a long career in finance, I now teach high school math; and I agree with your column. I would, however, add one thought. Students learn from teachers they love, yes. But students learn best when they know that the teacher loves them -- and demonstrates that love not only thorough their passion for the subject but also through their compassion for their kids.
4
Exactly,
You are on a roll,
Keep up emphasizing the humanity in all your opinions which science, art ,and life seem to keep reminding us. And you can communicate what I as a neuroscientist has difficulty with.
I think your theme is we are social, and social norms and concern is what we must maintain and nurture.
Fifty three years ago I took two quarters of organic chemistry, the toughest pre-med course I would ever take. The prof was a very short, bald, middle-aged man who zoomed around campus in a tiny, convertible, lime green, sports car. Despite my two C's I was accepted to a medical school from which I was successfully graduated. That prof who put my medical career at risk was one of the finest teachers I had ever had. He taught me volumes about passion for your life's work and, if you teach, a personal interest in your students’ well-being. Not surprisingly he is still alive in his 90's helping his students of the past whenever and wherever he can. We loved him and he loved us..
1
If Mr. Brooks truly understands that what teachers teach is not a subject but “themselves”, why then does he routinely write in support of education “reform”, school choice and charter schools and standardized testing and anti-union policies, all policies which naturally result in public schools having fewer qualified teachers, having fewer teachers (but more computers), and fewer teachers who have the time or ability to share of “themselves” with their students?
5
I have a nine year old niece who goes to Public School. She's diagnosed as ADHD and has hearing problems. Her class size is 24 great kids. Her teacher is smart and caring. I help her with her homework. The two of us manage to keep my niece at grade level and interested in learning new things. However, the school needs a lot of help with supplies and fund raising. It's badly in need of paint, repairs and an improved school yard. And the teachers aren't paid enough. Hopefully the strike in Los Angles and our new Governor will improve California's educational system. It takes dedication and love for sure!
2
I would say students learn from people they "respect" rather than "love." When I was in college, I asked Walter Berns, a nationally-well-known conservative authority on the Supreme Court to be my adviser. He was strongly taken aback and tried to talk me out of it. He simply could not comprehend why one of the relatively few, outspoken campus liberals wanted him. I think Berns actually felt like he must have done something "wrong", had failed. I insisted and he relented. It was all about my respect for Berns, having had a course with him, watched how he operated, knowledegably encouraging us to think and disagree, teaching me much in the process.
I love learning, and long ago realized that we learn from those who think differently from us, not primarily from those who are our echo chamber comrades. Of course it is important that those who think differently are willing to engage and to do so with integrity. But I would hold to the same standard those who would agree with me.
Respect, credibility, intellectual introspection, humility, "old-fashioned" terms whose time may not be now but, I have no doubt, whose time will come again. Why do I have no doubt? Simple, I really do believe in progress, albeit through a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine steps backward process, and without a culture embracing those concepts, those steps forward will not occur.
6
I've been teaching junior high students for close to twenty years. By now, I have seen it all and heard it all when it comes to what twelve year-olds say and do. It was a complete shock to both me and my students, when recently some racist comments a few students made brought me to tears (in front of them). Since that day, those students have never been better. They are treating each other well, are careful about the words they use, and have treated me with care, not just respect. If there was ever a lesson (for myself) that I need to be a human first, a teacher and a disciplinarian next, well, at least I've got another decade to continue improving.
3
Sounds like a great Willie Nelson song, "For all the teachers I've loved before." As a life-long learner and 35 year veteran teacher - Brooks hits another cultural bullseye. David Brooks you have taught me so much. In the words of David Cassidy, "I think I love you."
1
I also learned best from teachers I loved, but what's less clear to me is whether I loved them as people and they thus taught me more effectively (or at least I thought so), or I loved how well they taught me so I fell in love with them as people. Not sure the chicken-and-egg aspect of this matters in the end, but the question occurs...
3
Superb essay. David Brooks, you are in my thoughts – thankful ones. Connecting to my teachers in a warm and caring way was key for me in being able to learn throughout school. The Beatles said it the best, "all you need is love."
My job entailed building, training and directing a team of lawyers in an esoteric legal specialty. I found that it took between five and seven years to bring an intelligent attorney to a level of knowledge where he or she could provide reliable legal advice to our employer. Because of this it was important to minimize attrition. Over the years I found that it was not only pleasant but vital that I spend a significant amount of one-on-one time with my attorneys in a mixture of discussions about the philosophies or theories behind particular rules of law and also simple social sharing of other interests. When the company began to suffer serious turnover in other sectors of its legal department, my team proved an island of stability. So much so that when I retired I first felt horribly guilty for "abandoning" them. Relationships propel everything.
Years ago while starting my career as an attorney I taught as an adjunct at a local Community College in NJ. It had an "open admissions" policy. Some students were there against their will and better judgement. I began my first class of the semester with a long informal and interactive chat, focusing on the personal needs and concerns of the students. I encouraged them to follow their dreams and not to be pressured into attending school if they could perform better elsewhere at that point in their lives. I emphasized my own failures as a high school drop out reminding them that they could always start college at a later time as I had done after my time in the military. I also gave them lots of free legal advice and most importantly listened very carefully to their problems in between classes. Before long there were lots of kids asking to be transferred to my class. They felt safe. We had a really good time with dull subject matter (Business Law). They learned quite well and I learned a lot from them. Perhaps compassion and a relaxed atmosphere is the key. I was merely repeating what I had experienced in the late 50s in a "bone head" English class taught by a great high school teacher when I was repeating the 10th grade. If you love and nourish your garden the plants will flourish.
2
Wonderful! Having taught for decades, I, along with most other teachers, know this to be true. Unfortunately, this was pushed aside when high-stakes reading and math tests were introduced. (Along with art, social studies, field trips, etc.) Anything that was not measured on those tests didn't matter. In Florida, I was forced to take my Title 1 students to a computer lab three days a week where they endured a terrible program that was nothing more than test prep. How could I teach the joy of reading or critical thinking in that environment? No matter what the commercial testing companies claim, you cannot test critical thinking on a multiple-choice test. At least the kind of critical thinking that this society so desperately needs. As a result of this testing obsession, teachers were evaluated according to a "value-added" model based on his/her test scores. My state and many others relied on a commercial program with "secret" algorithms. My value as a teacher was determined by how my students did on a grueling, four-hour test at year’s end. This was supposed to be only a portion of our overall evaluation. In reality, that "value" was everything. I saw teachers publicly shamed in meetings by representatives of the company who created the program. I also saw wonderful teachers quit in disgust over what teaching had become (although they consistently "exceeded growth"). Fortunately, I think my state is slowly moving toward a sane accountability and testing policy.
2
Sweet. If you pay teachers more and thus get a selection of the brightest, a school can select for such things as the ability to tell a fascinating story or a joke. Good teachers are fascinating and can be funny. Please no more of this neuro-nonsense. Why is it useful to say "when classes are going well, the student brain activity synchronizes with the teacher’s brain activity" instead of "when classes are going well, the students are delighted by something that delights the teacher or by the teacher him/her self." Pointing out where the brain lights up is useless scientism.
1
Touchy-feely babysitting nannies for a nanny state, the ultimate alternate family.
1
I'm learning a lot from Betsy DeVos. But I don't love her (at all) or the job she's doing as Education Sec'y (at all). According to former Trump WH aide Ms Omarosa, even the Prez himself refers to her as ditzy. Relationship quality....front and center.....Republican style. Least she's rich!
We know that the adult brain is not fully formed in humans until about age 24. Between the ages of 12 and 24 the brain goes through explosive growth followed by a severe “pruning” of unused neural structures. The college years are particularly important. They are a time where we learn vital skills, such as how to leave home and enter the larger world, connect deeply with others, and safely experiment and take risks. Experimental risk taking is the definition of creativity.
Since the brain itself is significantly shaped by the experiences we have in school, and educators are helping to mold the mind, then it follows that knowing about the way the brain changes in response to teaching methods, can help to nurture stronger, more resilient adults.
As an architect, I am specifically thinking about the way we use the crit system in art, architecture and design schools. I started writing a blog looking at art and architecture school. How does a system which uses criticism at the heart of its pedagogy help or hurt the creative outcomes of its students?
https://www.inspirationlabsite.com/blog/lost-in-space-of-architecture-school
1
Well--Brooks is right here, although it's hardly a stunning revelation that a concerned, involved, emotionally available teacher is likely to get better results than an insensitive, cold ogre. But lets put the horse in front of the cart. This kind of interaction is far more likely at "good schools"...like Yale, for instance...or even the relatively "good" public schools my kids attended (thanks to high property taxes). Good schools meet certain preconditions:
The roof doesn't leak
The boiler works
Class sizes are small
Teachers are paid a living wage or better, are not expected to pay for materials out-of-pocket and may even be treated with the respect they deserve
Administration is a feature not a bug
The school is something more than a test-prep factory.
Another issue to consider is the overall state of the lives and experiences of the student body. For example, most students at Yale are not suffering from homelessness, hunger, or poverty.
Education is a challenge under any conditions, but the circumstances and attitudes prevalent in our current system make social and emotional learning much more difficult.
2
I'm part of a new school - the Philly Agile Learning Community, a self-directed learning environment, where instead of a curriculum, relationships and community is at the center. All the structure of the school is around developing community, intention, reflection, and sharing. We think learning is happening all the time, and that more important than the content of lessons is the environment in which the students exist. We trust them to follow their own interests and intentions, and support them by showing up in our relationship with them, sometimes as a person with answers, but more often simply as a companion. It is hard to have a good relationship with a teacher in the coercive environment that forced schooling can provide.
I'm so grateful to Mr. Brooks for this piece on the central place of human connection and yes, love, in learning and teaching. I'm in my 40th year as a teacher across a wide variety of age groups from K to grad school and everything written in the essay underscores what I know to be true. In my early years as a novice teacher, I was more subject matter and testing focussed. As I matured, I realized that without a strong personal connection to my students and their lives, they could decide very easily not to learn what I was teaching. I'm still committed to my students learning what is important in the subject and assessing constantly to see what's missing but it comes more from a place of love for them as young people who are developing and who need the best I have to offer as a whole person who deeply cares about them.
3
There is ample evidence that the relationship is the most important factor in psychotherapy too. The human connection is powerful. Turns out we are much more social/emotional creatures than we tend to "think".
1
One of my most effective teachers was in kindergarten. And sixty years later, I'm still in contact with some of the students with whom I attended kindergarten. We agree that we did not "like" her. But she gave us a full grade head start in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
In an earlier article in this august publication
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?emc=eta1) Charles Duhiggfeb describes that one of the traits that 'high performing' teams shared was that their members had higher than average ‘‘social sensitivity’’ - they are skilled at intuiting how others felt based on nonverbal cues (tone of voice, expressions, body language). And that this is critical to establishing “psychological safety” - a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up - which is one of the same building blocks of forging connections that typify how ALL human bonds (regardless of cultural backgrounds) are formed.
But establishing psychological safety is by nature difficult to implement. People generally want to avoid talking about feelings. So ways must be found to engage in emotional conversations, to talk about what is messy or sad and sometimes even have hard conversations, because people want to know that others really hear us, and in the case of the Google study that our work is more than just labor.
1
Yes! Well written, Professor Brooks.
Wow - punditry has shifted to teaching? Cooking next?
Compassion, empathy and other attributes mentioned herein are indeed the keys to successful teaching. And they work best with small classrooms, plenty of aids and other support.
Nevertheless, we have a massive achievement gap in almost all of of urban school districts that employ all types of teachers--only 5 to 10% of whom will have the talents David is lauding.
So, that's one elephant in the room today. The other is all the bloody snowflakes produced by all levels of education today--the flip side of the neuroscience conundrum not address herein.
1
This is exactly why I don't allow electronics (unless it's a documented accommodation for disability). No laptops. We need eye contact, and body language needs to be observed (both students and faculty) to make and develop those relationships (and learn). The first day starts w/ time getting to know each other, with reminders prior to continue that the first week or two. And thanks to a colleague, I learned that at my university, each class session costs about $20. I ask my students what they want for it. Skip? Cash down the drain. Half involved? Losing $10. All in? Get $35 worth for $20 and as a bonus, others get more for their buck too. It's truly good fortune when you love your field AND love teaching.
5
@Lisa
I'm a university prof and wholeheartedly endorse your comments on laptops and teacher-student relationships, a point DB overlooked. By hard experience, I also came to declare laptop- and phone-free zones (50 min periods at a time) in all my classes. At the outset I tell my students that "we are all going to be PRESENT for each other" for 50 mins at a time. They get it. They like it, too.
Randy K., Canada
1
Keep in mind that it's possible (even common) for a school or teacher to have a good relationship with students, even a close one, without teaching them well. You need good relationships, but you also need good pedagogy. strong curriculum. and knowledgeable teachers.
9
I remember a philosophy course in Ethics. Most of the students were around 19 or 20,---people taking it just to fill out a liberal arts credit. I had had another similar course and it was boring.
But in this one there were two or three older women.
They loved the professor and they took him seriously. And then
students started to be interested. By the end there were
fascinating discussion all because of the love they showed for
the professor.
2
@84 R=That's a fine point, and the dynamic you describe is one with which I'm very familiar--teaching those liberal arts requirements myself. But your example also underscores how much of a two-way street a vibrant classroom is--and how much maturity and seriousness of purpose on the part of students matters to everyone's outcome. When I feel my students are attentive or even just respectful, when I feel comfortable in the classroom environment, I do a better job. As others here have pointed out, that question of comfort applies as well to institutional and professional environments--i.e., the extent to which educators feel valued and respected by their schools, as evidenced by administrative support, professional autonomy and fair compensation. Trust, respect and caring are indeed essential to learning, but I think our culture too often focuses on teachers' attitudes towards students to the neglect of broader contextual considerations--including the fact that, as Mr. Brooks emphasizes, the person at the head of the classroom needs affirmation, understanding, support and help every bit as much as students. Imagine if our national dialogue about public education focused on the needs of teachers to the extent it currently focuses on the needs of students. I suspect all parties would benefit significantly.
1
I agree that there are false dichotomies between rationality, social connection, and emotions. It is important to remember, however, that minds can be molded by emotions devoid of accuracy or important knowledge. We always need both, and more.
I had a 7th grade algebra teacher in who terrified me. I spent the semester hoping she would not notice me. I remember thinking, "She knows what X is, why doesn't she just tell us?" Obviously I learned nothing having missed that core concept that we were to be solving for an unknown, and I was too terrified to ask. The next semester I was able to catch up, with great effort and tutoring.
This is wonderful advice for all students, teachers and schools.
But I would focus more on what STUDENTS ADD to learning.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, I once had a student in electronics, who gave me a great lesson, with a quote. He said:
"Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect."
This is from Coach Vince Lombardi, but it was this student who taught it to me. If he had not told me, I would probably never get it. And even if I got the saying in another way, I probably would not think much of it.
I recall the student's name, Tim Wing.
In fact, he was very good at golf, so he really valued the saying.
So, why can't teachers THANK STUDENTS, for teaching them?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this happened more often, schooling might be transformed!
www.SavingSchools.org
1
@Harry Pearle. I'm glad this Lombardi quote worked for you and your student. But Lombardi intended it for a specific rarified audience, not for general use. It would not work for me. I would find it very demotivating because I'd know that I couldn't achieve "perfect practice" so why even start? I'd switch over to something else or, better yet, simply shut my ears to the person who was saying this to me. It expresses such inflexibility and intolerance with the effort. As a kid I always found hyper-critical commentary or feedback to be inhibiting so the insistence upon "perfect practice" would be an instant loser. The original cliche--that practice makes perfect--leaves room for the process, for the improvement. I ultimately learned to teach things to myself and ask others for help only with the inevitable occasional impasses. A sympatico instructor was always great but they were the exception. In this respect I am probably a typical introvert. People are different.
1
Mr. Brooks writes a heart-felt article. However, he ignores one important part: a good teacher uses whatever works to motivate the student. In my case, it was my high-school world history teacher, Mr. Basile. He realized he could motivate me by evoking anger and determination to "show him" and it certainly worked. I placed 1st in my entire high school class on a comprehensive examination everyone took at the end of the year. I would certainly not describe Mr. Basile as my friend. I would with equal certainty describe him as a very effective teacher.
4
Connections with teachers are vital to student engagement. Unfortunately, the GOP intelligentsia refuse to support measures that strengthen public education(particularly class size, guidance counselors, etc.) while sending their own darlings off to private schools with very low student to teacher ratios and loads of guidance counseling!
5
Love is built on honesty and trust. Emotions have a cognitive core. Unless teachers know the subject matter and believe in its importance, and students want to learn, and teachers and students mutually recognize all that, "putting relationship quality at the core" is just going through the motions.
And the kids will know that.
3
Mr Brooks- better be careful or pretty soon you are going ot be accused of being a liberal! keep up the good work
2
Welcome to affect theory Mr. Brooks.
David Brooks continuing devolution into a combination psychiatric journalist Ann Landers, Mehmet Oz, Dr. Phil and Joel Osteen is all diva narcissist delusion.
Education should be left to professionals with academic training and practical experience in the most challenging and difficult circumstances aka majority black urban schools. The late Dr. Barbara Ann Sizemore was the master of both of those realms. And her acolytes and disciples are legion. But their color and gender makes them invisible to the likes of David Brooks and Betsy DeVos.
Dr. Sizemore was educated at Northwestern and the University of Chicago. She trained in the Chicago Public Schools from teacher to Principal to District Superintendent. Then on to Washington as the Superintendent of the District of Columbia schools. She ended her career as the Dean of the College of Education at Depaul University in Chicago.
See " Reign of Error: The Hoax of Privatization and the Danger to Publc Schools" Diane Ravitch ; " The Ruptured Diamond; " Walking in Circles" Barbara Sizemore...Google her name on YouTube aka " Black People Don't Get It."
1
Hello Mr. Brooks - I find this column on the mark as I usually do with your writing. Thanks for making your readers think. And I wanted to link my comment here to another column you wrote earlier this month as it surprised me. The column was "The Morality of Selfism: The Gospel of Saint You." Can you introduce the author of today's column to the author of that column. Whoever wrote the previous one was a poor David Brooks imitator. That David Brooks was shallow, sarcastic and mean. Not traits I normally attribute to you. That January 3 column was probably just an aberration and everyone has a bad day. But it was so out of character I wonder if you have retracted it or would like to do so. In contrast, today's author is the David Brooks I am used to reading and think you should stick with this approach to the world and leave with helping us learn from love rather than snide. Thanks for today's great article and years of excellent writing.
So, you were teaching at Yale, were ya?
2
Students learn from people they love? Love and trust is at the heart of education?
Genuine education, education as it sadly does not exist in educational systems, is often seen in even bad films, bad literature, and it's a wonder why the official system in all it's intellectual legitimacy and preeminence doesn't take the cue. But then again maybe films and literature are just fantasy.
This genuine education I mean is one which is difficult, often a living hell, but the teacher is there as a shining example demonstrating for all pain and difficulty love and trust and future and human development is at the end of it all. We see this in corny martial arts movies. We see this in coming of age movies. We see it in science fiction (such as Star Wars, and it really should be asked why boys love Star Wars).
Genuine education is impossible to form in society without first the society having the guts to recognize great people, to promote a critical mass of the toughest, most intelligent, dedicated, honorable people, and then these people working upon the mass of the young, increasing the quality of teachers from generation to generation. You want to make things as challenging as possible for the young, but it's impossible to do unless they have a rather clear picture of the end in sight, they need genuine masters before the eye, those who by every word and action convey love and hope and trust no matter how difficult the education, and it must be difficult to be one worth the name.
Becoming fully human by not denying, repressing and hiding those pesky tricky emotions and sharing them with those that won't intentionally poke and invalidate you is a huge key to unlocking the secrets of how to free yourself from distressing anxiety, depression and a whole host of other nasties. David Brooks is joining and adding a strong megaphone to the growing chorus of psychologists, psychotherapists, educators, social scientists, and thoughtful writers. The challenge: this emotional thinking runs so counter to our "pull yourself up," culture. But the tide is changing. Thank you, David for joining the growing movement of those that support emotional presence, authenticity, vulnerability and courage! Yes...emotional courage! I don't mean the courage to suppress emotions. As in "Change Your Mind, Change Your Life." I mean the courage to share emotion, slowly, carefully. Go...Susan David, the author of Emotional Agility, Susan Johnson, clinician, researcher, author, and the creator of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, neuroscientist Daniel Siegel, Daniel Goleman, one of the fathers of Emotional Intelligence ...and a bunch of others in the definitive theory of personality - Attachment Theory - I bow down to John Bowlby This is our pathway toward changing a whole bunch of bad stuff in the world. Yes...thank you David Brooks!
1
Thank you David Brooks ,once again. I forgot, water is wet and snow is a form of precipitation. And you know what else? Market capitalism is based on relationships. Thank you captain onbvoius.
Dear David
Why don't you try teaching first at an inner city community college and imparting your wisdom to students who are trying to make it out of the hood.
These aren't Ivies. They are the product of single parent and low income homes, from communities where social disorganization is common, from Title 1 elementary and high schools.
It is wonderful that the children of the 1 percent and legacies reached out to you in your hour of need.
Oh it is wonderful that you skipped earning an advanced degree and got to teach at a highly selective private school. Did they actually pay you?
I once met Mike Dukakis at Florida Atlantic University and was amazed that a man who was humiliated by your beloved conservatives and republicans was teaching, far ahead of his time, about health care policy. Mike is a fine fellow. He came and gave a lecture on community development to a conference I put on.
I simply cannot imagine what knowledge you could impart except rehashed William Bennett rubbish on character education....remember he was a compulsive gambler?
Vietnam Vet
2
Oh look, Brooks has turned into the Gandhi of the right, a teacher who has shed his Republican togs to reveal what he was really after all these years: enlightenment. All those columns from the past extolling the virtues of capitalism and the leadership virtues of the CEO class, the Reagan and Buckley penmanship, vanished. After the next right-wing vomitorium he’ll change his name, move to Argentina and look insulted when asked if he was ever a card-carrying Conservative.
1
I appreciate this piece. I am currently teaching a class called "Love in Action" at Middlebury College. Take a look:
http://sites.middlebury.edu/hatelovereconciliation/
The students come alive with the opportunity to talk about love and its meaning in their lives.
JI
1
Oh, David, David, David. There you go again. Droning on about normal life when times are nowhere near normal. Have you watched "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis"? No? Do give it a go. You'll find important life lessons there.
1
Brooks, it seems you've had an epiphany after Trump's election when you offered a libertarian/conservative Jewish Capitalist Christian bent, and since who has become a born-again Zen Buddhist.
I applaud his new "him," but I find it interesting that's Brookml's gone all sack cloth and ashes without fully admiting his former Secular Free Form Capitalism was the philosophy that makes America Great.
Go MAGA, David...you too can have a signed hat from your "philosopher" Trump. ENJOY!!!
1
I'm always amazed at how David Brooks, at a time of national emergency, writes the most softball namby pamby columns. Thanks for filling column inches with useless milktoast.
1
"We used to have this top-down notion that reason was on a teeter-totter with emotion. If you wanted to be rational and think well, you had to suppress those primitive gremlins, the emotions. Teaching consisted of dispassionately downloading knowledge into students’ brains."
Wow, did you really think that? Did they teach you that at Yale?
Isn't Yale where Shrub got his "gut" for a brain?
And by the way, what mean "we" Kimosabe?
Hey, David, good luck with your anodyne analyses.
1
When ever some pundit first stumbles into modern works by neuroscientists they rave, driven by the wow factor. And it is wow inducing.
We must acknowledge in fact the most salient informative feature of neuroscience is that consciousness, that special feeling about oneself that is so damned amazing we invented religion to account for it's origin, is not supernatural. It is natural, it is brain chemistry. We are the result of complex arrangements of molecules and if you could build a physical copy of yourself, it would be as you as you are.
I therefore find the reminiscence in this piece concerning students "prayer" evidence that the well meaning Mr Brooks needs more study on the subject of neuroscience, or at least his student body. At least some of the kids were no doubt playing Mr Brooks for favor, not appreciating his troubles. This is not seminary, this is Yale, one of the most snakily competitive organized bodies of people on Earth, where tenths of a grade point can make or break your hiring at Goldman Sachs. Yes hope you feel better, remember me come grade time.
Your algebra example reveals only your own math phobia.
I started teaching science in 1964 and retired in 2014. Along the way I watched Meryl Streep nail Marian the Librarian in the Music Man as a sophomore at Bernard’s NJ High School, taught science to 400 7th graders in two days in CA and was expected to give a grade in six weeks, walked a picket line in PA, discovered that the start of school in Durham NC had to be postponed until the tobacco crop was picked, learned that both sex education and evolution when introduced caused the Bible to appear on many desks, spent the rest of my career in Texas teaching biology, physics in junior high and high school before earning a PhD and doing research and teaching at a major university for 23 years. What a ride I had! David Brooks, you are so right. Even with 40 in a class-5 classes a day it was the moments of cognitive connection I still treasure.
It's as old as Aristotle's Rhetoric.
If the audience doesn't like the speaker --teacher or whatever--they will find a way to disbelieve him or her.
Conversely, if they like the speaker, they'll be charitable toward the speech.
It's the basis of most forms of ad hominem arguments--abusive as well as "halo effect."
Thus attack ads in politics, celebrity ads for all sorts of products, and Trump's only form of defense against his critics.
Logically, loathsome people can speak truths; the lovable can speak nonsense. Yet interpersonal motivations causes logical static.
Thus the need for education in Critical Thinking--as the antidote to education in Marketing--which is about how to separate fools from their money or votes.
3
Well then I'm sure Brooks supports additional school funding to improve relationships between students and teachers, such as by reducing class size and additional training for teachers.
What's that? He doesn't? Just like he doesn't support raising taxes to fund services and improvements to improve "community"--something he preaches about ad nauseum?
Put your money where your mouth is, Brooks. All your high-minded talk mean nothing if you aren't willing to advocate real world measures to implement them.
3
"Extreme negative emotions, like fear, can have a devastating effect on a student’s ability to learn. Fear amps up threat perception and aggression."
So what then are American students really learning in school when they fear being killed by guns while in the classroom?
2
Good column, which I forwarded to
my family online! From my experience I think this is true, I learned most from those I respected, admired and cared about, because I was more receptive and attentive and, careful about following instructions — all the attributes of a good student!
Let's start with this. I am a gay black man who never had a teacher who looked like me (black male) until I was in graduate school. We need more black men in the classroom.
3
I totally agree and would extend this to add that the positive connection with the teacher creates a positive connection with the subject matter fostering and ongoing interest even after the course ends. In other words, the student may become a lifelong student, continuing to explore the subject and related topics.
I would also like to extend this point to other professions. Doctors who have created good relationships with their patients are far more effective in fostering adherence to recommendations (including medications) and healthy lifestyle changes. Current pressures on doctors which interfere with the relationship are ultimately damaging to public health (and also physician health, since most doctors really want to be able to build relationships).
1
Mr Brooks heart is in the right place, but his proposal of a solution is not.
Mr Brooks solution is similar to that of a pick up artist to dating. It won't work because tries to make everyone the same (metric) and ends up making the outcome for the teacher similar to getting laid for the person who hires a pickup artist.
The reason why teaching is hard to replicate, is that there is no "metric for measuring relationship quality," and by making it about a metric it destroys the relationship. People become concerned about passing or failing the metric not establishing the relationship. They are concerned not about getting to know people, treating them right, negotiating the currents of human interaction, but just getting laid.
Metrics are about measuring outcomes. Relationships are complex systems where your mileage may vary considerably, and often the path that works for one, is not the path that works for another.
One can promote techniques towards better human interaction uses a variety of lenses of understanding, as well as a toolbox of techniques that might help in different situations. We can and should have ways for teachers who are having problems with their relationships with students to have aid in the way that marriage counselors provide aid, and teacher coaches and colleagues do.
But make no mistake that this is an art more than a science. That this is not a commodity. Not something that can be bought and sold, only built one relationship at a time.
7
I’ve had teachers who I respected but never loved. But I did have Teachers who loved their subject and these were the teachers who made me want to learn more about it.
2
That last question, about Congress, is a zinger. It made me quickly evaluate the two congressional leaders and realize how much they have in common. Neither Pelosi or McConnell are much interested in building relationships. Until each party elects leaders who are, we will continue to have paralyzed politics at the national level.
1
Our poor, underpaid teachers. Given that they're teaching to the test, to an overcrowded classroom, subject to a dozen metrics so their career is forever in the balance, I don't see how there's much love left for the students. Our precarious economy worsens the effect because learning itself has become devalued; now it's only a means to and end: a high-paying job doing something of little meaning to the individual or society. Parents are no less guilty in promoting this view of the world, one that produces incurious cogs.
4
I wonder how long Mr. Brooks would be "loved" if his columns were assigned reading and he had to test those readers at the end of the term? Assign some below-average marks, etc. When he figures out how to master this task, then he will have the right to devise a "metric" for his being lovable enough.
2
There are already 334 comments, and I'm sure many will echo mine, but I'll chime in anyway: At 60, thinking back over all my schooling (and there was a lot), I completely agree with this. The value I derived from each class was completely determined by the relationship (or lack thereof) I had with the teacher. In most cases it wasn't a relationship as we might think of it, marked by after-class on-on-one contact or any kind of personal communication. It was simply the vibe the teacher created, a sense that she/he cared, that they really saw you, that they wanted you to be engaged and learn and enjoy the material, that they were not burned out civil servants but educators in the truest sense. I have no idea how a person maintains that quality and attitude year after year, but those that do create more value for society than they can ever know. And those that don't may well do more harm than they would ever believe, letting so much potential slip through their fingers. Yes, we need to pay far more than we do, both in terms of money and acknowledgement. Being a teacher should be a mark of pride, and command universal respect. (And no, I'm not a teacher.)
7
There are two key elements to Brook's personal anecdote that are crucial to keep in mind: 1) he was teaching at YALE (not a high school), and 2) he is a WHITE MALE. Emotions humanize the respected white male Yale prof. The same emotions compromise the female and/or POC prof who might say the same words in the same context. My white male colleague brings his kids to work for fun -aw, what a great dad. I bring my sick kid to work because I had no childcare backup that day -students complained about my lack of professionalism to the Dept Chair. Female/POC profs pay professional consequences if they are not emotional/nurturing/human enough, and equally if they show emotion. But good teachers have known for a long time that creating a classroom dynamic in which students feel comfortable enough to fail until they figure things out is crucial.
1
The teachers and professors I learned most from were people who I loved because they were real, they communicated their own love of the material, and they were unique. Who could ever forget Toby Jackman who began his survey course in British history with "This is a course about English history; it does not include the land where little green men run across bogs." Or another professor who introduced himself as a former chairman of a major history department: "I am Maurice Careless … I was an improvement over my predecessor. He was [George] Wrong. I am merely Careless." And he invited his students to come and eat lunch "at" him. How could one not be drawn in from the start? A friendly face and a welcome as a very big deal in learning.
2
Our Mr. Brooks hits the bull's eye here! I can testify to that I learned the most from teachers I loved and/or admired, such as my teachers in fourth and fifth grade, (love you still, Genevieve and Irene, although you're now with God) and my junior year high-school history teacher who acquainted us with some of the darker corners of our history. (love you too, Irve!) Anne, I agree with you on how we need to treat our teachers much better than we do!
No. If I wanted my child to have love in school, I'd send her to a school where the teachers were all kittens. Students learn from great communicators whom they respect and maybe even fear a little.
2
though I agree with most of what you say, David, I don't think I would want a "team" measuring my "relationship quality"...
1
Very true, Mr Brooks. "Emotions assign values to things." And yet when a woman cries in New Hampshire primaries, Neanderthal "things" decide FOR her what "good decisions" she better make.
"Some schools, for example, do no academic instruction the first week. To start, everybody just gets to know one another."
Am I the only one who thinks that that's going a bit too far? The bigotry of low expectations, perhaps? Is there a single academically excellent private school that does that? Do the kids themselves not think that there is something off about it?
2
David, I used to bristle at many of your writings. Either I've evolved or you have *; Lately I've found nothing to bristle about.
My favorite rejoinder to the claim that "'large disparities in economic outcomes for individual work is healthy for the economy'" is that as long as an inner city school teacher receives only $40,000, NOBODY "earns" $200,000, let alone millions.
A perhaps apocryphal story is that in certain African civilizations the standard greeting is "how are the children?"
Would that we, the "greatest nation" {gag} demonstrated that wisdom.
*Or maybe both.
1
An excellent argument for why teachers armed with guns is such an abhorrent and counterproductive idea.
5
Conservatives will laugh out loud at such a progressive proposal. And, being based on real-world evidence, they will reject it out-of-hand as "elitist" or some such deplorable-speak epithet.
When will the esteemed Mr. Brooks admit that he is at heart a Democrat (where compassion is definitive, reality is attended to and the Common Good is the point of polutics) if not a Progressive (horrors!...no more Republixan cocktail parties!)?
1
I would subscribe to the NYT if the only article in it was written by David Brooks. More and more his opinion pieces reflect a deeply intelligent and humane understanding of our needs for connection, caring and morality.
Great job Mr. Brooks...and backed by data. "Students don't care how much you know - they want to know how much you care."
1
You should have an educated emotional vocabulary to maneuver through all those stages. And students have got to have a good relationship with teachers.
In other words, vote Democratic. Don't for a party that preys on fear and is afraid to show its emotions.
1
"How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core?"
Two simple answers:
1) Provide schools with enough money so that they can attract the most inspiring people to become teachers.
2) Provide schools with enough money so that class sizes are small enough to allow for relationships to develop between students and teachers.
See, it's rather simple!
(But of course, these are Liberal principles that require increased public spending. Therefore, they're to be rejected outright by Conservatives like Brooks. And disregard the fact that he learned his epiphany while teaching at Yale, the epitome of elitisim, located in an elitist Blue state on the coast; such things don't apply to real Americans in the Rustbelt or the Biblebelt.)
Thanks for this, David. I have worked for years to reveal and acknowledge the emotional dimension of teaching. There is a metric that evaluates classroom quality:
https://curry.virginia.edu/classroom-assessment-scoring-system
Lets start even earlier... how would you design a family?
What kind of experiences 0-5 prepare a child to love trust and relate to the teacher? We can't send kids off to school and expect them to have deep relationships if we have not inculcated relational depth already.
This is, and has always been, so obvious that there is no need to spend all of the ink on "research." And the first, obvious, and most important implication is about both class and school size. One of the worst things that has happened to elementary education since the 2008 Bush economic disaster is severe cuts in school budgets. Most of those cuts converted immediately into larger class sizes and the reduction in teacher aides. Little, if any, of that has been recovered, partly because of the stupid right wing "don't throw money at it."
I love your columns. I am sad that it took so long for you to figure complex out the relationship between teachers and students
Seriously Dave. Initially, I thought this was just another out-of-touch with the times column (pun intended). But you may have something here. However, if you were really thinking about us, the rest of the country outside your cozy world, I believe you might extend this concept to topics in the forefront of our everyday lives.
Try using your writing skills to associate our current political morass to our crisis education. Try talking about the rural public schools pushing for religion in classes and what that has done to civilizations in the past. Try talking about the exclusion of secular science, math, history and government (secular civics) teaching in these same schools. Try talking about how this makes a permanent lesser educated, constantly replenished crop of students unable to compete globally. Try talking about inner city issue of funding for our public schools vs. charter schools.
Relationships count, no doubt! But your arguments seem to carry a simplistic philosophical perspective and not many issues that directly affect us and our future.
Try to relate to me... a 63 year old white guy that had a wonderful education with solid civics classes and an obvious caring town council that supported school funding. Try relating to those of us that are very concerned about our descent into tribes and its long lasting effect on our country.
Please write something that is less cerebral.
I'm sure this will make the Los Angles teacher feel better.
1
David Brooks is a wise man. Sometime "back in the day" another wise person said, "They may not remember your words, but they will remember how they were feeling when you said them..."
This is why we need more teachers and smaller class sizes, more intimate neighborhood schools, and smaller school districts.
As for Congress, we need the same thing -- an expanded House of Representatives with more legislators who would then be accountable to more closely held districts. The Times editorial board agrees: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/09/opinion/expanded-house-representatives-size.html?module=inline
1
Measure what is important and measurable. Honor and value what is important and not measurable.
And know the difference between the two.
1
Beautiful mentor-student relationships are a staple of the entertainment industry.
We love these stories when they appear on screen: Good Will Hunting, etc. etc.
The "inspiring teacher story" is almost a genre unto itself. Good mentors fulfill a deep emotional need for most humans.
Now switch to real life, after you exit the movie theater.
We view teachers with cynicism. We view them as pawns. We view education as in strictly utilitarian terms.
Such a disjuncture between what is obviously an emotional need - something we fulfill in the movies - and our harshness in the real world - when we get back to our cynical, sniping selves!
2
How fast we got here - from the nation of HOPE to the nation at risk!
Thanks for this excellent piece. For a research-based framework for building developmental relationships that achieve the kinds of things discussed in this article, visit the web site of Search Institute at https://www.search-institute.org/developmental-relationships/developmental-relationships-framework/
"Do you have a metric for measuring relationship quality?"
Yes. We do. https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/
The website works the same way as a teacher evaluation. Any one review is irrelevant. Sometimes students have a bad experience. If you put all the reviews together though, you get a statistically accurate representation of the teacher. We don't need to measure emotion to determine whether the teacher is good or bad.
Is emotion a contributing factor? Maybe but it doesn't really matter. Students will know intuitively whether the teacher has done a good job or not. And no, grade performance is not necessarily indicative of a positive or negative review. Many reviews will praise a teacher for exactly how challenging the student found the class.
Of course, teaching performance doesn't necessarily matter to the institution. Maybe the German speaking math professor isn't prized for her lecturing acumen. Maybe the school just needed a warm body to fill another section of calculus I. Who knows? You're going to encounter bad teachers occasionally. Establishing a relationship with them might help but it won't make them a good teacher. How you feel about a bad teacher doesn't change objective reality.
"...I was dealing with some personal issues and a friend was coming up to help me sort through them."
Am I Republican? Am I Democrat? Am I conservative? Am I a moderate? Am I a social researcher? Am I a columnist? Who am I? Am I genuine? Am I a hypocrite? Who am I? What do I stand for?
"We focus on all the wrong things"
Coming from David Brooks, whose recent columns have all but ignored our government's conflagration (ignited and fueled by his party) - this is pretty rich. An extraterrestrial reading only Brooks would have no idea that there's a Russian puppet in the White House!
I never had a mentor other than my grandfather who went to his death worshiping Mussolini. Learning is hard and humans are lazy. I am an introvert and read books to get ahead. You don't need people to make smart people; you just need motivation and drive.
Sloth and Gluttony are on display in your churchies. As are all the 7 sins like jealousy and greed, etc.
That's why "To Sir With Love" hit such a chord.
1
Wisdom = knowledge + love
I expected but am disheartened by this column. David is a brilliant thinker, but falls to the typical, American failure of thinking he knows enough about education to comment intelligently. No realizations in this piece surprise an actual teacher. And David apparently never thought to speak to one. While he may interview cognitive scientists, he doesn't speak to the professionals who do the work every day. This is the typical failure. Many (or most) Americans think they understand education because they themselves went through it as children. They don't. Be humble and pay attention to the experts, David.
As a school psychologist I have brought this up at many a meeting with all the passion and reason I could muster, but the response is typically a blank look in the test-score driven culture of the schools. It’s as if I’d come up with an utterly irrelevant concept that had nothing to do with a student’s ability to learn.
1
One need look no further than our body politic to see the results of failing to build relationships.
Our willful blindness to place appropriate value and investment in one of our foundational social, moral, and intellectual institutions —the public school system —has reduced the opportunity for relationship building. Teachers and administrators alike are continually tasked with managing ever increasing class sizes and caseloads that mirror gilded age garment factory production quotas.
Why not have that same paradigm at work? I've had bosses who shared nothing about their personal lives - who would just be gone for days at a time without giving a reason - and another who candidly said "I have a health situation that I need to deal with, so I'll be out of the office for a bit." Who do you think I cared about more? Who did I most want to please? Relationships matter in the workforce too.
1
Amen. Youth workers have known forever that kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Duh. The problem is our expert-driven culture--to over-THINK every solution, right down to drilling data into 3-year-olds' heads. (It's happening as we speak.) The nation's over-emphasis on cognitive outcomes is killing student-teacher passion AND innovation. We'd unleash much more creativity by just being good relatives to each other. For millennia, indigenous people have relied on relational circles. "Smart networks" need strong relationships to foster innovation. Google Corp. learned its most effective teams utilize equitable sharing of ideas & EMPATHY. It's good business, good learning & good morals to put relationships first; to assess the environment first. We learn how to honor relationships by practicing relational values through environmental immersion, watching & modeling positive behavior--not by studying bullet points of some trademarked curriculum. So many effective approaches simply treat everyone as extended family. This is common sense, Humanity 101! And while we let go of the expert model, we absolutely must stop blaming & judging kids. Bringing more trauma & stress to school, they need a hug--not punishment. (BTW, the adults need hugs & trauma-informed support, too.) Building relationships IS fundamental work; every school, preschool (& workplace) needs a 360-degree assessment on its relational climate first, with support to improve.
1
I welcome this thought and the comments posted by many of the readers. Our pesent culture, entertainment and media do not stress this aspect of learning enough. I was observing the winners in the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards and couldn’t understand how the film Mary Poppins Returns that stresses this philosophy without being preachy did not get the recognition it deserves. I guess only the discerning eyes know...
As a veteran teacher I have mentored many newbies, I always tell them that being themselves, acknowledging mistakes and allowing their love of learning and the subject matter to shine through in lessons is essential to inspiring students to learn and succeed in their classes.
I find standardized curriculum abhorrent and an insult to educators. Teaching is an art form, it is unique to each teacher. Trying to standardize instruction is the same as saying all students are the same.
2
Administrators think that there must be some "secret formula" that makes a good teacher. They now have us jump through a bunch of these arbitrary hoops to show we are "effective". We have to spend hours providing evidence that we are doing our jobs well (which ironically detracts from the time we have to actually do our jobs well).
The same thing is happening with the students. Administrators think that learning is effective if students can score highly on standardized tests. Raising standardized test results has become the central goal of administrators (and by extension the teachers they hire).
It's just another example of how the obsession with "the numbers" is infecting human affairs.
3
Love is the stuff of great teams of any kind: learning groups, work teams, creative teams. Amy Edmondson calls it psychological safety. Vanessa Druskatt and Steve Wolff call it group emotional intelligence. I call it love, and in organizations where that's too "woo woo" I call it friendship.
We have 5-6 decades of psych and business research showing that the most creative, best-performing teams measure high in these areas (yes, we can measure it). And these are skills we can learn and improve - with a little guidance and practice, work teams can raise increase their love (caring behaviors, emotional sharing, making and delivering on noncoercive agreements, etc.) *and* their performance.
3
Wonderful teachings. You are great. We loved the headline and the writing. Thanks a lot.
I am a physician and since becoming a parent, I am consistently struck by the similarities between the medical and education systems.
We are both under terrific pressure to do more with less these days. We are regulated by outside forces who tell us what to do but may not actually know what is best for our patients/students. We are respected less and less.
And - as relates to this article - for both of us, research shows how significant the relationship we have with our patients and students, respectively, is in our impact and success.
But also, in both our professions, this significance is not given the appropriate attention it deserves. It is consistently re-revealed, with surprise. ?
Furthermore- I'd like to suggest that this doesn't just apply in these areas.
Life itself is about relationships. Even children's books talk about this; the individual who has every material thing but no friends is miserable.
Why is this so hard for us to get?
5
As the comments thus far suggest, Brooks's observations corroborate what teachers who care already know. Still, some colleagues in STEM subjects might want to add a footnote or three regarding, say, differential calculus and organic chemistry for example. It seems more likely that greater inherent difficulty along with attempts by professors to realize grade disinflation might have an effect on "relationship quality" in the academy.
In retirement, I'm a part-time drivers ed instructor because I love teens. Although I may often see a student only once, I always ask what their favorite subject in school is and why. The subject is unimportant; the "why" is everything: "because I like the teacher."
1
January 18, 2019
My own High School years in Brooklyn New York afforded me the opportunity to subscribe to the New York Times as a nice price and so began and continues with love affair with excellence in best of journalism and the written word - as well indeed photo journalism that hit to mind, soul and life long desire to emulate those that are my daily fun to learn and enjoy becoming an adult - and yet there we have it a current president that has not cultivate the affection and indeed need for fact base knowledge and historic participation in the world that is in our ideas and conversations fit for all students of life and a life time....
1
My problem is that, in teaching in a primarily conservative and deeply faithful community, many of my students have an extremely negative reaction to both me and the material as soon as I mention the word "evolution." Some literally believe I'm doing the work of Satan. I try everyday to maintain the rapport and positive regard necessary for collaborative learning experiences, but there are some factors beyond my control that impede that process.
2
@John Terrell I feel your pain - I have been teaching biology for 30+ years.
I always acknowledge the conflict that some of my students have with evolution and let them know that I will leave religious instruction to their parents and religious leaders. If students feel they must choose between accepting evolution and eternal damnation, I've already lost them.
I tell them that any educated individual should understand why evolution is the one-and-only theory science has to explain the condition of life as we know it. If they can demonstrate their understanding, then I have done my job, (even if they took the test with their fingers crossed).
1
I teach PhD students how to do research. When I did my PhD research in the late 70’s, labs were happy places, we were given the freedom to make mistakes, gain confidence, and be creative. Those were the early days of NIH funding, the research teaching community was fresh and energetic. Every Saturday, my thesis advisor would bring a giant bucket of KFC to the lab to ‘reward’ those of us who worked on weekends. I owe my research career to the teachings and the role modeling of my thesis advisor. I regret to report that the majority of PhD students nowadays are unhappy. Thesis advisors have become Principal Investigators who spend most of their time writing grants, and the most successful ones spend the rest of their times traveling around the world to boost their professional profiles. Labs are run by ‘managers’. NIH prefers to fund contracts with milestones and deliverables, turning trainees into robots. Of course, there will always be those brilliant and resilient young scientists who will succeed against all odds. However, I do hope that the research training community will find a way to provide a more effective education for our PhD students, based on what you wrote in this reporting.
2
@Jean Kolodner,
I'm also familiar with the funding world that you articulate here. Recent experiences have impressed on me that perhaps the best way, at the graduate level, of recapturing some of the spirit of scientific investigation is through collaborative training grants. That is, grants that focus on training, typically are cross-disciplinary, and involve a number of different faculty as a consequence. These grants, if run well, generate enthusiasm, free faculty up (somewhat) to engage more with science, and less with the business of science, and the inter-disciplinary nature of the enterprise stretches everyone's thinking. The result is that most students have a richer and more rewarding learning and working environment, and are more likely to form supportive bonds with each other.
1
Nice to see Mr. Brooks finally catch up with decades of infant and child research into cognition and development, even if his concern for the school age child is "late" in the story of brain development. Emotionally secure bonds with stable caregivers for infants , protection from "toxic stress" and guidance in resiliency allow the developing brain to thrive and be ready to learn. It is good to ask about the quality of the emotional environment. There is research on interventions to foster the necessary behavioral ingredients. But interventions can be expensive and the outcomes hard to quantify. We seem to find it easier to blame individual parents or teachers and focus on measuring things because they are easy to measure (test scores?) and not because they tell us anything useful.
In one of my first classes at Colombia Teachers College John Fanslow said there are contradictions in all the educational research except that students learn best from a teacher that they like. I used that as my guide in more than three decades of teaching and it made my career more satisfying and successful.
2
Wow! I agree with you on something. If we truly want relationship building to happen, we need to dial down the culture of testing and make time for true engagement, understanding and social-emotional learning. And yes, I'm a teacher.
This is the best column David Brooks has ever written. I am a high school coach. I can tell you that if an athlete is afraid of their coach, they'll hate the sport, which is such a shame. Yelling at an athlete? Ruins their day and mine, and teaches them nothing. It is counterproductive. I don't care if it's football, track, chess club, science club, if the coach takes a deep interest in each member of the team, they will perform better, love what the do, and have fun doing it.
1
"How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core? Come to think of it, how would you design a Congress?"
One might first ask how you design a Congress to undermine relationship quality. For an answer, one need look no further than Newt Gingrich. When his GOP took over Congress, he banished the old custom of bipartisan Congressional orientations lest friendships develop across the aisles. He also redesigned the House calendar so that most members went home over the weekends rather than stay in Washington and socialize with one another.
Not to mention “Newtspeak” and Gingrich’s GOPAC thesaurus of vilification against Democrats, to the extent of banishing the adjectival form “Democratic” because it sounded too positive. Orwell wasn’t that far off with 1984; he just got his dates wrong by a decade.
4
Welcome to teaching 101 Mr. Brooks. Anyone who has spent anytime helping students regardless of age, race, gender identity, economic background, etc. become educated, knows that connecting with them personally is vital to that mission. More to the point, having passion for the subject, something difficult in the era of neoliberal, standardized testing, is an imperative. Kudos to you Mr. Brooks for finally discovering what dedicated teachers and educators everywhere have always known.
4
Love is the "secret sauce" of an effective teacher. Love of subject, love of learning and love and compassion for their students.
2
On loving relations and learning, is it perhaps even more loving the prof’s enthusiastic love of a subject than love of the prof per se?
@Chuck Adams
I hope it’s not love of the professors personally. I attended law school in the late 80’s. One of the female students was sleeping with a professor. Surely this would not be permitted now. This talk of love and emotional connections in this column and comments makes me uneasy. I know what Mr Brooks intends but there needs a different way to express it. I’m not sure the school board would be happy if they found messages of love from a young woman to her high school teacher.
1
So, ideally, we want to fill public schools with teachers who are smart enough, effective enough, and educated enough themselves (though most teachers come from the bottom quarter of their graduating class) to teach, and, on top of that, we want teachers to be moral and approachable humans who spend additional time building genuine relationships with their students. And we want them to do all that for $24,000 per year.
Seems reasonable.
I paid my nanny more than public school teachers here make - not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because I didn't want someone who was worried about money taking care of my kids. Poverty is distracting, poverty is stressful, and being stuck in the scramble of "survival mode" does not leave much in the way of emotional resources to give to other people's children.
4
The only way I got through the last 10 years of my upper elementary teaching career was to search out on my own educators who affirmed my relational approach to students. Parker Palmer's 'Courage to Teach' spoke to the need for teachers to not rely on gimmicks or power plays, but to be authentic in their enthusiasm for being with children and sharing a love of learning. I subsequently attended a series of weekend conferences based on Palmer's book. There, I met other educators all teetering on burn-out and trying to hang on to their souls. Palmer, Shelley Harwayne, Daniel Goleman, Lucy Calkins, Donald Greaves are all educators who place emotional and social intelligence, story telling, exploration, love of reading, joy and fun as integral to a child's and a teacher's education. Their books have been around for 20-25 years or more and many teachers have been bolstered by their words and encouragement. The problem comes when administrators whose main goal was never to be a teacher but to be 'in charge' define education as 'putting kids on a conveyer belt and then when they get to your class you drop knowledge in and then pass them on to the next grade.' I can still hear my superintendent saying those words at a faculty meeting as though spoken from Mt. Sinai. Numbers can't define learning although administration likes the ease of pulling up spreadsheets at board meetings. We don't need more metrics, we don't need scrolls of data. We need to trust our teachers.
2
David, what does the discussion of underlying neurological processes add to the thesis of the column, which is that emotion is a necessary component to desired learning outcomes? This kind of naturalism and scientism seems shoehorned in merely to sound smart to your readers.
Further, reason and emotion need not be opposites, but they are certainly contraries. They differ. I am confused on why it is news to anyone that reason and emotion affect one another.
A long, long time ago, Plato argued in the Republic that the soul consists of rational, appetitive, and spirited elements and that education must appeal to all three elements. This is not breaking news to any seasoned teacher.
Re Congress, it might be helpful to seat members alphabetically, rather than by party and seniority.
2
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. I will pass this on to the two dozen adjuncts who teach 60% of our department's courses. They are the true heroes of higher education, not the tenured profs like me. They manage to survive on meager incomes, teaching in 4, 5 or sometimes 6 different institutions, paid by the course, with schedules that often stretch from early morning to late evening. They can hardly afford to have extensive office hours, as they have to jump on their beat-up cars to get to the next gig on time. They cannot afford to be too demanding or impose discipline of any kind (late papers? no problem) in fear that touchy students may complain and next semester they may not be rehired.
8
@farmer marx
Absolutely! The best thing an adjunct can do is ignore her students as much as possible without adversely affecting teaching evaluations in an effort to get research done and land themselves a Visiting or TT position. Adjuncts are heroic only because universities are so immoral in their treatment of adjuncts. The academic job market is a barren nightmarescape and adjuncts put all their energy into teaching at their own peril.
3
@farmer marx
I don’t know why anyone would aspire to be a university professor unless you will acknowledge upfront you will receive low pay compared to many other careers. it’s always been low pay and will be in the future. Think of the lies that must be told to PhD students to convince them this is a career path that will reasonably compensate them. My uncle and great uncle were tenured economic professors and made nothing. That dates back to WWII.
David Brooks asks the very reasonable question as to how one would "design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core." After 45 years in education at all levels from the secondary to university, in a wide variety of institutions, and in an array of positions ( from teaching assistant and adjunct to tenured faculty), I would begin with three fairly basic conditions. First, ensure that all teachers have a fair and sufficient wage and access to benefits. Currently, adjuncts constitute 52% ( and rising) of all faculty at post-secondary institutions. I was contingent faculty for 17 of my 45 years. To put relationships at the center of teaching is difficult when the message from the institution is that you are an afterthought, and when you are often cobbling together teaching jobs at two or three institutions. The second is to increase student aid and undertake a complete reform of the student loan industry. It is more difficult to value relationships when you are a product, a customer, and a revenue stream, and often working a full-time job. Student debt is one of the few areas that can't be discharged through bankruptcy. Third, we need to re-assert the integrated nature of higher education's three foundations: professional training, liberal arts training, community commitment. Now, the notion that higher education serves business interests dominates the others. To place human relationships at the center, economic relationships have to be displaced.
4
All things being equal, and probably in classes where communication and discussion are a major objective like the seminar David Brooks was teaching, that is sound teaching advice. That being said, I don't agree with the comments here that suggest they should do away with a strategically designed curriculum based on learning outcomes so that they can "connect more" with their students. They are not mutually exclusive, and having a stronger emotional connection to students is a best practice (teaching strategy) to improve learning outcomes, not replace a curriculum.
To the faculty who are concerned about online courses--learning communities and vulnerability can be created in an online environment and students today are probably used to doing that more than faculty are. Like any course, the delivery method used should be used to meet the learning needs. If a learning need is access to information and flexibility, online courses are a good solution and should not be dismissed. On the other hand, there is no need to replace all courses with online courses. Both modes of delivery have strengths and weaknesses and both should be considered in course design and delivery decisions.
I'm a retired middle school teacher. The best principal I ever had often said, "They won't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
3
This is wonderful advice for all students, teachers and schools.
But I would focus more on what STUDENTS ADD to learning.
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For example, I once had a student in electronics, who gave me a great lesson, with a quote. He said:
"Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect."
This is from Coach Vince Lombardi, but it was this student who taught it to me. If he had not told me, I would probably never get it. And even if I got the saying in another way, I probably would not think much of it.
I recall the student's name, Tim Wing.
In fact, he was very good at golf, so he really valued the saying.
So, why can't teachers THANK STUDENTS, for teaching them?
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If this happened more often, schooling might be transformed!
www.SavingSchools.org
2
Two things came to mind in reading this, it doesn't say much for online classes does it.
There is plenty of emotion in Congress these days most of it destructive. There is little or no love between the citizenry and members of congress and as for trump he has no love for anyone other than himself
3
Browsing the Duluth MN public library, I come cross the book titled We Know Everything We Need to Teach Reading, we just aren't doing it. It was a criticism of the continual adjusting and introducing of yet more programs to tinker with the curriculum.
The emotional relationship is at the basis of everything, one on one friends, one on one marriage, one on one employees. During my stay at the CHUM, I saw this in action at its most difficult, by staff and the guests who literally come in from the cold. In no small way am I whole today due to Kim Randolph and Deb Holman still there today and the many to made a lasting mark and the new whose marks are to come.
“Other schools replaced the cops at the door with security officers who could also serve as student coaches.”
This statement made me wonder how students have suffered both intellectually and emotionally over the decades due to school active shooter drills and now actually permitting teachers concealed carry weapons in some communities. Maybe arming teachers with love and empathy would be more effective.
1
Interesting insight. I must say, though, that both my drill sergeant and my law professors used thre intersecion of fear and pride pretty successfully as a teaching device.
1
I have a daughter with Down syndrome, and I have often wondered whether my love for her overrides a more intellectually informed or analytical understanding of her condition. In recent years I have come to believe that love is the gateway to knowledge, especially when it comes to human beings. I know her because I love her. So much is western knowledge and teaching is based on an idea of scientific objectivity. And so much of learning depends on knowing human beings as persons not objects. We need to reconceive learning about humans (and probably about the rest of the natural world as well) as something rooted not in objectivity, but in love.
1
Ugh, this is my least favorite type of Brooks column - the squishy “how to be a good person” stuff. Students learn from teachers they respect. Any kind personal regard should be the rare exception.
2
Uh, I'm not so sure this love and emotion stuff is a remedy for bad education.
Years ago, I taught math and science at a high school in New Zealand. I and my fellow teachers were free to follow our own style so long as we taught the curriculum.
By far the best teacher I ever encountered, a Mr. Earle, taught English language and culture. He was, by nature, aloof but not arrogant. He focused on teaching his subject, not on emotion and entertainment.
The students expressed various opinions about their teachers, predominately about personality and classroom conduct. I never heard an opinion about Mr. Earle, only about his subject. English might be easy for some and difficult for others, but Mr. Earle's personality and technique were transparent.
Could it be that kids learn best when taught by a person they respect?
2
I once had a wonderful teacher who taught a bunch of us kids who were brought together because of a court-ordered desegregation plan. I can't speak for other students, but I loved the way this woman, who was at the end of her teaching career and was a mother, grandmother, and wife, took us all under her wing and taught us life lessons. She also still read aloud to us in the sixth grade and treated us like children who needed caring and concern. I will never forget her.
2
It works both ways. When I recently had major surgery, some of my students emailed me to wish me well, but I also learned later that some felt wronged because they weren't getting from me the education they paid for. Empathy is so much more complicated in the age of screen communications.
Perhaps the Yale students who contacted Brooks that evening were concerned. But what is certain is that those emails were calculated to maximize their course grade. And seeing how much it moved Brooks, it must have worked.
3
David Brooks makes very good points in this article. I too had a SINGLE teacher in my last year of (once failing) High School that turned my life around. She connected with every student in our class. I would not have a PhD now if it were not for her 'early' effect.
This is a lot more complicated and nuanced than Brooks makes it out to be.
1) You do not want relationships to be possibly interpreted as inviting intimate relations.
2) Vulnerability by a prominent national figure like David Brooks is one thing, vulnerability by a young female (or black, or black female, or overtly LGBT) professor is another. The former is humanizing, the latter could open up disrespect, etc.
3) Teacher/mentors are teacher/mentors, not friends. And they should not be open to highly personal conversations -- which can lead to #1 or simply a non-educational (about the subject being taught) relationship.
4) Students need to learn how to have professional relationships as, say, with a boss, as opposed to one with a co-worker or subordinate.
5) Teachers have so much on their plate, this can be a distraction if not limited -- a difficult tightrope to walk.
6) Being judged on relationship quality can open up a can of worms -- on what basis is such a judgment to be made, by whom, and compared to what.
4
Be still my bleeding heart. Being a likeable or not likeable person doesn't make or not make an individual a good teacher. A teacher showing greater vulnerability does not translate into a student learns more. Both I and my children have had teachers we haven't necessarily liked or loved that we have learned a lot from.
Further, I am wary of the Aspen Institute (mentioned in the article), which has put out publications encouraging the sharing a children's data. As schools get more involved in purporting to address social social emotional behavior, there is a push to collect more and more children's data, which can then be monetized. Children's data should belong to themselves and their families, and should not be shared for the alleged purpose of addressing social emotional behavior.
Frankly my fervent wish is for schools to stay out of and away from my children's social emotional behavior. We should all remember the more information the government and school "partners" have about our children, the more easy it is to manipulate people from the cradle to the grave.
2
I teach the same classes on campus and online at my community college, and I have never been able to create an online class with the same level of interpersonal connection I have with my on campus students. I have tried (and continue to try) many new technologies for connecting more personally with online students, but sometimes what is needed is simple eye contact!
Many community college students enter academically underprepared and may be first generation college students, which makes the interpersonal student/teacher relationship an important factor in student success.
3
Be still my bleeding heart. Being a likeable or not likeable person doesn't make or not make an individual a good teacher. A teacher showing greater vulnerability does not translate into a student learns more. Both I and my children have had teachers we haven't necessarily liked that we have learned a lot from.
Further, I am wary of the Aspen Institute (mentioned in the article), which has put out publications encouraging the sharing a children's data. As schools get more involved in purporting to address social social emotional behavior, there is a push to collect more and more children's data, which can then be monetized. Children's data should belong to themselves and their families, and should not be shared for the alleged purpose of addressing social emotional behavior.
Frankly my fervent wish is for schools to stay out of and away from my children's social emotional behavior. We should all remember the more information the government and school "partners" have about our children, the more easy it is to manipulate people from the cradle to the grave.
Well (pardon me) but duh. Although I don't necessarily direct that at David Brooks; he's clearly addressing at least some audience out there that needs convincing.
I just wanted to add that emotional labor (making someone *love* you as part of your job; managing emotions) is often severely underpaid (see: teachers). It is also feminized. I'm sure there are studies out there (which I would encourage Mr. Brooks to read) about the different burdens men and women carry when managing/engaging others' emotions. The evidence clearly suggests that the expectations for women are much higher.
Plus, you don't get tenure for having students line up to take your classes. Some would argue that you're shooting yourself in the foot to go all in on the teaching front. Again, because teaching (feminized, devalued) is less important than quantifiable things like number of publications.
So thanks for bringing this up, David, but this needs to be a part of a series that digs deeper if you really want to understand what's at stake and why it's harder than it looks.
This is an amazing column. I have taught college for 23 years and wholeheartedly agree with so much of this. A costly error many universities made was thinking that on-line teaching a) could be very low cost and b) very profitable. But on-line teaching requires 4 times the effort to connect with students -- it requires "face time," outside of class emails and phone calls. It requires meeting in person, and it should require universities to pay adjuncts $9000 per course and not $2 to $4k that they get away with.
Every so often I'll ask students whey they enjoyed one of my courses. Many say they first felt comfortable when I came out from behind the lectern, sat on the table and insisted they tell me their names as I answered their questions. For others it's when I provide "off-syllabus" articles that their interests motivate.
Thank you for a great column today Mr Brooks! Godspeed.
Teaching and learning work best through both intellectual and emotional pathways. Unfortunately the 21st century, standards-based, test-and-punish, data driven reform movement coerced through federal education law (NCLB/ESSA) has worked against the important student-teacher relationships that Mr. Brooks highlights.
Children should never be viewed as data points; they should never be asked to work for their teachers or school district. The pressure that the ongoing demand for higher Common Core test scores is distorting the true purpose of public education and doing irreparable harm to a generation of children.
I have taught for nearly 30 years. I agree with Mr. Brooks that students are more motivated if they feel regard for their teacher. On the other hand, I think teachers should keep their personal issues and lives out of the classroom. Call me old-fashioned.
5
My metaphor for my teaching is "wrestling coach",
No matter the subject, or ages of the adult students, I invite them to wrestle honestly with the material, and share what they really think. It generally takes half the semester before they believe me, but then the class takes off and everyone is all in. It is never about me telling them.
1
The article starts off on the right foot. Without doubt, abstract logic cannot work by itself in a useful way. The psychiatrist Jung assigned feeling as a RATIONAL function, because it assigned value to things in the world. You do not function as a teacher if you blandly recite facts and ideas, no matter how artfully you arrange and present them - there has to be some reason to care.
Then in the last sentences, Brooks returns to the real world - we need a 'metric' to measure the value of relationships! I mean, how else will we move forward?
A good start would be to truly treat teachers and their students with respect and dignity. Then there exists an arena where human relationships can take their essential place in academic work. That was certainly the case when I was a student, it is sometimes the case today - but on the whole, the people in charge of institutions have done all in their power to lower respect, especially for teachers. After all the students are paying customers and the teachers are employees!
And there is nothing more distasteful to the modern manager than authentic human beings living in the 'wild', and not in a cage carefully constructed with metrics.
I am not a professor, I teach the wee folk, (3yrs-6yrs), but as a teacher, mom, and grammy, I have observed more often than not, that children respond positively to teachers who have convinced the child they are loved and that they matter. Children with learning difficulties, and even children with 'attitude' issues will bust their bottoms to rise to the expectations of an encouraging teacher they believe cares about them. Real teachers love the child, then the work. Pax, jb
4
It's certainly interesting to see all this brain research.
I wonder if there's a field that studies how people learn in real-life settings--as opposed to limiting its scope to people wearing expensive instruments on their heads and answering (very) brief batteries of questions. And, if such a field of research exists, I wonder what it says about the role of emotions in learning.
If one looks back through history, we find a number of well-known arguments for the role of emotion, Hume in particular. The modern idea that emotions do not matter became cemented due to our reasonable but restrictive metaphor of brains as computers, still a major perspective in cognitive neuroscience.
We need reminding as much as we need educating (Earl Nightingale) and this article did both. I passed it along to LinkedIn. Thanks for a very positive start to this morning.
Class size greatly influences the quality of personal relationships between students and teachers. Wealthy private schools all have small class sizes. Equalize funding across all public schools, and spend much more money in states like California, that horribly underfund public education. That means paying more, in taxes.
Great idea Mr. Brooks!
Certainly, what Mr. Brooks has written is persuasive until we read another piece making a different argument for enhancing learning.
Communicating a personal issue to the class moved some students to reach out to Mr. Brooks. But does that mean those students did better than they would otherwise have done in the class?
Mr. Brooks did not say how many students were in the class, but I suspect some did not reach out to him. It is conceivable that those who did not reach out were put off by what Mr. Brooks shared, and therefore, could have done worse in the course because of the revelation.
Learning is a complex process because humans are complicated. What may improve learning for some students could retard it or others.
1
David,
How can we create good caring teachers when we underpay and demean them? How can we create healthy and happy places of learning when we under fund education, healthcare, shelter and food?
We continue to pull monies from public education to fund private and religious schools with questionable standards, certainly not for struggling or handicapped students.
Republicans don't believe in together we can, they believe only in for me and mine.
3
Wouldn't the same logic apply to parents who are, not only our first teachers, but supposedly our life-long teachers?
If so, when there is a conflict between the teachings of parent and teacher, to whom should the child/teacher respond.
This is important because more parenting activities are being placed on teachers by parents who are becoming more distant in today's society, leaving parenting to proxies like teachers, nannies and housekeepers.
1
So Brooks single experience of connecting emotionally with a few polite, privileged kids at Yale made him see the light, eh? Gee whiz. Real teachers know how important bonding is. They have been railing against a system of public education that constructs all sorts of roadblocks ( dare I say walls?) to assure that emotional connections between student and teacher are minimized. Yet the connections happen because of the humanitarian impulses of the teachers.
The US planted seeds of its own destruction long ago when it gave power over school budgets to politicians, and then elected politicians who wanted to spend as little as possible on anything "public." It would all be perversely funny if it weren't so terrifying.
2
Building relationships is not just critical in education, but as others have mentioned, many other fields. There's no doubt in my mind that if corporate managers had personal connections with their workers, then benefits and salaries higher in general. A personal connection makes it easier to care about the people who work for you.
1
@teacher
Until you are sued for harassment by expressing your emotions for your female employees. But go for it. It will be great until HR investigates.
Makes great sense, Dr. Brooks. If I think back on the one or two (or, if you're lucky, more) teachers that had the greatest impact on my learning life, it was the teacher(s) with whom I had developed far more than the standard student/teacher relationship. I hadn't seriously considered the emotional aspects of those relationship connections. I suppose certain emotions tended to negatively impact my learning... Algebra 2, Dr. Burnett... had neither the time nor the interest in understanding why I found the subject difficult. There were elements of fear, anger, disappointment, sadness... I didn't overcome them... and, thus, was put off mathematics for some time thereafter. Later, Differential Equations, Dr. Hartford. Excitement (here's a new tool!), curiosity (where can I use this new tool!), pride and perseverance, and the joy of success. There's much more to this inside/out thinking.
It is always the unspoken that creates mentors. My experience has always been that people that display passion for what they do always infuse that passion into others. My daughter ran cross country in high school. Her coach was a man who had had a brain tumor in college, survived, became a teacher, got married, had a daughter who survived a heart operation the day after her birth, and his house burned to the ground a few years later on Valentine's Day. The team he coached was very good ( not great), he always had a smile on his face,and was totally, consistently supportive of every member of the team. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out how much more he gave than he got. He was not looked at as being a "great" Math teacher. He was disorganized, deaf in one ear (from the brain tumor), and, in short, demonstrated he was an imperfect person. And every year, at the end of the season banquet, It was impossible to not be overwhelmed as you watched the senior girls, one after the other, burst into tears trying to say what being a part of his team meant to them. I never witnessed that with a history teacher or a science teacher, even though I am sure many students felt that way with their academic mentors. And I am certain, all these girls instilled his passion in themselves, and have accomplished more than they otherwise would have had they never met him. That is certainly worth every penny he receives. And then some.
1
This column reminded me of a comment made by an 8th grader just yesterday in a school where I volunteer as a weekly writing coach. He'd decided, he explained frankly, to write a personal essay about the belief statement that school should be online instead of in person because then teachers couldn't yell at students. I was impressed by his originality, and heartbroken by its source.
As someone who briefly tried and was overwhelmed by classroom teaching, I know how easy and rewarding it can be to connect with willing and engaged students, and how hard it can be to forge those relationships with students who would rather not be there for a myriad of reasons. Too-large class sizes and inadequate support - which Los Angeles teachers are valiantly striking against - along with a simply untenable workload and insecure administrations, only make reaching these most alienated students in a lasting and meaningful way more challenging for even the most loving and lovable educators.
3
David Brooks is correct. Absolutely. To get there we, as educators, must love all our students, they must feel that love and, as a group, the class should grow to care about each other, belong. Establishing that caring atmosphere of belonging rather than ongoing competition, means that everyone in the classroom supports everyone else through active learning in partnerships and small groups. When students know that their teachers care about them as individuals and that everyone is working together toward a common learning goal, behavior problems disappear. Establishing that caring connection should begin on the first day in class and build every day. The upside for teachers? Every teaching day is a joy.
2
As a high school teacher for most of 29 years of teaching, this connection between teachers and students is so true. I've always tried to have students like my class and take away from it a better knowledge of US History and current issues.
It is nice to hear students tell me they not only learned alot but enjoyed my class and the stories I shared with them to help them understand a topic in class or current issue.
This is why standardized tests prove nothing except memorization.
Let teachers teach, and students will learn.
I would like to recommend to Mr. Brooks and to all readers that they watch my favorite Ted Talk "Every kid needs a Champion" by a teacher in Houston named Rita Pierson. In the short 7 minutes 45 seconds, you will laugh and cry and appreciate her wisdom on this same topic! Sadly, Ms. Pierson passed away shortly after this talk. What a gem she was! Although I did not know her, I think of her and pray for her.
I taught in Roxbury, Mass, the near east side of Columbus, OH, on a reservation, and in Appalachia. My students were poor black, red and white. They were all the same, with the same challenges, with poverty as the common denominator. And they could all be reached with love.
One day, I had a regular visitor at the door watching my 40 kids, who were all focused. He motioned me to him and he asked, "Do you know why they work so hard for you?"
He thought he was going to tell me something I didn't know.
"Because they love me," I said.
And he smiled and nodded.
And they loved me because I worked so hard for them, one 12-hour day after another. I'm too old and tired to be that quality of teacher today, but I do miss it. I miss being there for the kids who come to school hungry and without socks in January.
3
I am in total agreement about the crucial element of relationship between teacher and student - having retired from a roughly 40-year career in education ranging from pre-school through college, as a teacher and private school headmaster. I've been privileged to visit scores of classes where teachers and students were engaged in learning because they were engaged with each other.
And...I am also concerned that despite an increase of awareness of the social-emotional aspect of learning, education is still largely based on the traditional factory model of teaching and learning. There are pockets of innovation, but most schools, public and private, remain locked into patterns where the focus is far less on genuine learning of each individual, and more on conventions established by adults in the past.
At a time when we have discovered so much about learning and the brain, about problem solving, about the value of collaboration, about the intricacies of individual potential -- many schools largely continue to function as testing sites, clearing houses, and processing centers, especially in poorer communities. None of this is teachers' fault.
Harsh as all that sounds, I know we could do so much better for our children and young people -- if a national focus could be put on the value of authentic learning, on laser-like attention to each child's potential, and on a long-term financial commitment to our country's true well-being. Quality learning is key to quality living.
1
Thank you so much for finally saying it! Many public school students are taught math (or not taught) by watching videos of someone explaining a problem. Clearly this explanation, even if delivered by the best lecturer in the world, cannot take into account the puzzled look or raised hand, the eager question or the need for a repeated or slowed-down presentation. I taught math at all levels for over 50 years, and now I tutor to help bright motivated students understand and relate to these canned lessons. As long as teachers of math continue to be paid a fraction of those who really use math outside the classroom, we won't be creating a new generation of students who love math (or at least don't hate and fear it) and are comfortable with it. Video is cheaper, yes; classrooms with more than 30 students are cheaper, yes; math learning happens this way? No.
Wonderful article. The social face of learning is not only between the instructor and students but also between the students who may not know how to "love" one another in a learning environment. The importance of student engagement with one another is one reason why I include structured small group reports in which students have to meet outside the classroom to discuss an essay and then write an analysis which they present to the class. The circles of trust, confidence in engagement and learning of the material all benefit.
Because my students are BFA acting students at NYU, they often assume that what they want to elicit in spectators is only emotion. The best theatre, however, elicits both feeling and thought recognizing that the two are inseparable.
I ‘ve been teaching middle and high school students for seven years. In my first few years, I studied how to create the best curriculum, and I worked hard on differentiating for a wide range of students (I teach English, and reading levels would range from second grade to high school in my seventh grade classes).
In my fourth year, I read the research on the insane degree to which teacher-student bonds impact learning. It’s so, so strong. The old teacher saying is true: “If you don’t know to care, they won’t care to know.” I worked hard to build better bonds with each, to like them all, and to be likable in return. Simple but powerful, powerful stuff. I was a good teacher, but the relationship piece made me a great teacher. Best of all, it’s free. It costs nothing to have a happy, connected class environment.
Teachers interested in improving this aspect of their teaching should read You’ve Gotta Connect. It’s what took me from good to great.
Inter and intra-branch relationships in government have become so toxic that partisan vilification has become the sole skill exhibited by a critical mass of elected represenatives.
The task of governing is supported by neither the skills, nor the knowledge, nor the interest on which it depends.
1
Your essay, Mr. Brooks, demonstrates why it is doubly ironic that disciplines such as philosophy, literature, foreign languages and history are currently being downgraded or outright eliminated—even in colleges and universities. These are all classes that roughly fall under the umbrella of the humanities, shorthand for “what it means to be human—and humane”. This trend is partly a product of the conservative outcry against “liberalism” in academia. (There’s a good reason it’s called liberal, and not conservative, education.) But both a cause, and a symptom, of this development is the overall coarsening of discourse and, yes, relationships, emotional and otherwise, within and without our classrooms.
Mr. Brooks insights today make a major contribution to our better understanding of how learning happens, and what needs to be done to keep it happening.
There is a great difference between ignorant and unlearned. The learner has a choice to leave ignorant or remain unlearned. Poverty, when I was teaching at an inner-city school back in the early 60's, was a major motivator for students to learn. We teachers led them to drink the waters of knowledge by "salting their hay," as that saying goes.
We brought students our own passions to learn and shared them, while listening more carefully to their dreams and nightmares. It seems those visions are in shorter supplies these days, and much more difficult to cause. Basic needs are often good enough, and for many young learners, social media and gangs take over where family relationships fail to engage.
Take another look at the photograph that introduces Mr. Brooks helpful column today. If you are a leader, whether teacher, parent, or someone who cares about learning, shout out loud enough to be heard by all, "Have I got a good story for you!"
Brooks helps with some rubrics for your story...."think of all the emotions that are involved in mastering a hard subject....: curiosity, excitement, frustration, confusion, dread, delight, worry and, hopefully, perseverance and joy. " If you can stand up and share your dreams, your students may share theirs, and the dialogue of learning begins again.
Take a deep breath, smile and share!
1
@Lake Woebegoner Yes, my commentary is long, but it's worth it. Find what works for you...
Agreed, but not just schools or Congress. These are key issues in all aspects of life, from family relationships to business relationships. Working in a global organization we learned long ago that telephone calls are better than emails, video calls or FaceTime better than telephone calls, and in-person meetings best of all. Unfortunately we can't always meet, and often email is sufficient and efficient. But we meet as often as we can and talk as often as we can. It takes effort, as it's easy to default to email, but the benefits in building personal relationships are worth the efforts.
Thanks for your column. I'd add:
--Teacher frustration is high when parental involvement is nil to nothing, students don't come to class, are disruptive, ostracize students who get better grades, etc.
--Children and their parents hear the sotto voce comments of teachers and administrators about the difficulties of working with "these" children or "this" population. To state the obvious, this talk poisons the atmosphere and maes learning just about impossible.
--Student/teacher ratios are not particularly useful.
The real ratio is difficult student/teacher. One or perhaps two in a class can be managed. Three or more means that the whole class often descends to day care.
--Another useful ratio in a perfect world would be well-functioning student/teacher. Classes can absorb almost limitless number of children who learn, pay attention and in general give good example.
2
As a male college professor I’m going to try keep the word “love” out of any communications among my students and myself. A student writing, texting or emailing expressing love of a teacher could get the teacher fired at a minimum. My advice is to pick a less emotional word. Everyone will be better off.
Talk of emotional attachment should also be avoided. These terms should only be used in the most general way possible and never directed toward a student individually. Many careers have been ruined with much less emotional language.
Maybe a movie night watching Mr. Holland’s Opus would better demonstrate what I mean.
@Shamrock: I think you're right that we should observe boundaries, but I still remember when a philosophy professor gave, as an example of one of his mental states or attitudes, "I love you all," and there really was nothing untoward about it. What a shame if paranoia and suspicion make such true statements unutterable.
When I first began to teach, a veteran teacher told me that the curriculum was secondary, the relationships I established with my students came first. Eager to get into the "stuff" of teaching, I wasn't sure of that advice then, but over the past 40+ years that I've been teaching, that observation has only become more settled and truer in my mind and in my experience. It might be the single most valuable bit of "professional development" I have ever received. It is certainly one that has consistently informed my teaching.
Thank you for writing of this, Mr. ∫Brooks.
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It's not that we should decide whether or not to employ the epistemological model suggested in the article.
Back in the 1980s when we witnessed the emergence of college writing centers, the focus shifted from product (as essay or term paper for example) to process (an outline, first draft, ect...). I noticed during this time that an appreciation for process supplanted the product. The truth is both are important.
John Dewey put it best: "Mankind likes to think in terms of either-or's between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities." And he notes this is especially true in educational philosophy.
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I've worked as a high school teacher in suburban Detroit for 12 years. During most of that time, the profession has been under attack by our state government. Each year I'm asked to do more and more for less and less, and beyond all of the state mandates, I have to perform the exhausting emotional labor of connecting with kids whose backgrounds are extraordinarily complicated. Many are dealing with trauma. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Brooks (I even use some of Antonio Damasio's work in class!), but I ask him, his readers, and the lawmakers of our country to consider this emotional labor on top of the already insurmountable workload we face. If developing and maintaining emotional relationships with students is really important, then let's acknowledge the skill and expertise that such a thing requires and compensate teachers fairly.
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A good column by Mr Brooks . It has been a while and this is something where Mr Brooks clearly has a personal experience.
I know many young teachers and I have to say I am dismayed by what I hear. I large percentage of the time they start conversations with phrases like "Research has shown....." and then fall into jargonspeak like "rubriks" AND "strategies" etc.
My conclusion is that there is a vast body of people training teachers - I call them academic teachers - who strive to invent and create and instill a new teaching methodology, instead of just teaching, and this is ever more relevant when looking at early years education. Teachers now seem to spend more time looking for learning disorders and behavioral issues to explain why kids are not learning, instead of just getting on with teaching. This seems especially true in middle schools, where kids arrive unable to do the basic "3 R's". We have to accept that some kids are more intelligent than others, but most kids can achieve better mastery of the 3R's to enable them to go through life and achieve a level of personal success.
So Mr Brooks is right students learn from people they love, but they also learn from people who know how to teach, and sadly the modern teachers have been taught to implement research driven learning strategies, when they should be teaching.
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@MrC
What should research results be used for, if not to inform instruction?
Should surgeons stop allowing research results to inform their surgeries? Should they “just operate” instead?
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@CTReader
Apples and oranges.
But to follow your analogy, where are we seeing the benefits of these highly researched new teaching strategies? The medical profession has seen great leaps forward as a result of research findings. I am all for it. Show me where there has been equivalent progress in education and teaching. In the USA? We are going backwards.
So let me ask the question a different way. Are you happy with the direction and results we are seeing from our education system? Do you think research will solve those problems and when?
I believe cancer research will solve the cancer problem. I do not see a similar trajectory for educational teaching methods research.
So should surgeons just operate. I personally would opt for a tried and tested solution that works. Practice on someone else.
As my enlightened, erudite and brilliantly human principal always said “remember, this is a people business. Go hard on the problems and easy on the people”. He, and any teacher worth their position knows, it’s about relationships. One of my mentors in the classical music world insisted I refer to him by his first name claiming he couldn’t teach me anything unless we were friends.
My connection with thousands of students over the years was the greatest gift I received in my professional career. I was at my most effective when the classroom dynamic felt like a collaboration. We discovered life together, and my goal was always to establish a safe haven where ideas were exchanged. Music was the catalyst, but life was always the subject.
2
Thank you Mr. Brooks for reminding us of our humanity.
The awareness of the integration of the mind, body, emotions and spirit are as old as the Buddha who taught it 2500 years ago, but it is great that our western system of learning may be catching on. It is why we need to learn more than just science and math. History and literature help create balance within us and our perceptions of the world and physical activity keeps us grounded.
Trends exist in our society and ourselves that work against this integration as shown by our broken Federal government and a president who knows nothing about books, taking care of his body or how to relate effectively with others. Reactionary actions based on emotions without thought or empathy is deadly to us and our society.
Perhaps I am guilty of this as we all are at times, but perhaps there is still time to learn a more balanced way of being in the world. To be whole we must honor all aspects of ourselves.
Students learn when they are socialized to respect learning and to respect educators and when their caregivers emphasize and insist and achievement and excellence. Anything else is wishful thinking and I KNOW there are exceptions, but they simply prove the more general rule.
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I have witnessed the same surprising phenomenon in my own classroom. As a young professor I tried to maintain a measure of distance and aloofness to preserve a position of authority, I was not quite comfortable with. Many years of experience has allowed me to reveal more about myself to my students. On certain occasions, students not only responded with emails, but felt comfortable enought to come to me with issues they were struggling with. Revealing my humanity engendered more trust among students who needed support.
One line struck me as being more about current events than about education, “‘sophisticated’ emotions like moral admiration are experienced partly by the same “primitive” parts of the brain that monitor internal organs and the viscera. Our emotions literally affect us in the gut.”
I think this is why I worry when DJT says he makes decisions based on his gut. Working backwards, since his gut reactions are often counter to what is the best (or even just ordinarily good) for all, we can easily see why his decisions are so poor. He is truly among “the greatest” at poor decisions. And so he must lack “‘sophisticated’ emotions like moral admiration“.
David...thank you for describing the first, and really the only one technique, guaranteed to make you a great teacher--emotions first; intellect second. Having taught HS and College that was always my first job---establish that I was human; and that every student in my class would succeed. Having said that, establishing those positive connections with students has been made so much more difficult with accountability mandates (e.g. No Child Left Behind; Race to the Top) that are designed to treat students as data points rather than children and adolescents.
3
When students sit down next to me in the tutoring center of the community college where I work, the primary task is to learn what their academic goals are to help them write their papers. What's the class, the assignment, and the rubric? How does the student want help?
With newcomers I am evaluating so much more. Is this student remedial or advanced, confident or floundering?Where are they from? What is their education level? What languages did they speak growing up? Is it a written language? A patois? Do they have a masters degree from their home country? Or did they grow up in a refugee camp with no school?
All of these factors affect the guidance I offer. Sometimes I learn that they've survived a firing line in Somalia, the collapse of a school building in Haiti, the murder of a son in Chester, PA. They've survived by hiding behind cars, by hiding in ditches, by being pulled out of kindergarten to run away and never go home again. To me, working with them one-on-one to improve their writing is the most interesting, important job in the world.
Ah, but budget cuts are coming. We've got a fancy new library and STEM building to pay for. And the new college president has renovated her bathroom. All new hires are adjunct. (Part time. No benefits.) Rumor has it the school will be switching to peer tutors, which means next year sophomores will be tutoring freshmen in academic writing. But, hey, the facilities are just fabulous.
5
I let the parents of my preschool students with special needs know that I would be retiring in May. Within moments I got emails telling me how much I meant to them, how thankful they were for all I had done for their child, how much their child would miss me, and how grateful they were that I was their child's first teacher. Of course I broke into tears, second guessing my decision, but know its the right one. We have one more semester together to continue to grow and learn. I hope after that time they will carry with them the seeds that other teachers will nurture, and they will continue to be the happy, curious, kind and eager learners for the rest of their lives.
1
Kindness and empathy are easy to recognize. People have a harder time recognizing mercy. People who put you at their mercy: Teachers, parents-anyone who has something on you. We need to teach kids to recognize this even more.
These lessons should apply with just as much force in our juvenile detention facilities and our adult prisons. People learn from those with whom they engage in a positive manner. The quality of relationships matter when it comes to learning and behavior. This should be a no-brainer.
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There is research which suggests that emotions are in effect the vehicle of learning. That Is, there is no learning without emotions. We know also that each individual comes to learning with unique patterns of emotions. This has always indicated to me that to create the optimal emotional learning environment you suggest , we have to be more flexible and ultimately give more control as well as more emotional self insight to students allowing them to structure the environments in which they learn best.
Mr. Brooks,
I have been an educator at both the secondary level and tertiary level and have been a business executive for an excess of 20 years. There has to be a balance between socio-emotional health and a good education. Often I see progressive liberals who believe that socio-emotional health is more important than good and rigorous education. (By the way I am labeled a progressive liberal.) Sadly, those students are being prepared for a world that does not exist. A rigorous education tempered with empathy will go far in helping our students succeed. A well planned lesson/lecture will go along way.
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It is always amusing to read another Brooks "epiphany." He presents his "discoveries" as though they are profound, fresh insights.
I have been an educator and author on education for several decades. The importance of relationships has been known for several centuries. The neurobiological bases for this reality have indeed become clearer in recent decades, but progressive educators have known well that relationships are critical to learning. It's why classes are small and teachers are on a first name basis with students rather than segregated by authority and formality. It's why intrinsic curiosity and discovery are the central tenets, rather than "instruction," rewards and punishments.
These facets of so-called progressive schools are not "soft" expressions of permissive philosophy. They are grounded in deep knowledge of human development. Progressive educators know this and have created such relationships in our schools for many, many years. And, of course, folks like Brooks, pre-epiphany, have been quick to make a caricature of loving, progressive schools.
Education practice in America, particularly in "no excuses" charters, is often abusive and always ineffective. Genuine, loving, empathic relationships among the children and adults in a school are central to cognitive and emotional development.
I suppose I should be grateful that Brooks acknowledges this, but it is deeply frustrating that it is presented as a "who knew?"
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@Barking Doggerel Love your tag name and your comment is fine. In learning coming across an idea even when it is old as the hills is a wondrous experience. It seems we are always relearning what is obvious. Caring for others helps learning, who would have thought. Its why mothers can teach their children so well.
"To be fair, treat each student differently."
"Make each one of your 34 students feel a bit of genuine success in each class meeting, everyday."
"Shame is the main obstacle. Without it, learning would be easy."
Gosh, Mr. Brooks, I think most educators have known for millennia, that the hospitality of the mind (an open spirit) toward the unknown allows the mind the apprehend, instead of fear, what it does not know. That's a Plato and Socrates on love and learning. Welcome to the club! Isn't it wonderful to have realized that the only wrong we need to correct, as educators, is the scoldish need to correct others? Correction only divides the ability of the innate awareness away from learning better. We don't build roads and journeys by correcting the earth or criticizing space! We learn from them by attaching one moment to the next. Students emulate the love we have for our subject. Like sitting around a campfire. Everybody's attention is on the wonder of fire and light in the dark.
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When I was a grad student at Berkeley in the 1980s the department was filled with stars and superstars. One, Reggie Zelnik, was so warm, engaged, funny and humane that many students took an extra year or more to learn Russian and changed their fields in order to become one if his advisees. Another, Susanna Barrows, taught in her seminars, and supervised the dissertations of, more students than any other member of the faculty. She loved us and we loved her. May the memory of these two bright stars, who are no longer with us, continue to inspire those who knew them.
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How can we standardize "relationship quality" so it can be atomized and deployed in a course delivered via an online distance-learning platform that argues for the abolishment of teachers' unions, any nonstandard curriculum, tenure, and eventually of live, in-person teaching?
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@Doug Tarnopol you have perfectly stated the current mindset of the people who make ed policy, by which I mean the billionaires who use their money to run roughshod over our public education institutions and impose robot-like order on classrooms. So funny! Also, so sad. This column points out the importance of relationships in learning, and I fear your joke is correct. This will result in additional numerical metrics to quantify relationship, which teachers and schools will have to report up the food chain, which some economist will use to show we should have more charters, cut public school funding and put more kids in front of screens.
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@Doug Tarnopol Sadly, you nailed the current approach of my university.
@Doug Tarnopol You can't.
My daughter went through fifth grade ten years ago in a "new" setting that was called a "responsive classroom." But it wasn't new, it was a formalization of what good teachers have always known and practiced.
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As a child, my son was, let's just say, difficult to manage in the classroom. Not loved by many teachers. Two of his middle school years were spent at a school for kids with behavioral issues. It was far, so the school van picked him up each morning. Every day when the van arrived, he would to out to the sidewalk and teacher DB would step out of the van. My son would hold his arms straight out to the sides, and DB would do a quick security pat down. Then DB would also hold his arms out, and he'd give my son a big hug, and they'd get in the van and go. Today my son is a fine young man. He worked really hard to overcome his issues. Thanks, DB.
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This article is music to my ears. I am a trauma, emotion-centered, attachment-oriented psychotherapist who has been writing to educate the public on emotions, first a blog and then a book, for years. Practical and accessible emotion education using tools like the Change Triangle helps us feel normal, empowered, and curious in our deepest selves, instead of afraid. Emotion education and tools like the Change Triangle show us a path to easing anxiety, depression, and many other psychological symptoms. It also reduces stigma and shame. Emotions are scary powerful forces when we don’t understand them. But with emotion education, our personal world and our communities open up to hope, healing, and authentic connection.
As an Educator of 37 years I could not agree more. Let's drop this techno test obsessed standards movement and become institutions of caring. The results would be amazing...
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Reread William James's classic essay, "The Will to Believe". Emotions are not just an inevitable part of what we come to believe but an integral and vital one. They may obscure but they may also clarify. In any event they will be a factor, however rational the thinker may belief his assessments of a question to be. Ego in the form of pride readily comes into play, for example.
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There is still a lot of adversarial rhetoric around teaching, especially at the college level. It seems as though every couple of days I read a rant against "snowflakes" and "trigger warnings." But content note or trigger warnings are about exactly this-- having a real ongoing conversation with your students and making sure everyone is prepared to discuss and analyze in a deep way. I have used such notes effectively, and I have worked with students on flexible deadlines when they have crises in their lives. We teach and learn better when we thinking of each other as real, full people.
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Just something to think about: Students at the college/university level are self-selected (and selected by the respective institution out of a large pool of applicants). In other words, these students have already shown that they are eager to learn. When you go into public schools, where education is mandatory until age 16, things aren’t quite that easy. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the problems we are experiencing. Educational success is a multifactorial outcome with no silver bullet to bring it about. Also remember that research is usually conducted on your typical student groups in public education, not the particularly challenged ones.
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This is why we shuold pay teachers well and not force them into standardized curriculum. People who truly want to teach will do so in a creative heart-focused engaging manner. Putting them into bureaucratic grooves that emphasize student test schools burns out teachers and undermines students' natural curiosity.
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@Anne
I teach as well. You are confusing what you teach with how you teach. As a teacher you do not get to choose what the students need for a good education, and you generally don't get to choose what part of that education you will be teaching. If you got into the profession to teach only what interests you, you're in the wrong place. Find your joy in the students, not the subject.
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@Tom,
I don't think Anne misstated anything. But you might be misconstruing what was written.
Much of standardized curriculum is also standardized on how it is taught. They are told what to use, when to use it and for how long. It does take away a huge amount of creativity and engagement doing rote, data driven, test teaching.
I thought Anne was spot on.
Signed, a grandchild of an educator, the son of two educators, the spouse of a current educator, classroom volunteer.
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@Tom
I teach and led a school for years. I disagree with your comment. Along with the loving relationships Brooks cites, learning is powerful and profound when students have a voice in what as well as how. Every subject area can be approached by knowing and capitalizing on students' intrinsic curiosity and personal interests. I've done it. I've designed it. There are ways that skilled progressive teachers can find and inculcate joy in both student and subject. It is why "standard" curriculum is so ineffective and why so many kids lose interest in school.
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We've spent decades emphasizing all of the things in schools that are easily measured (reading, math, etc) and unintentionally devalued the things that don't fit neatly into a standardized test (recess, the arts, a teacher's love, etc).
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@Chris It's not that unintentional. All these tests and intervention platforms are corporate products that funnel millions of tax dollars from schools to corporate coffers. They don't make money off love and recess. We need to hold those who set education policy at the highest levels accountable for putting real, research-based practices at the heart of education.
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@Chris
When government money became tied to outcomes on tests, school administrators became enchanted by the notion that the business model had a potential to inform education.
With that clear shift in priorities, class sizes grew larger and teachers (who've always known that positive relationships with students inspired them to try harder) became overwhelmed by the difficulties of not only finding a relational key for every student but also by the growing academic, financial and emotional needs of students.
I had an intern who'd also been a student of mine when she was in high school. She had taken over a particularly needy class of mine because she had to, for reasons of scheduling. By the end of the year, this talented, bright young woman (who'd had a very successful experience with other classes of mine she was teaching) decided not to pursue a teaching job. Her reason? "I had no idea how much of teaching was really social work..."
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@Chris We should also emphasize responsibility for one's own actions -- another thing that does not fit neatly into a standardized test.
If we have reached a consensus that emotional connections are the key to effective learning, ought we not also recenter education on the Humanities?
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If emotional relationships between teacher and student are the gateway to learning, then teachers are key. Teaching at an urban minority high school, I was great at original science curriculum, but the football coach and modern dance teacher showed their love for the kids by driving them hard while listening and respecting their individual and collective creativity, transforming a cluster of kids, many troubled, into winning teams. A national wave of disrespect for teachers driven by the Republican Party, such as Scott Walker, but also pro-charter school Democrats, aimed to break teacher unions, freeze salaries, and impose the “teacher proof” business model of test and technology-driven, “outcome based” education. Strikes in West Virginia, Arizona, and other red states were the first step in re-establishing teachers as the empathic, dedicated craftsmen who we entrust with America’s future. Support the L.A. teachers strike.
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Most of the best teachers have always known this. Your point speaks to one reason (of many) that the public school teachers in Los Angeles are now striking. It's near impossible to build such relationships when one's class size is 35 or 36 students, many of them of low income who come to school hungry.
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@Ellen
Successful teachers in many parts of the world have large class sizes. The relationship between teacher and student must be one of caring and respect, but it need not be intimate like that of a parent and child.
2
@Tom No, the teacher relationship does not need to be intimate like that of a parent and child. But some of these children have no intimate parent-child relationship to begin with and they are needy and can be disruptive. It takes time to show care to all one's students and the more students in a class, the more that care is spread thin. I don't know what the ideal is, perhaps 18 or 20 per class? Certainly not 35!
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@Tom, in many parts of the world education is respected and those who teach are revered. Discipline problems are rare. In the US, the diversity of populations and cultures added to a lack of respect for teachers and learning creates a huge barrier. If all students sit quietly, of course, it doesn't matter if the class size is large.
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I used to teach at Princeton University. Other faculty members were always surprised by the long line of students outside my office for office hours. They wondered what my secret was. The answer is simple. I worked hard to create an environment of intimacy and safe psychological space for my students. I was someone they trusted to guide them in their studies. And guess what! My class average was always in the top 3 of about 14 similar classes. Not only that, the standard deviation from the mean was always the smallest. Which means that the majority of my class was doing well, not just a few.
One semester, on the last day, I finished my lecture early. So I ended the class and wished my students the best of luck on their final exams. And they were free to leave. But they wouldn’t. They said they were sad that this class was over. That they would miss it. (My handle above gives you an idea what subject this was… It was definitely not an easy ride!) I was deeply touched.
Teachers have to allow their students to be able to make mistakes because taking that occasional wrong turn is fundamental to learning and growth. But in order for students to feel free to make mistakes, teachers have to bond with them as humans and create a safe intimate space for them.
I’m glad research is confirming something that all good teachers know.
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@Quantummess
As an older college student, I had the quality teaching you epitomize. Reading online about the electric universe, I feel Dr Scott, ret college professor, also is of this category. You are everywhere and how lucky we are.
8
@Quantummess
There is also a difference between teaching subjects that do not challenge students' beliefs, ideologies, notion of common sense, etc. and subjects that challenge students to doubt their accepted truisms, their notion of the past, their understanding of actually existing capitalism, belief in particular religions, etc. In the former students are not challenged about their core values and beliefs and might feel more comfortable -- and find a friendly, emotionally-connected teacher more conducive to learning. In the latter, many students feel uncomfortable -- they are being challenged not only to learn complex material, as if the former case, but they are being challenged to change their minds about important matters, to disagree with their family's and communities' values and beliefs.
This is not to say it cannot be done in such classes. But it is a different thing.
We are talking about apples and oranges when we talk about student-teacher relationships in the one vs. in the other. Subject matter counts, age and maturity of students counts, even the ethnicity and gender of the teacher counts.
It is more than just being open to emotional ties with others.
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@Quantummess
I am a Princeton graduate who has taught at a wide range of universities around the country.
I can tell you that this kind of harmony is much harder to achieve with students who do not have good preparation for college work and who often feel only that they "must" get a degree for economic reasons. And many lower-ranked schools serve these kinds of students.
It is also true that teaching material that challenges social preconceptions is much harder and can incite outright hostility in some students, no matter how sympathetic or kind the teacher.
The Ivies are an extraordinary intellectual bubble, and you are fortunate to inhabit the position you have.
30
This column does a great job helping me to crystallize my misgivings about online education. There's a strong push at many places (including my own university -- I'm a professor) to take advantage of online lectures, online discussions, online this and that. That's certainly a good way to dump facts and possibly even ideas into brains, but a lot of human contact is lost, or at best diluted.
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@Scott H. I am a professor too and these are my thoughts exactly. I have wondered why powers that be pushing online learning have not considered how relationship building is hindered or impossible with online learning, particularly if trust and connection with others underpins quality learning.
31
@Scott H.
I agree. I have taught an online college course in addition to my face-to-face classes. I also advise about 50-60 students that I meet with twice per year. Online classes can be well-designed and work well for shy people, but most fall short in making a connection with the instructor and others in the class. In my "live" classes I can build a sense of community in my lab sections. My advisees often find the online classes appealing because of the flexibility they offer, but the feedback I get is that they don't value them as highly as classes taught in person.
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@Scott H. I agree with one exception. Online curses are great for professionals working to advance within the field or earn credits that are required to maintain credentials. Experienced students dont need a personal connection as much as they need a specific course that fits with their schedule and location.
20
I've taught high school history for 26 years, and my experience is that teachers in the field have always known this. It's encouraging to finally hear researchers saying the same thing. Hopefully that will lead to changes in policy and educational leadership that will promote relationships over the latest new curriculum handed down from on high.
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@Joe Sweeney YES! And Parker Palmer has spoken and written about this for years. Vulnerability is key. Good teaching requires humility and humanity.
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@Joe Sweeney
As a teaching veteran of three decades in primary grade classrooms, I can tell you the same principle applies. Many of the things we need to teach young kids aren't inherently interesting for all kids, e.g., penmanship, multiplication facts, but the youngsters believed me when I said these were important. The reason? They and I were "in it together," with mutual respect and admiration fueling our efforts each day. Relationship comes first, illuminating the path to the best teaching and learning at any level of education.
19
Actually some of the same folks, foundations, and those who want to monetize children's data who promoted the common core standards are promoting social emotional learning now because they want to collect data on children, monetize it and use the data to control and manipulate behavior. It's no surprise that this is all occurring at a point in our nation's history where whites will no longer be in the majority.
5
Is it worth engaging Mr. Brooks’s modest lecture on the relationship of our education to our humanity? Not really, as interesting as the topic might be. Rome is burning. Mr. Brooks, again, as he does week after week, finds a topic unrelated to the fire devastating the republic. Fiddle in hand and furiously fiddling, he (theoretically) bares his soul in an exercise in self-aggrandizement, and it appears to be seriously wanting. What can he do? His political party is collaborating with a traitor in the suppression of the truth, and he needs to run from that at all cost. Maybe Mr. Brooks could find the energy to write about the House minority leader suggesting some time ago that the president of the United States is on the payroll of the Russian government. But somehow I don’t think he’ll get anywhere near that, and he’ll continue to be as invisible and as irrelevant as he desperately wants to be until the fire is out — one way or the other. Then he’ll be completely irrelevant and perhaps the Times will finally, at long last, send him packing.
2
Buffoonishly facile at a moment of national emergency. Nero, I presume?
1
Mr. Brooks' column prompted a vivid memory of my beloved high school English teacher, Patricia Olmstead, in our small northern California town. She was the most sophisticated, well-read person I had met at age 14 and 15 (I had her for two years), in the early 1960's. The day she shared something of herself in a way no other adult in my experience ever had is etched in my memory and forever bound her to my heart. She was not pretty, and wasn't married, and I assumed never had been. She stood there with the green "blackboard" behind her, with something written on it in ivory-colored chalk, and its months or years of un-erased chalk dust, in her tan wool skirt and off-white blouse. She said, in response to a comment from a student about the importance of something, such as good grades, "I lost a person who loved me more than anything on earth, due to my own foolishness. I was married and now know what is really important, your relationships with the people who love you." Another time she said, "Please don't write, 'It held my interest' in your book report," with a look that said, "You'd have to be an idiot to do this now that I've said it." And another time, "I just hate the expression, 'It warmed the cockles of my heart.' What does that even MEAN?" She was aware of the fatigue I faced as a polio survivor, and let me take five minute naps in the back of her class. I learned in her presence to love writing. She did remarry. Francine Falk-Allen, author of Not a Poster Child
2
Being a Special Education teacher for 25 years, working with students who have experienced significant trauma, I have learned that demonstrating that I am not only human, but fallable is key. Acknowledging to a student that you have made a mistake, and owning it, including apologizing if appropriate, is a very powerful event. No pedestals. Without a relationship of trust, teaching/learning is inhibited.
2
As a retired high school teacher I learned about how important the affective realm is 40 years ago, so nothing new here. In every field, not just education, paying attention to human emotions is important. The doctor who doesn't relate well to patients, for example, is not the one we most often want to visit. I also learned that the lowest achieving students are often the ones most in need of human connection and compassion. A good teacher, though, must be well prepared with knowledge and passion for the subject, delivered in a variety of ways in a friendly and caring environment. The classroom, though, is a breathing, living organism with a lot of give and take and in public, urban high schools like the one in which I taught, classes are often too big and individual relationships very difficult to build. I taught up to 150 students each day. Sometimes my classes of 30 went smoothly all year. Sometimes, just three or four students with difficulties (ADHD, depressions, family issues) could wreak havoc all year and caused much personal stress. It's not necessarily the class size that matter, but the number of "dysfunctional" students placed in each class. School counselors and administrators should definitely address this issue.
3
This is an interesting column, thoroughly considered, nicely bundled in the end. Brooks suggests changes in the current educational approaches be urgent if I paraphrase it with my clumsy dramaturge-term. But, still at this point of history, all the achievements of sciences cannot be simply ignored as Brooks also discussed on it in his core argument. Then, “social brain” comes up. Equally eye catching for me was the very (*very*) impressive name apoeared in a paragraph X; Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. Yes, everything is integrated. Additionally, the column shows again to itself a challenge with which Brooks tackles very often. How to reconcile the modern scientific knowledges with humanity without devaluing either? I also would say of the quality of relationships to be decrypted.
Horace Mann and Cyrus Peirce (started first public teacher training institution in the 1840s) figured this out long ago. Students learn best when they feel comfortable and trust their teachers.
3
For decades, the quality of human relationships in professional settings has been downplayed, in favor of more "scientific" methods. Anyone who works in human services/non-profits can tell you about being crushed under the weight of having to deliver only evidence-based services, often to the exclusion of developing positive relationships with the vulnerable people they serve. Having those relationships, that include some mild self-disclosure (
2
I needed this.
I am contending with the Chicago Board of Ed, channeled directly through an overly ambitious and competitive local administration that places school performance metrics along with career advancement over any consideration of relationship building or regard for students' well being.
The folks in charge are terrified of looking bad. Their fear permeates my institution like a poisonous fog. It is unapologetically transmitted to the students. Very unhealthy. Gross, actually.
4
I teach high school English, and one thing I've noticed about student achievement is that the classes I engaged with the most and I allowed to get me off topic occasionally were the ones that scored better on tests, wrote better essays, and had more in-depth discussions.
3
The skill to be a good educator also bleeds over to work-place training. Building a good relationship with your students makes them believe in themselves & trust that you want the best for them.
1
In 1987 Allan Bloom published a brilliant book called The Closing of the American Mind, in which he complained about the ignorance of American students which they themselves like to consider erudition. Now American universities are closing French and German departments and are concentrating on social and emotional learning. It does not matter if you have never heard of Descartes just so long as you feel comfortable with your sexuality. The United States has descended into an anti-intellectual quagmire. No wonder it elected Trump.
2
Yes David, it is nice when we have friends.
But a good teacher doesn't have to be "friends" with their students to be a good instructor.
It has always amazed me, that someone as "educated" as yourself, could be so emotionally immature.
For some reason you never were able to over-come your fear of the dark.
As many find in their later stages in life, religious teachings only inspire the young and ignorant.
Humanities, and the Arts that flow from them, are the real tools of learning.
Because David it never was about teaching, and always about how we approach learning; and the God given gift of Reasoning.
2
Everybody is an expert on education. But nobody wants to pay for it.
A strange relationship.
8
All great points, Mr. Brooks. Now please explain why Republicans want to eviscerate public education? They can afford to send their little Lord Fauntleroys to private schools where they won’t be contaminated by contact with the unwashed.
You lionize the educational process and that’s no real surprise; the shock is that you have married the young brain with the bursting heart.
People learn, Mr. Brooks, when their teacher takes a genuine interest in their success. When I was unemployed some years ago, I took on a very low-paying job as an “adjunct professor” at a local community college. I was tasked with teaching left-behind students how to write; those whose high school education was faulty—a kind description.
Young people, even those in their late teens—or older—need respect and encouragement more than they need the dull writing exercises that can improve their confidence in a job interview or in other inter-personal situations. It’s almost impossible to describe the leap that students can take from square one to another level.
As we speak, Mr. Brooks, kids in Los Angeles are being held hostage to a teachers’ strike. Even in progressive places, education is not a very high priority. It’s worse—far worse—in red states. You’re a conservative Republican. Why not hop on the horse and advocate with your lodge brothers and sisters on the right about how an educated America is a great America?
6
Thank you so very much for this, it is spot on.
1
I'm sorry, but David's op-ed about the "connection between emotional relationships and learning" is not really a new idea or discovery. This idea has been around for a while. It's old news.
3
If the teacher doesn’t start the class year with the statement “my goal is for all of you to master the material and earn the highest grade I can give. I am your coach. I will do all I can for you to reach that goal’ then I don’t know why they are in education. I would like to know if anyone has heard a teacher say that.
@Shamrock
...I tell my Foundational Reading students at the community college where I teach that "I am your biggest cheerleader"
How would I design Congress? 1) Term limits -- i.e., you get 2 terms, more subject to the following: a) you introduced 1 bill in the past year that was co-sponsored by members of another party (any other party) and passed by your house; AND either of the following: b1) 10 letters of recommendation citing your specific accomplishments in the past year and written by members of another party (any other party) currently serving in your house, OR b2) letters of recommendation citing your specific accomplishments in the past year and written by 85% (min) of the members of your own party currently serving in your house. Speaker of House and Representatives, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader: nobody can serve more than 2 terms total (and cumulative) in any of these leadership positions; after two terms (cumulative tota), you're done for the your career.
I take it, David Brooks, that these are your annotations on the Toxic Masculinity Report. May I also suggest hour long sessions of induced weeping as a further antidote, with course credits as an incentive? Obviously, the notion of education as a discipline needs rethinking. Perhaps, even, therein lie the roots of the over-rational toxic male?
The picture at the top of the article shows a racially segregated school. I count only 3 white students. The rest are children of color. So many years after Brown v. Board of Education, and have resegregated (or never really desegregated) the schools - still separate and unequal.
1
The epiphany that, “children learn from people they love” should of course apply to their most significant teacher; their parents. Brooks is obviously woefully removed from the large population of students who don’t have that love, or support, or emotional and mental health to teach, nurture and encourage their children.
Lacking that foundation they then get to a public school where resoundingly the country sends them and their struggling teachers the message that they don’t really matter...at all. Politicians lobby to remove school nurses, hot lunch, the arts and well paid teachers. Paul Ryan from my home state told a whopper of a tale about meeting a little boy who shared with him that he was ashamed of receiving free lunch and “wanted to carry a brown bag like the other kids.” The fictitious story spoke volumes about how much “love” he wanted to show kids in poverty.
So David Brooks, PLEASE visit a true public school classroom and witness the significant challenges Educator’s face. After visiting, sit down and ask our country to give the kids some love, some funding, some compassion and some respect. Would you do that please?
5
@Jan Having worked in both an elite magnet school and (in my current position) a school of students traumatized by war, violence, drug addictions, and poverty, I cannot recommend this comment highly enough. For many, many students today, schools have become the de facto parents. That our current leadership devalues education so thoroughly is the real national tragedy.
4
If this is the case, why are we all learning so much from Trump?
1
Once again, reality is not so simple as David posits. The "Dr. Fox" effect is well-known: a superficially engaging teacher led listeners to think that they have learned something of great value even though he spouted drivel.
And imagine being taught by our “second lady” Karen Pence or other in an evangelical-type religious school which denies both evolutionary science and and the LBGTQ community. Sad to think of students bonding with teachers with such views and then going out into the larger community and spreading bigotry.
What a tremendous insight! Let's take it further... what if all of capitalism was restructured to revolve around positive emotional relationshps? What might we accomplish then? Are you on board, David?
yep - students don't care how much you know - until they know how much you care ...
5
"No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." That was advice given to me as a young teacher forty years ago.
One thing we may want to avoid if we want better student teacher relationships, classrooms with 40 students.
2
As a teacher, I was nodding along with this article until "We focus on all the wrong things because we have an outmoded conception of how thinking really works." Who's we? Why does Brooks think that teachers don't know this? He then goes on to give a few examples of schools that do understand social-emotional learning, but he's provided no evidence that the collective "we" ignore relationships in favor of "downloading" information. Brooks' experience at Yale was instructive for him, and that's great, but he's certainly not the only one to have figured this out.
2
It seems so sad that when a presumably an intelligent person, suddenly discovers the obvious. It's like where have they been?
If we just look at the social/political behavior over the last dozen years or so towards education, towards teachers, towards the poor, the middle class, and then we measure the investments made there as compared with the corporate world, one should be able to discern pretty quickly that not much is prized outside of the corporate world, let alone the student or the teacher.
I think what we see happening in LA is the perfect example of the problem, but on the other side of the continent the problem isn't much different, if at all. What has basically happened in education is that one parent has been pitted against another in the pursuit of education for their child or children, either by choosing the right community or the right Charter School. This is not public education in the spirit of equality for all, and in some communities it is carried so far to the opposite that it borders on classism and racism through segregation.
If you want to prize children, and for them to prize their teacher, you must restore equality to education. The message that is being driven home now to so many children is quite the opposite. When Frost said that "Home is where you go and they have to take you in," or something to that effect, he wasn't talking about education, but he might as well have been.
3
@Reuben
Beautifully said. So true. I have watched the state legislature in Indiana (as has happened in many states) attempt to dilute public education through vouchers and charter schools yet decry quality of education and blame public schools. The public has been duped.
3
My daughter in law is a special ed teacher drowned in paperwork. Her correct and timely completion of said paperwork is how she is evaluated. In her words, her relationship with the students is not valued, not deemed any part of the equation. As a consequence, she will be seeking employment elsewhere. And she is but one of several teachers I know who have quit due to this emphasis on paperwork, not relationship.
2
@anne
I hear you. Unfortunately, if the paperwork isn't done correctly, the school will be sued and will lose (schools receive tremendous amounts of threatened and actual litigation). Also, in my opinion, a generation of government bashing has instilled in the public a default setting that all schools (insert any other gov't agency here except the military) are incompetent until proved otherwise. We must be perfect or we're failing.
Israeli soldiers in boot camp were either assigned to women drill instructors or to men. The ones assigned to women drill instructors scored higher on skills, academic and physical tests. The male drill instructors yelled, bullied, humiliated, and threatened the recruits, while the women taught them with firm, calm and respectful instruction. Kids and adults learn less when they are afraid.
1
@Tomas O'Connor
I guess sexism is alive and well. Men are bad at teaching. Women are good at teaching.
Perceptive article, deserving to be studied in every school of education!
1
The tag line about Congress aside, this piece is a good argument for raising the status -- and the wages -- of the teaching profession. A significant percentage of children are unplanned. These kids are likely to have indifferent or incompetent parents. Teachers therefore must supply the missing intellectual stimulation, especially in the crucial early years. This is going beyond the call of duty. Teachers should be rewarded accordingly.
3
The high school teachers I looked forward to submitting papers to, thoughtfully responded more intimately than just a grade. I felt noticed and validated. I felt they were really interested in who I was. It helped me be more interested in the class, and in my own potential. It really was just a crumb of intimacy but it went a long way.
3
My sister has been a dance teacher for more than 25 years in a public elementary school in SC that incorporates the arts in its curriculum. Even though she's strict, her students -- black and white -- love, love, love her.
Whenever I'm visiting and we go shopping or out to eat, past and present students -- and their parents -- come up to talk to her, to tell her what's going on in their lives. It's very gratifying, and I'm very proud of her.
2
"Emotions assign value to things. If you don’t know what you want, you can’t make good decisions." This is what mindfulness training is all about. As conscious beings we can become aware of our thoughts perceptions and emotions and lead a mindfully rich life, fully awake. Even at our lowest point, we become aware that we are running low on energy enthusiasm emotion. That is ok. We are aware. Our awareness is the portal to the divine. It is here we meet the divine. We can tune into it here and now, no need to go on pilgrimage or vacation. Our public schools here have begun teaching mindfulness to the students. The kids love it so much that even middle schoolers (tough age to attend school) insist the teacher take a few moments before the start of the class to get the students tuned in.
5
Our son teaches high school science in one of the poorest school districts in NYC. He has become very creative in bringing his enthusiasm for science to percolate to the students through osmosis.
His pearls of wisdom: Relationships, engagement and large scale planning raise the floor of a student. More micro tactical things raise a student's ceiling.
There you have it, a young teacher who has discovered the secret to connecting with his students and sustaining that connection all year round.
3
Less testing, more personal contact. With the focus of schools on repeated testing, students, teachers, and parents forget that the end goal of schooling is for all to be contributing members of society. Hopefully, becoming a person who has concerns and commitment to others in society.
2
Cognition is built through social engagement, but that precious interaction between teacher and student is impossible in many overcrowded schools and classrooms.
2
As a former teacher, the "discovery" that Mr. Brooks describes has long been known in the field. Students can easily tell if their teachers care about them in the first few classes they attend. It doesn't matter if you are seen as "tough" of "strict" - what really matters is that you care about each student as an individual.
The Humanistic approach to education has its roots in a number of educational giants dating back many decades: Paolo Freire, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Earl Stevick, and Gertrude Moskowitz, among many others.
When the teacher sees her/himself as part of a community of learners, whose purpose is to support meaningful learning opportunities for her/his students, they get it and they respond!
The most important aspect of this approach to teaching is the caring and sharing that the teacher exhibits. The "aha moment" that Mr. Brooks describes is simply another example of the Humanistic approach that most effective teachers practice. Good for him!
7
a complex issue indeed, curious that prof brooks and his researchers are just getting the message...for many teachers (even those tough seemingly unyielding throwbacks who still cling to a notion of rigor) it is the mutual concern for the entire class that drives effort and achievement...for at least one, this was apparent as early as the sixth grade (reuman was president) when just such a teacher made just such a difference with just such a "focus."
for clues as to the design of a school or a congress with relationship quality at the core, professor brooks could do worse that spend a few month underwater on a nuclear submarine, where leadership, in even the life-or death dangers of hostile waters, is marked by "relationship quality" or what's known in the service as "submarine close."
in all aspects, from training to battle stations, the model is worth a look (especially for the congress which might benefit from the experience of absolute devotion to duty and the absolute absence of privilege).
Teaching isn’t just about subject matter, of course. But David is greatly oversimplifying what else is involved.
1
How much easier do you think it would be to develop solid teaching/learning relationships in smaller classes vs. larger classes? Especially for students who have multiple exposures to extreme negative emotions?
So that's where I'd start designing a new school: SMALL CLASSES. Indeed, I'd make sure class size had an inverse relationship to local socio-economic indicators like unemployment, homelessness, and drug addiction.
4
@A Professor
I went to a top public high school, Big Ten undergraduate and Big Ten law school. Never experienced or saw individual instruction.
@Shamrock Thanks, I think that makes my latter point perfectly. Kids with plenty need less encouragement, and less one-on-one, than kids dealing with hunger, homelessness, trauma, etc.
A lot of time, money, and effort could have been saved if all these scientists had just interviewed a few elementary school teachers. What's been "discovered" is something thousands of people have already considered basic knowledge.
By the way, emotional connection works very well adult to adult.
7
@Mike Allan
As a former First Grade Teacher, I totally agree. My relationship with my students was the foundation of our learning; I say "our learning" because that is exactly what it was! I learned about them and their lives outside the classroom and they learned about me and mine. This connection to each other and the interaction and connection to their parents was crucial to our "journey" together. It was a "room stopper" any time I used a story from my personal life pertinent to the subject or lesson. With the resulting trust built, my passion for learning became theirs, too! After being out of the classroom for five years, I am still reaping the benefits of those relationships built during my years of teaching these little people the reading and writing process and at the same time, introducing them to the many skills to navigate life. How I miss those "passionate learning sponges" and our shared passion for learning!
3
I am not at all surprised by the research study cited here about children (not) learning Chinese from a screen. Every single one of my high school students that I've informally polled over the years about their online classes has responded, "Yeah, I remember nothing from that class."
There is a lot of money pushing online education and while it no doubt has its uses, I've been troubled by which students are parked in front of a screen and told to learn. They are often the students most in need of relationships. I don't know about other states, but in Michigan, they are disproportionately students living in poverty (62% according to a recent report). Not surprisingly, the failure rate is shockingly high (45%).
10
Teaching is a really hard thing to do well. You have to be good at so many different things to do it well, particularly if you face students who were not raised to believe in the transformative power of education. I started teaching late in life, I had no clue how complicated this job was going to be. You have so many different sets of complicated emotions to manage, redirect, focus . . . not least of all your own.
10
The naivete and presumption displayed by David Brooks is astounding. The implicit idea that his personal anecdotal evidence of what he experienced at Yale has any relevance for underfunded, overcrowded, American public school classrooms is just absurd. I would like to see Mr. Brooks as displaying his " "vulnerability " to a class of 35-40 cultural diverse 8th grade students, eschewing academics for the initial week," getting to know each other". American educators know what works. Give them adequate funding, smaller schools,smaller classrooms, support staff, and up to date technology. Pontifications by educational dilletants like Mr.Brooks distract from the real solutions needed to improve American education .
@Don Shipp. I teach everyday as a substitute teacher and I love the challenge. I very much believe the value I bring to the classroom is my ability to love and respect the students in my brief encounter (one day). Curmudgeons that attack Mr. Brooks for one of his better articles is a mystery to me, and maybe part of the problem with our system. Everyday I see teachers that demonstrate love in the classroom and it inspires me.
8
@Don Shipp. i don't know if u teach, but u totally miss the author's point.. yes, teachers need small class sizes, and technology and all the other things we are sorely lacking, but this is about the KIDS. he's saying that kids need teachers who are open and compassionate and who demonstrate to their kids that they care. I teach inner city kids and my kids struggle on a daily basis with all sorts of unimaginable problems. But, they know that I deeply care about them. all the technology in the world doesn't matter if a teacher cannot connect with the kids.
12
@leslie
You totally missed my point. I taught for 33 years including both at risk and A.P.students. I loved my students and my job.To me it's always been a given that most teachers love their students.What's needed is adequate funding .Warm and fuzzy doesn't address the existential issues that plague are educational sustem.
Reading this as I sip my caffeine and try to psyche up for a day of teaching, nice to get some affirmation on my beliefs. 18 years on teaching kids 28 miles from my home and a world away from any privilege, the biggest struggle I’ve faced is balancing a more and more disconnected state curriculum with my students’ need for a personal connection with an adult who cares and is willing to listen. Being that guy is really hard to do when it often leaves you just plain sad.
9
As a young child, my household was chaotic with divorce, not enough money, and five siblings all in need of attention. My elementary school was a place of safety. My teachers saw me and recognized academic and social strengths that I rely on today. They were certainly warm and caring in addition to dedicated to teaching academics. I remember their love for us children the most.
4
Personally, I learned a lot from teachers I didn't like. I mostly didn't like them because they were tough with high expectations. Not such a bad thing. We could use a little less "feelings" these days.
4
@DJ so agree. I grew up in a former Yugoslavia and got my advanced degrees there. I was shocked, when I emigrated how most American colleagues had a very shallow knowledge about many subject ( history, math, sociology, art etc. ) that were part of our high school curriculum. Only after seeing it on my own kids ( Blue Ribbon public schools ) did I understand this ability to choose the subject as well as the constant attention to the so called “ feelings “. And yes, I learned so much from those “strict and demanding “ teachers and professors and do not think my psyche was damaged. On the other hand, maybe it is not fair to compare my kids experience ( very positive ) with the inner city kids with a myriad of issues.
I do think that post graduate education here is superb compared to the European one ( University of Chicago vs. Zagreb ).
1
@DJ as a long-time professor, I'm quite certain that "tough with high expectations" is one of many ways that teachers show love for their students.
2
Brooks has it right about the importance of emotions in life and learning- that is a trusim, or it should be. But he does not fully acknowledge the huge problems with measuring relationship quality in institutions, accounting for different relationship styles and the context for these. The problem (of measuring and even conceptualizing relationships ) is so large that emphasizing socio-emotional learning is likely to have, and indeed often does have, perverse consequences. When have you ever met an educator who would describe themselves as fostering poor relationships ? The topic is subject to enormous self-serving bias and even delusion-precisely the people who are weak on relationships will say they are strong and vice versa. What we have here is a valuable idea, often dangerosly misapplied, because the devil is in the details. Generally speaking, you can't measure relationship qualtiy over short intervals; but the methodological problems with measuring it over long intervals seem prohibitive. For these reasons, it seems better to focus on things we have a better grasp on (than socio-emotional learning) like tests of subject mastery. Yes, relationships matter in institutions- but subject competence probably matters more. Plus, we know, culture fit doubles for affinity bias. The poorest educators often defend their work siting the 'wonderful relationships' which are the focus of their pedagogy. Thus scepticism is advisable.
3
How to win over hearts and minds has been the core question of educators for as long as we've had educators.
I'd start with saying that we cannot do it if teachers and schools have the primary responsibility for developing children's sense of social mores. They cannot be the people teaching the fundamentals of self-respect, self-reliance, self-discipline. When children don't get those qualities at home, in their broader family and community, the schools cannot catch up.
I see referrals, where I work, from schools for medical evaluations, which require communication back to the school when the parent follows through. They must provide notes from us excusing the children from class - the parent's word is secondary. The necessity that drives that essential mistrust that parents can and will accept basic responsibility is the hole we haven't filled, and can't fill, not with all the connection and emotional learning in the world.
And frankly I see parents who have abdicated responsibility at every socioeconomic level. While poverty makes it more likely, some of the best parents have been poor immigrants and some of the worst I've seen have been entitled and advantaged.
If we want teachers to be able to connect, we need to have students who are ready to connect. That falls to the parenting community.
3
With all the right intentions, this is what the testing zealots miss. When we allow tests to put students and teachers in adversarial relationships, learning suffers. Teachers are encouraged, literally trained even, to see students as bubbles that move right, left, up and down on charts. When they struggle, teachers panic (they are human) and either lash out or focus on bubbles that will move up and right. It takes a great leap of faith to ignore the bubbles and love and teach a child.
2
Growing up in a two alcoholic home, I will be forever grateful for the teachers who inspired me during my education at St. Joseph's of Yorkville and LaSalle Academy (both in Manhattan). Those daytime hours of patience, encouragement and guidance were priceless. Each and every one of them certainly wasn't in it for the money - it was a vocation. They became, unbeknownst to them, my role models and surrogate parents.
7
When the student feels engaged (often seminar format is better for this than lectures), less anxious and the experience is made enjoyable, learning is enhanced. And remember that learning does not cease in school, but continues in our jobs. If some of the points David Brooks make are encouraged in the workplace, people would be a lot happier and more productive.
3
Thanks for this great piece! As a college professor of many years, I have come to believe that the most important element of pedagogy is demonstration of passion for what you are teaching. It's truly contagious. I completely agree with the idea that a "group mind" can form in the class due to shared enthusiasm for learning.
It's easy to be passionate about your subject when you have time and support to prepare your teaching and do outside activities (research, writing, conferences, performances, whatever) to engage in your field. The huge reliance of universities on part-time instructors as opposed to tenure track full time professors is no doubt affecting the abilities of university instructors to feel "passion" for their fields, their students, or their institutions (let alone part-time instructors' ability to meet with students outside of class, especially when many don't have offices--or a living wage, or health insurance). I so wish it would become a common societal concern and value to encourage colleges and universities to return to offering full time jobs to professors to foster the kind of educational experiences Brooks is talking about here, and that parents and students are paying dearly for.
5
@Clarice agreed on the essential role of passion. However, passion can be conveyed by teachers in myriad ways. Too often people assume passion means rah-rah, or extremely expressive. It surely can be those things. But passion can also be conveyed by an extremely focused and brilliant teacher who is not just calm but could even be dry were it not for the learned clarity expressed in every sentence. I think of two profs I had at Boston Univ illustrating these extremes. Howard Zinn could rouse you to the point of wanting to run through a wall for him; Bernard Elevitch, on the other hand, would come into his philosophy classroom looking like a middle-aged philosopher and slowly pull out a chair from behind an old wooden desk and proceed to sit down next to the desk, cross his legs, and then in his wool pants and tweed coat and vest stare at a spot on the floor about 10 feet in front of him for most of the class, all while giving us his analyses of the classics we were reading. I'm forever indebted to both.
@Chris
I agree. I neglected to define "passion," which can of course be low key and not rah rah. But passion in one's field comes from having the support and time needed to truly engage in one's field. It's tough for adjuncts running from school to school to sit in a library or lab and mull over big questions in their field or to read widely and deeply within it, a prerequisite to sharing the passion for inquiry with students.
The fact that relationships are so important to education is another reason why having career educators established in a school for a long time is so important. Relationships build not only because students "like" a teacher, but over time and through the ups and downs of life experience. Those types of strong relationships can only be built through continuity. Over time, as students move on, teachers retain their reputation for being caring and having the students' best interest in mind. This is why schools (such as many charter schools that work young teachers to the bone) with high teacher turnover rates never get to establish that strong culture: students don't trust that the adults in the building will even be there to see them graduate.
2
I have been in education for almost 30 years--25 as a classroom teacher for all levels of students: Gifted, Special Ed, ELL, rural, urban, suburban, public and private, poor and wealthy.
Without a strong relationship between teacher and student quality learning does not occur. Great! How do we foster this?
Smaller student-teacher ratios. Smaller student-teacher ratios allow more personalization and more personalization yields better, stronger relationships. That means--often--two, three, even four adults in a room of 15-25 students depending ages and needs. Further, after school programs whether they are sports, clubs, or supervised hangouts would help our relationships grow beyond the classroom.
No, it ain't cheap; but our children are worth it. Aren't they?
8
Resiliency studies show one single person can build resiliency in a human being. I cannot imagine how many have been teachers, but I know there have been plenty, more than we’d ever guess.
It’s a lot to ask, expect, nurture, but it can be.
Not everyone has the heart or mind to be a teacher. But we all know some who have. And to those we say teachers, thank you. You’ve been there for us, for our kids, for our grandkids. I only wish we’d have thanked you when you didn’t even realize our gratefulness. Your days come and go, sleepless nights, worrying about other people’s kids, figuring out how to make better days and lives for those students under your wings.
We all probably have or have had a favorite teacher. Maybe if we take time to figure out why they were favorites we can figure out how we, too, can be a better person, and what we can give to help others succeed, whether now or somewhere in their future.
There’s more than books and chalkboards in this classrooms, isn’t there, when there is a great teacher behind it all. There’s someone teaching real life in a good way.
10
The most powerful marketing that I have ever experienced, and have utilized my whole adult life, as a consequence, is relationship marketing. It functions, simply, when behaviors, of yours, reach out in Authentic ways to develop ‘actual’ relationships with others as you share, educate, motivate, even inspire, them to participate with you in whatever endeavor or activity motivates YOU. As you suggest, David, Relationship Quality, is at the core of....everything. Family, Friends, Education, Work, Community...and I have found...even our Spiritual Embrace in this life. Well done, David. Well Done. Shalom.
3
I love my job as a substitute teacher.
Many, who I reveal this to, offer me condolences. They share their experiences with students and how they're ungovernable, rude, even aggressive.
I beg to differ. As you write David, teaching is connection. I like the children and they can feel that emotion. As a result, many comment on what a great sub I am. My secret: engage, be interested in them and be prepared for that teachable moment.
Voila ... there you are. Education is caring, listening and responding. It is not yelling or demanding.
9
Well done, Rudy Nyhoff !
Thank you for your service.
4
As a member of the People of Color group, my heart is broken that more families of People of Color do not realize that they have to embrace love of education at home in order to make core education/knowledge a desired thing in my community.
I am pommeled in dialogue with my group because I do not embrace fads or that other side that saps 99% of the energy out of trying to really build an educational base. I do not know a single person in this main picture shown but a good close-up analysis of the people in this picture would point out the true values shown at home by the clothing and styles worn by these students.
Students learn when the parents and community embrace education dearly. Then it becomes a snap for teachers to share words and worlds of knowledge. Ostracism is more the reward for seeking knowledge in some of my culture and that must change for real progress. Known hatred coming from authorities will relieve the stress of just trying to stay alive so the focus can be placed on education.
I truly love education/knowledge, fitness and work but I am so often a loner in these passion, hard to find others.
4
How close to what is being said here in the column and by many of the comments about the teacher/student relationship akin to the phenomenon of transference in a healthy psychotherapist/patient relationship?
2
Loved this piece. Thanks to the author for reminding us how wonderful teachers can be. Fortunately, we were able to send our son to schools that provided intellectual as well as emotional learning. Kudos to all of the educators who realize and adopt both avenues of learning.
5
Elementary school teachers could have taught you this a long time ago. As a 30+ year veteran of teaching 5-14 year olds, I long ago learned investing in building relationships paid handsome dividends. There are also huge bonuses, as those relationships continue through the decades. I may be poorly paid, I may have limited respect from much of society, but "my students" continue to come "home" to visit and catch me up on their accomplishments. I have found test scores and learning targets take care of themselves as long as students feel respected, loved and part of a supportive community.
20
Thank you, Ann Luginbuhl.
You make society a better place...and you deserve a well-earned raise.
At least former Republican Gov. Paul LePage has left office, who made Maine a much worse place.
5
I've been teaching in my country since 2000, for kids, and from 2008 on at Universities. No matter how old they are, emotions really build a strong link between people and, also, between contents and people. I do agree with this article. Congratulations. :-)
9
Having taught for 26 years, I learned that students want to be respected and if they sense that is true, they work very hard. They want things to be relevant. They want things to be accurate. "Google it" and find out if the teacher is up-to-date or even knows something useful and accurate. All of this is part of teaching students who are millennials.
6
That is really the whole idea of the very popular boarding school idea here in Denmark where 9th and 10th graders share a year living together.
1
The emotional connection should start at home with the parent making education priority #1. For effective and continuous education, the parent must also be emotionally and academically connected. If not, all the good created by the teacher will be undone by the unengaged parent.
8
Brooks has made this argument before, contrarian to the usual widely held view of reason and emotion as opposites. Here he takes it further, offering more evidence and, notably, distinguishes between good and bad emotions. This nuance is helpful. I suspect a few things: there are more intertwinings about the relation between different types of emotion and reason to untangle, including in types of learning. We may find more areas where positive connections exist, but also where the commonly held one still seems true, such as a small place still kept for the stereotype of pure geniuses allowed emotional stupidity. The cultural interpretation and implementation of this revised relationship will continue to develop in parallel. Some old tenets about learning, such as focusing on drills and pressure, may be challenged, except in circumstances where they really are the best way to learn. It will be interesting to see where this radically revised view of something so basic will take us, even outside of education. Think of common sayings like "Be reasonable" and "Don't be so emotional," based on the old dualistic view. He gives us a taste of a possibility when he invokes the idea of better relationship quality in Congress. Finally, a little skeptical of metrics for relationship quality. Yes, it could be a viable marriage between emotion and the numbers offered by reason, but you can't lose the identity of the former while bringing it into the world of the latter. Too one-sided.
We don't go out into nature and tell the squirrel to act more like a racoon and we should not be instructing in the way of becoming rather than being. Like flowers (there are no two alike) we came out of this world rather than into it.
In Zen, the boatman is not realized without the boat and the boat is not realized without the boatman. It is the entire collective within the confluence of circumstances and conditions that make up a society. There is very little (if any) "Me" doing compared to the totality.
3
@Thomas
Learning is changing the way you think and see the world around you. Every students comes into a class with different starting points and one has to let them reflect on their individual level of what they perceive and allow themselves to change that view.
5
It's very rare that I find myself mostly in agreement with Mr. Brooks. My only quibble about this excellent op-ed is that we didn't need neuroscientists and fMRIs to learn about education and love. This goes back at least as far as Rousseau's /Emile/ (1762). An important more recent body of work comes from Martin Buber, who understood education as, most importantly, a relationship between a teacher and a learner,
Luckily, children are very generous with their love, granting it even to the most rigid and defensive teachers, as long as they're not altogether malevolent. Schools would never work otherwise.
8
@Brian Harvey
Thank you for highlighting Rousseau's contribution to this conversation.
I would add the accounts of Xenophon and Plato. Both accounts taken together show Socrates to be a multifaceted teacher. Plato describes Socrates as an antagonist who knows nothing but who is engaged in deep relationship building and mentoring of students. Xenophon describes a friend... a Socrates eager to play and offer support. In both cases we see the makings of a teacher whose emotional intelligence is the subject of the lessons.
1
"Putting relationship quality at the center of education.". knowledge and learning how to acquire and retain it is the proper center of education.
1
What a welcome challenge to teachers and architects!
PASSION = PASS > ION
We need to make sure that the most passionate minds see teaching as a rewarding career.
3
I agree with you about quality educators. Dispassionate reasoning and dialogue is at the core of science, not education.
That said, my kids all went to schools k-12 where they had many friends and some good teachers with whom they were able to connect. This was great (and my wife and I consider ourselves very fortunate in this regard), but I was nonetheless somewhat disappointed with the educational results.
The goal of school is to teach cognitive skills needed for reasoning, and a knowledge base with which to exercise them. Connecting emotionally with students is an important means to that end, but there are many other factors involved in providing a good education.
3
My recommendation: Waldorf schools. I taught for many years in "mainstream" schools in the US, was myself educated in conventional US schools, and I now teach in a public university in Germany, but my daughter attended Waldorf School in Rhode Island for six years. In the Waldorf model, the connection between emotion and learning is fully accepted and incorporated into the curriculum and teacher training. I urge anyone who was struck by Mr. Brook's column and who is disappointed by their children's current school to look into Waldorf!
5
How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationships first? How about change the humiliating point system of online grades for parents to see and get angry about and mess up home vibes and nightly dinners. How about tell universities to back off with the pressure, change their ways, open the playbook. How about give more time for students to *choice read* at school, no grade attached, excel at the most essential skill through organic practice -- make it fun, natural, ESPECIALLY for those kids in homes without that natural, easy-going, surrounded by books vibe. Relationships, yes. I agree. Students KNOW when they are growing, learning; they also know when it's a busy work game geared for the grade-book, geared for the bell schedule, geared for adults. Relationships, yes. Pay teachers well too. How about that relationship? Value the skill of creating a comfortable, safe place for students to grow. Very hard to do. Respect that skill through high pay, doctor type pay. Parents know a great teacher is JUST as important as a great doctor. So compensate them. Relationships, yes. I agree. On all fronts.
35
Teacher's calling is an act, or better, process of love, and great pride in seeing students excell in learning, not only the subject matter but critical thinking as well. The environment must be cooperative, not antagonistic, so students grasp the need to celebrate a conjoined effort with their teachers; nothing short of mutual benefit is the result, and the nation shall benefit. What else is so important, and valuable, than promoting human talent?
7
I have two points to make: 1) The following was posted recently on PBS Newshour: "Pre-K through secondary school teachers in the U.S. work 2,000 hours a year, which is 400 more a year than their counterparts in industrialized nations." My daughter-in-law, who taught middle school in Singapore for 20 years, told me that teachers in Singapore typically teach 3.5 to 4 hours a day, and have breaks between classes. That is why good teachers burn out. And for anyone who thinks that 3.5 hours per day is "taking it easy," this is in addition to writing curriculum, class preparation, and grading of students' work. 2) An article like this reinforces my prejudice against online learning in the lower grades. There is no human interaction with the teacher, no comparison of one's work to that of other students, and a student must be highly self-motivating, which is easier for some, but certainly not for all.
18
@Miriam Chua Online learning is less effective in higher grades, as well.
2
As a teacher, I get nervous each time a Times columnist has a great new idea about education. If this one catches on, it won't be long before those in power are using it to justify new ways of tormenting us. In fact, I still haven't quite adjusted to teaching to the standardized tests -- you know, that brilliant new way of measuring teachers that all the pundits were excited about 5 minutes ago.
Also, I wonder would Brooks would say about Eva Moskowitz' Success Academies. They terrorize their students, but have very high test scores.
9
I have taught grades 8, 9-12, college, and even law school. Caring about students must come through in everything a teacher does in order to reach them. If students believe you care about them learning something, that you truly are trying to help them learn, they will brave any subject and take risks to grow. I have taught in schools with 80% of kids eligible for free and reduced lunch and had students on parole wearing law enforcement ankle bracelets in class. The principle has held everywhere.
Also, kids will rise to the standard to which you hold them. Catholic schools do better than any other schools at educating all children (& eliminating the achievement gap). Despite their strictness, Catholic school teachers believe all children can learn, which translates into all children learning. To me equal expectations and providing a rich curriculum to all students is a form of love.
Thank David Brooks for the science under girding what my subject area supervisor instilled in us-the greatest predictor of student success is love. We must love them in order for them to grow.
Since Mr. Books has taken up this topic I ask him to consider, how would it be possible for teachers to give so much of themselves (intellectually & emotionally) for an entire 30 year career? Or even longer if a teacher starts working at 25 and retires at 67? Most great ones burn out well before then. It's the teachers who don't give of themselves that can easily stay through to retirement.
17
“Stupid, stupid Sookie.”
“The face of a cow and as dumb as one too.”
I have never forgotten that story. It still haunts me the way it obviously continued to pain my mother several decades later.
My mother attended local Catholic schools in the 40’s & 50’s with the daughters of other (essentially exclusively) white, blue collar, Catholic families. These were the kind of girls that were warned every morning by pious (& largely immigrant parents) that they’d better behave in school, church, etc., even if they almost always already did.
Fortunately, my mother was rather intelligent. Unfortunately, poor Sookie, her young classmate, was not so blessed, though apparently quite obliging & obedient.
My mother didn’t have a lot to say about religion or Catholicism in particular, but she obviously kept it at arm’s length as an adult.
This is the bulk of what I ultimately learned about many of her formative experiences of “the church.”
She didn’t hold it in very high regard, based on how the teachers (nuns) at her schools treated those students that were “less than ideal,” typically in some relatively minor manner.
Sookie apparently wasn’t that bright & had a face that, allegedly appeared bovine.
So insults & corporal punishment were her earthly rewards.
My mother was no sentimentalist or bleeding-heart, yet such spectacles obviously made a profound impression on her.
So much for such “loving strictness.”
2
@Angela, my friends who attended Catholic schools had similar stories. They hated their Catholic school education and have distanced themselves from the church as well. They might have been well educated in facts but not in critical thinking unless they were born rebels.
1
Wonderful article David. I just finished a course, "The Journey of Integration" given online by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dan Siegel in which he describes, to illustrate connection at the quantum level, how, with "entanglement," one electron, in the vicinity of another spinning in one direction, will spin in the opposite direction. These electrons, once "entanglement" takes place, can be separated by an inch, a foot, a mile or 1000 miles, and yet, when one starts spinning, the "entangled" electron will simultaneously start it's complimentary spin in the opposite direction. We are all connected, and with an unambiguous "willing the good of another," we can access that connection and experience empathy.
6
I’ve taught in Business Schools on three continents and at Engineering schools on two - for the most part my love of teaching and the reciprocated love of students was an indication to some of my colleagues (even when I had a better publication record and more relations with industry than they did) that I was not a serious scholar. I am now teaching in China at the Technion’s (Israel’s star Engineering school) new cooperative university in Shantou. I am finally in a place where my colleagues (majority from the Technion) have a passion for teaching and their subject matter that I feel exceeds my own. This “love” inspires students and gives them confidence to question, challenge and explore new worlds of learning. Perhaps this is an unsung key to the innovation miracle that is the Israeli tech industry - their professors are driven by love.
3
We've known about this idea since the early 20th century. The criticism of "scientific management" and "Taylorism" came most clearly with the Hawthorne studies, which proved that productivity increased by paying attention to workers and treating them and their jobs as important.
It's the same with education. When we build relationships with our students, they are more productive. When we have smaller class sizes, this is possible. When we have an appropriate number of school psychologists and guidance counselors, students get more attention and they work harder.
6
Now, how to help our educators achieve this connection. Much less the willingness to put themselves in said position.
You don't do this by paying them poverty wages and making the career/calling a dead-ender.
You don't do this by denigrating them for every ill in society.
You don't do this by making their work spaces un-safe, un-manageable and un-productive.
You don't do this by making school a rote factory with teaching to the test and data driven points.
These pupils are our future.
How we treat them now, is how our future will be too.
Support your teachers, and they will be able to support your children.
Chance are these educators spend more time with them than most parents.
110
Interesting time for this column as Los Angeles teachers are striking, at least partially because the average class has about 40 students, a size that insures that students can neither know or love their teachers.
My home state, Oklahoma actually had a Republican governor in the early 90s, Henry Bellmon, who ruined his reputation in the party by pushing through a plan that limited class size to 17 students. Then No Child Left Behind transformed classrooms into high pressure sweatshops. The provisions of the law expired and the state doubled class sizes.
Kids are happy and do well when they are cared for and she came they are they do love their teachers. I've taught for forty years now and love it because kids are naturally inclined toward affection. Despite all the problems plaguing public education, I've experienced a positive climate in every school I've worked because of the hard work and dedication of teachers. I've also gotten the strong impression that the primary aim of policy makers is to find a way to get those teachers to quit.
13
David, your sense of fairness and recognition of the role of emotion in our lives resonates with me. Thank you for writing this, and for your continuing efforts to encourage us all to discuss problems respectfully, intelligently and with compassion. With very kind regards, John Cameron
6
I suspect you are right. On the other hand, I was sent to Catholic schools and flat out despised many of my teachers, lay and clergy alike.
Yet somehow, I was educated to a higher standard than most of my peers. Go figure.
24
Ever wonder if there are possibly any other factors besides Catholic schools per se that rendered you “better-educated” than your peers?
Maybe the fact you disliked your teachers so much subconsciously lead you to find something “better” about what was potentially an overall suboptimal situation; I actually don’t recall particularly disliking ANY of my K-12 teachers.
My siblings & I attended the same public K-12 schools. For various reasons, but by essentially every measure, I would certainly be considered “better educated.” It obviously wasn’t the school....
How do you personally define “better educated?” Who do you compare yourself to? At what ages/stages of life? What were other potential differences between you & others before, during & since.
If you were comparing yourself to other individuals during K-12 years (which might be sort of weird, anyway) were Catholic schools the “default option” in your community, etc. or were there other factors in play such as parental engagement in education, financial considerations, etc
Obviously, I have no idea about what criteria you’re using to make this claim.
But it’s like evaluating Charter Schools. In some cases, most kids won’t get admitted without substantial parental involvement & effort.
Obviously, such schools can only be properly evaluated when such factors are part of the assessment process.
2
@Melanie,
A lot in life depends on luck of the draw and the Catholic nuns where I attended boarding school in France knew far more about what was happening at home if you were fortunate to have one. They left religion at the door by the time we were fourteen, and tried to instill in our heads a sense of what is right.
Before and after Easter, returning from a holiday in Ireland with Lixou the most popular student in our class, who took me under her wing, I called an American couple in Paris to find out if they were expecting my visit for the weekend. The maid answered, 'Monsieur has left, and Madame is in the hospital'. Trauma raised its head, and a nun held on to my arm, Lixou took the other.
The following year, our last before passing Terminal, I met at the train station, Bichette, a new student, tall, elegant and depressed. We both came from broken alliances, and her story was chilling and rarely addressed. The nuns would hide her when her parent visited.
An Ode to my Teachers, and thanking Mr. Brooks for placing the word 'Love' in his latest essay, which he omitted in an earlier one on how to be a good person.
1
Maybe they challenged you by not accepting mediocrity and expecting your best? Or maybe they challenged you by viewing you as a poor student and got your angry enough prove them wrong?
Robert Pirsig in his famous book talks about a professor's role in teaching abstract concepts such as the law of gravity, the law of general relativity, quantum fields, etc.
Those postulates are intangible things-in-themselves. They cannot be touched nor seen by a human. Therefore, the laws of physics resemble impalpable ghosts.
Thus, a professor must have a cogent presentation or argument for their existence. He or she must hypnotize the class into believing in their phantasmagoric existence.
Hence, while emotion is good, a lucid, well thought lecture with verve is better for proof and remembering, especially when dealing with abstract knowledge and a large element of quantitative analysis is present.
Otherwise for many the material is dehumanizing, alienating, and leaden. STEM material is difficult. Equipping young students and old professors with the right frame of mind to approach STEM courses would be a good thing. For years it has been sink or swim. And when many sink so does society.
8
Thanks for the article. I owe a debt of gratitude to my teachers who through their caring have instilled me a love for learning. I hope educators see not just a student but a person whose life trajectory can be changed.
13
Another pipe dream compliments of David Brooks. And just how do we establish relationship quality at the core of education? Flip a switch? You’d have to first convince conservatives to stop defunding education, bleeding state universities and public schools dry, failing to pay teachers a decent salary, driving class size up, eliminating arts programs, installing a national Education Secretary who knows nothing about education, and promoting online learning and education for profit.
Instead of looking at ivory-tower studies from Ivy League schools Brooks should go to some inner city schools where many students come from dysfunctional homes, and live in impoverished, crime-and- drug-ridden neighborhoods. See how the other half lives. He will find plenty of emotion there - fear and desperation.
118
@Michael. Sometimes it is only the teacher who gives positive energy and affection to troubled children; providing a safe environment, providing skills for success and compliments even if it’s just catching a ball, participating in a cooperative manner. If one doesn’t settle down and listen there is no learning or positive feelings.
6
@Michael I have worked as a teaching assistant in two small, resource-poor schools with kids who have a very rough home life. Some live in shacks. Some don't have coats or a back-up pencil and some don't have parents who can help with homework because of language or drugs or a night shift job. I give them affection, a sense of safety, a goal to reach and a sense of accomplishment and they respond by wanting to learn and do more. To David's point, we are all people, in it together. I agree that we do an abysmal job with education, and that classes are way too big, but what most affects my teaching style is not Betsy DeVos nor a funding committee, it's partly the school director (support helps) and mostly me.
19
You probably speak from a lot of experience. It is painful for good teachers to witness students who have become used to seeing themselves as worthless. They are distrustful and cynical about learning.
I have also seen some students from impoverished violent neighborhoods shine. It can make a big difference when a teacher cares. Caring by itself may not bridge the gap and some students do need a great deal of help.
Some students shared that their enemy teachers gave up on them and told them “you will never learn.”
They put on a stoic front but cried when they admitted they could not read.
Yes, many test the limits; perhaps, they have families where there are no limits.
But some once they know you really care show an eagerness to follow rules. They want to learn. They just don’t think anyone cares. They often feel worthless.
Students DO need teachers who love their students. It makes a huge difference in their learning and staying in school. It is not the total answer but it is a good start.
A teacher who can name their students’ gifts and talents give students hope. And teachers can set good behavioral boundaries with their students genuine caring do begin to see consistent learning.
5
Thank you, David Brooks. I have taught theology for almost 28 years. I have not always epitomized it, but I try to always let the students know I care about them and that I am passionate about my subject. Being vulnerable and emphasizing relationships in community is part of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools' goals. I tell my students that just because I care about them does not mean we are "friends" or that I won't hold them to high standards. That's the rub---to be able to ride that wave carefully. Love should be at the center of any educational endeavor.
14
As much as I admire David Brooks, and as much as I applaud the ideas he espouses here, I fear the practical complexities and challenges of public education severely undermine his argument. I teach in a large, urban community college. I've had moments such as that described by Quantummess: last night, I took over a class that had lost its part-time instructor (under very sad circumstances), and the students, who'd had a bumpy start to their term, were vocal and gracious about their appreciation of my presence and my fairly formal approach--a change of pace from their experience to this point. Such moments are to be cherished. Particularly in non-selective institutions, secondary and tertiary, those moments are also rare--independently of instructor benevolence or effort. Many of my students, as in public high schools, suffer from very serious problems, problems residing in themselves (substance abuse, mental illness, illiteracy) and in their environments (poverty, domestic abuse, troubled or neglectful parents). Such students are typically guarded, sometimes hostile, often indifferent...and almost impossible to reach, or teach. That's to say nothing of the harm they do to the aspirations of their classmates. Mr. Brooks argues a beautiful ideal in this piece, but given how badly broken so many students are, and given the intractability of the underlying conditions that have made them so, I am doubtful as to the practical applicability of that ideal.
44
@Thomas Riddle, I am glad you were the first comment. You’ve said exactly what I planned to say. I, too, am a public high school teacher. I teach in a rural school in an area ravaged by the opioid crisis. I see children (yes, they’re not cute elementary students, but they’re still children) dealing with poverty, homelessness, neglect, and abuse. Some students are so hardened by circumstances that they are incapable of showing the empathy your Yale students showed so willingly. Yes, we teachers try to develop relationships with students, but real barriers exist that are way past the control of any teacher or even school.
36
@Thomas RiddleThe challenges you outlined are all real but surrender to those challenges cannot be accepted and there is real evidence that providing engaged emotional and material support can help these kids beat odds.
I am deeply involved in an organization called Thread. Brooks did an article about us several months ago. We engage with Baltimore inner-city kids that are in the bottom quartile GPA, below the poverty line, living in the toughest neighborhoods ravaged by blight, violence, drugs and more. This demographic has a projected high school graduation rate of 6% and yet by connecting them across lines of class and race difference in a relationship based cohort the same kids have a 65% high school graduation rate in four years and 87% in six years. We make a 10 year commitment beginning in ninth grade and over 80% of our alumni have a college degree or advanced certification.
It is all based on deep unshakable relationships. One of our core principles is never give up.
Check it out at www.thread.org
9
@Jan Houbolt: Thank you; your response was helpful and thought-provoking. I will visit your organization's website. Respectfully, we work with similar organizations at my institution; indeed, we've embraced the model of wraparound services to support students in their studies: a college-run food-bank, free counseling, free tutoring, academic success coaches, and ample grants and/or scholarships--with help to apply. Still, a great many of our students fail. My colleagues are patient, generous, involved--and we often question to what end. I've supervised clubs, given students rides home, comforted with them as they cried, helped them with college essays --and I'm probably the most reserved or detached of my colleagues. I don't mean to strike a blow for cynicism! And I shouldn't be too grim in my remarks; I may have overreacted to Mr. Brooks' arguments. I've helped many students get into four-year schools, as have many of my colleagues, and I've developed good relationships with students and their families in many cases. But it's the problematic, often at-risk students who stand out. My critique of Mr. Brooks' argument may have been overstated, but I think it's important to call attention to the context out of which students engage the school experience, as you do, I'm sure, and to take exception to the persistent myth that teachers are almost exclusively responsible for their students' outcomes--which allows the conditions of students' lives to be ignored. You know? :-)
10
Even though all of my students in a 25 year teaching career were invited to our family home for picnics with their parents, for book talks and poetry readings, and I connected with them on a personal level every single day to instill the love of our beautiful language in writing and speaking, it only took one student who threatened to kill me to make me leave the profession. I taught over three thousand students and endured many, many administrators who didn’t value personal connections. They feared lawsuits by parents whose children threatened teachers instead.
Too bad they didn’t read your article, Mr Brooks.
15
Of course. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but I think any good high school teacher already knows this. Good relationships and empathy are at the core of learning.
80
I am a math teacher and I had a similar realization. What I initially thought of as a math job turned out to be a people job.
I believe Mr Brooks point explains why online courses have not put us teachers out of work, as some predicted.
90
Mr. Brooks, you have consistently supported a party that believes in terrorizing others. You have supported a president who decided to torture enemy combatants. You support a party that nominated and now bows to a man who thinks nothing of shutting down the government to get his way, a party that enriches our so-called health care system by refusing to regulate any aspect of it and forcing the rest of us to do wallet biopsies before we consider getting health care. You support a party that is fleecing Americans and leaving us terrified of what the future holds.
Pardon me if I read what you write and snort. You have set up so many straw men and false arguments to justify intolerable positions that I don't think you understand how it feels to learn every day that your elected officials care nothing for you or your friends and family. I doubt you grasp the depth of the despair people feel when they cannot find jobs, not because they aren't qualified but because of ageism, racism, and other isms we aren't aware of. We're learning that our country despises us. We're learning that our hard work means nothing. There's no love there but we are learning.
145
@hen3ry -- Brooks has consistently opposed Trump and most of what Trump's party has done.
9
@mgf
He may oppose him, but Trump is a monster created by conservatives like Brooks, who cleared the path for him.
He also favors trickle down economics, which is hardly a tonic for the schools.
9
@Eric -- "conservatives like Brooks"? It ain't team sports. Conservatives don't all wear one jersey; liberals another. And there are _way_ more than two sides.
8
Mr. Brooks, I disagree with a significant percentage of your posts, but you are spot on with this one. Well done.
8
Of COURSE students should find some personal bond with a teacher. But if that were all, classrooms would just be group encounter sessions. What's missing from contemporary public-school classrooms is a ground for emotional bonding in valued subject matter. Teachers who love literature and history, and, biology, and yes, math, want to share that love, their expertise, and their own learning of how to navigate that subject matter. Schools run by ed school professionals teaching "skills" and "critical thinking" (as if these weren't diverse and subject-dependent) destroy the grounds for education.
25
Critical thinking is not taught on its own. It is wrapped up in so many subjects...math, science, IT, history, political science, art, music etc. Critical thinking is integral to a good education. It was not something just thought up!
18
@Oriflamme
Well, I teach a class called Critical Thinking :-) but I definitely know what you mean. I always feel that I'm trying to educate students in defiance of what I'm officially supposed to be doing. :-) You're particularly right about the harm done to any sense of a humanistic or holistic education by the emphasis on skills--what we in the NC community college system call, in wonderfully Orwellian language, student learning outcomes, which we must document by tying those outcomes to specific assignments, students' grades on which are considered to demonstrate mastery of said learning outcomes. That, of course, is at the classroom level. We also have, thank goodness, program outcomes and general education outcomes. (Education just couldn't take place without them--and PowerPoint, of course.) Admittedly, we're far from alone in our Gradgrindian complication of a process to which human relationships are of fundamental importance--to your fine point. But take it easy on the critical thinking, eh? :-) Perhaps I should critique my own bias...
5
As the director of a program that helps youth in foster care get into college, I see daily the extent to which fractured relationships impact a students ability to learn. I also see the opposite: the extent to which loving, respectful relationships can relax, open and grow the mind. Thank you for writing this. It means so much to me and my students.
23
Right On David. Why this might be news to any of us astounds me. I'm lucky enough to teach at a private school, assorted curricula for Kindergarten - 12th grades; naturalist studies, science, philosophy. We're a small school and have time to let relationships rise. Over my desk is a short epigram - from Nietzsche of all people - "Whoever is a teacher from the ground up takes all things seriously only in relation to his pupils, especially himself!" - Thanks for reminding us again.
9
Thank you Mr. Brooks! My experience corroborates your column. I teach in the humanities in a small college to which students arrive with marginal skills and uncertain support. They are bright and frequently very motivated. I love working with them. Over time, I have found that the most effective way to reach them is emphasize our common humanity and show a little of who I am. Many think they are not capable so these affective bridges make the difference. This column is a reminder that learning contributes to understanding what it is to be human.
20
Showing that you are human is not the same as establishing relationships. Some degree of understanding and compassion is not the same as relationship.
Education is based on a hierarchy and that hierarchy is based on distance between teacher and student. Break that and the system breaks.
Moreover, in today's society, relationships can be misread in a manner that would put a teacher's head on the professional chopping block. No quarter will be given by administration, community or student body.
I don't need or want my students to love me. I expect their respect. I understand that it is a two-way street and I also need to earn it.
Beyond that I have my job to do and they have theirs.
9
@Joshua Schwartz There are many good scholars who are bad teachers. They all say things like this. Prof Schwartz should take a few minutes away from historic geography to acquaint himself with the research that shows that “student centered teaching” (a ‘guide by your side’) always does better than “teacher centered teaching” (a ‘fool on a stool’), no matter what success metric you use.
Some educators and students also call this rapport.
6
As an educator, both in the South Bronx and Seoul, I am not looking to build a friendship with my students. However, having compassion and outlining clear expectations and maintaining high standards, in my experience, does wonders for student achievement. And above else, two-way communication is vital; too often, children feel they do not have a voice, but in my classroom, they understand they their words have power.
46
@Jared Wood
Thank you Jared. In my 23 years of public school teaching, I have learned that students are people first, students second, and kids third. We are a learning community of life long learners.
I have learned as much from my students (if not more), than they have from me. My hope is that through mutual respect we have all learned together. I wish for my students to surpass my knowledge, and pass that along to future generations. Wisdom is as important as knowledge.
6
I recently went through a six month program on Organizational Change Management at a major university for which my company the tuition. The rich interactions with my fellow students and professors was enhanced by the friendships formed by working with others in small teams. Near the end of the program, an executive from my firm suggested doing this program on-line. I could not imagine how the interactions and relationships which were so integral to my learning could be achieved on-line. Thank you for helping me understand my instinctive response.
11
If I may add to my previous comment, these kids have learned THEY have the ability to improve the quality of relationships with teachers and family. They do not have to live in reactionary mode. And the fact all administrators and many staff are also Carnegie grads is a bonus. Google Warren Buffett, Dale Carnegie for his testimony to the value of Carnegie. He was first influenced by Carnegie when very young and attributes much of his success to his experience in the course.
"The bottom line is this, a defining question for any school or company is: What is the quality of the emotional relationships here?"
To get to this bottom line, we'll have to summarily dump the social ordering created early on in the Industrial Revolution.
Your question can't even be asked in schools/corporations where Bismarckian accountability and 20th-century standardized testing are still empowered and where know-nothing school boards and administrators take brainless decisions to keep themselves in power.
Education at the middle of the 21st century will be very different from today's but the changes will be slow in coming and the result of a lot of hard sociopolitical work.
4
Interesting.
When I went to school, a big, low cost, powerhouse of a public school down south, the goal was to learn.
And, the professors goal was to weed out the students who were lazy and unmotivated.
I did my job: I worked very, very hard and learned the material.
The professors did their job. They flunked out about 40% of the incoming freshman class.
This was an engineering school.
I guess Yale and Ivy are different. The relationship matters.
But, at schools where learning is important, the work matters.
4
@Michael
I too went to engineering schools in the Midwest and West coast and the flunk rates were similar.
Later I went to a law school and took the bar-again the flunk fates were similar.
@Michael
Engineering school is a whole different animal, trust me, I know. I attended an Ivy League engineering school way back when it was okay for educators to be honest. They told us up front that 40% wouldn't make it through two years, that those students would realize engineering wasn't for them. No shame in it--engineering isn't for everyone. Engineering school is rigorous, and lots of love won't matter if the student isn't willing to put in the time--and it takes a huge amount of time, as you know.
I still remember my interview--the Dean of Engineering asked me if anyone in my family was an engineer. It was his habit to ask all applicants that question. When I said 'no,' he said that was good because a lot of kids went to engineering school only because a parent had gone. Not the best of reasons if it's the only reason.
But, this article is not really about college, although the 'kumbaya' approach can be helpful, even in engineering school. When I found myself struggling with an advanced mechanics of materials course in grad school it was a 'kumbaya' professor who inspired me all the way to an 'A.' David Brooks is mostly talking about K-12. You should have figured that out with "some schools do no academic instruction the first week."
1
"And yet think about your own school or organization. Do you have a metric for measuring relationship quality?"
This is interesting: As a teacher, I am aware that student-teacher relationships are essential to student engagement. But this just explained to me why I love teaching at some schools and hate teaching at others. The kids, for the most part, are universal. It's the colleagues that have the power to make or break it for me. Where my colleagues have been, as I like to put it, "emotionally unavailable" - unable to talk for a half hour in the parking lot after school, unwilling to go meet for dinner or drinks once in a while and have some good shop talk - I don't feel invested in the campus community, and I don't do my best work.
14
@Romy G
Yes. I left a teaching position where my students did well and liked and respected me. I left because the administration and a significant fraction of the faculty disrespected the students, seeing them as lazy people in need of correction, not intelligences to be engaged and brought along. We all, not matter how smart we think we were, needed help along the way. Showing that you are human and that you care fits perfectly with having standards and helping students reach them.
12
@Romy G
Hmmmm....great evidence...teacher doesnt do well where he doesn’t feel a sense of belonging....either will kids!
As someone who trains grad students and postdocs, I know the importance of having a close relationship with your mentees. At the same time, I've learnt over the years (particularly as I've gotten older, and went from a time where many of my mentees older than me to me being older than almost all of them) that there needs to be balance and boundaries like in any relationship. I learnt some of these lessons the hard way but I do agree knowing your mentees (and your mentors, when the situation is reversed) and what they're going through (life's problems) as part of the learning process is key to making sure that learning does happen.
6
Descartes worshiped only reason and deductive reasoning (sawing sawdust) based on first principles which sometimes led him to wrong conclusions. Yet he is worshiped by scientists even today .
Blaise Pascal his rival recognized both reason and emotion-the heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of. He used experiments and inductive reasoning (going where no one has gone before) in his explorations of science. Yet he is ignored by many scientists-perhaps because he was intensely religious in later life.
5
I have witnessed a grand social-emotional teaching experiment. My small community school district is the first and only place in the world it has been tried in a public school. As of this week every current 9th grade student has completed the Dale Carnegie Course in Human Relations as part of their high school curriculum. Please see the op-ed by Bob Greene in the WSJ a couple days ago for a succinct story about the course. Mr. Brooks, this school has embraced the very idea you suggest. The value of social/emotional intelligence cannot be underestimated- and, it can be TAUGHT! I have spent 5 hours a day volunteering as a Carnegie class assistant since the start of the school year mid August. I have personally witnessed amazing personal transformations, and the building of a community of young people who, by being open and vulnerable with each other, have genuine relationships across all the typical boundaries.The loner, jock, transgender, gay, cheerleader,privileged, poor, troubled, drug user, the abandoned, the Christian, the atheist, all have found the human-ness they share . They have laughed, cried, hugged and felt the power of being free with their emotions and just being themselves. Schools have evolved to provide food and a safe environment- this school now provides what many even in our small community do not have- that most critical human need- a sense of belonging. School culture is being transformed. My evidence tells me ,Mr. Brooks, your opinion is reality.
81
And yet, I witness kids being taught how to do well on long hours of testing so that their schools get funding. I am sad to see the time spent in primary schools taking tests, and teaching to take tests. I hope learning for the joy of learning can come back so that curiosity and love of exploration can be reborn.
7
"Extreme negative emotions, like fear, can have a devastating effect on a student’s ability to learn. Fear amps up threat perception and aggression. It can also subsequently make it hard for children (AND ADULTS) to understand causal relationships, or to change their mind as context changes."
This explains well the behavior of 63 million students who enrolled in Trump University in 2016 who were made to be so fully frightened of Mexicans, Muslims and African-Americans that they were happy to vote for an anarchist who would gladly destroy their healthcare, eviscerate their consumer protection, empty the national treasury, and dump arsenic, benzene and mercury onto them while keeping frightened to death at all times.
Unfortunately, the 'Professor' in this case was a quack, a charlatan, an impostor, but to Brooks' point, the students did have deep emotional connection to their 'Professor'....they loved him deeply....in spite of his insanity, sociopathy and tendency to destroy whatever he touched.
The question is do students learned from people who defraud them ?
Perhaps over the long run, but first they have to learn that they've been defrauded....and that's always a very difficult lesson to learn for many students, especially if they remain jacked up on the fear du jour force-fed to them by their 'teachers'
Sad.
165
@Socrates,
The problem with the bullied and/or abused, is quite often they intern do so themselves to others.
They expect life to be such. One must put the other lower to get ahead.
6
@Socrates; Jez Socrates; here I thought he was referring to sixth grade Sister Zoe and her blackboard pointer of pain.
6
@Socrates If you come to learn please leave politics at the door.
3
I would agree that emotion and relationships are important, but they may themselves depend on other factors such as how the students or teachers feel about the institution, the environment, etc. I question whether it is useful to have "a metric for measuring" the quality of relationships for the same reason that focusing on how happy you are may not be the best way to become happy.
4
Thank you, David Brooks, for this insightful column. I will be working with some teachers in training in the near future, and I'll include this as one of their readings
6
Mr. Brooks, Reverse-engineering congress would be democracy , realized , atomized , the popular vote . ( uncertainty over whether that arrives at a technocratic outcome of logos, pathos, ethos, or a populist one, of swords and sandals , is collateral. It is the most granularly humanistic, at face )
1
I'm glad to hear that conservative Mr Brooks has has either seen or begun to see the light of holistic education. Even though he still had to throw some talk of "metrics" in there - I'm not sure how you'd quantitatively measure "love" - it's a great start.
I also found David's story of his students responding favorably to his vulnerability quite touching, and it rings true. I present myself to my own students as a goofball ignoramus around most subjects, because it's true and it takes too much energy to maintain a lie. My expertise in that one domain I'm knowledgeable in speaks for itself and needs no defending, but I do think my vulnerability allows students to relax around me and folks do absorb information more readily when they're relaxed.
11
@Noke You made me think of myself as a teacher, LOL.
At first, early on in my teaching career, I thought it was all about the content. 25 years later, it's all about relationships. I'm fortunate to create honest, real relationships with my students and, as a result, students learn.
33
Great article, Mr. Brooks. I have taught students in at risk schools for 14 years, as a second career. Our school district has embarked on an important journey, teaching Trauma Informed Care to teachers and putting priority on learning about social justice issues that students face. It truly is all about the love, not the test scores, though we know students must gain skills to succeed. There is a real sense of hope in this new mindset and I hope it becomes a way of life for educators nationwide.
10
"How many recent ed reform trends have been about relationship-building?"
"We focus on all the wrong things because we have an outmoded conception of how thinking really works."
Here are things I believe are more crucially in play in terms of American educational policies and strategies:
Books.
Literacy. (123 nations have higher literacy rates than ours.)
Money for special programs like labs and ESL classes.
Expulsion, especially of black kids, and the school to jail pipeline.
Tutors and special aids for kids who aren't succeeding.
Good, well educated, well compensated, teachers.
School safety.
Food and housing security for students.
Over 75% of American inmates are functionally illiterate.
The fine points in educational theory which might conceivably be afforded to private school students or school districts in affluent neighborhoods, are of such minor interest compared to a single kid who is rejected and expelled from school. Is the assumption that teachers in poor neighborhoods have less empathy than those in Santa Monica and the Upper West Side?
Or that the failure in American education is s a result of how all our money goes to the military industrial complex? And the snide attitude among the right about the importance of knowledge and facts?
23
@Eric
I would love to see US literacy broken down by race.
I was a college teacher for 30 years. Students memorize facts from some teachers, but actually learn from those teachers who they admired, loved, adored, whatever.
The teachers whose students really learned from were not necessarily more fact knowledgeable than were other teachers. But they had an "it" factor. Students gravitated to their classes, wanted to be like them. Worked harder. Found that reinforcement from those teachers was more meaningful.
Relationships are the key. Thank you David Brooks.
76
@Dan There are more than the two alternatives you cite, and most people who teach in a college would tell you that a professor receiving positive student evaluations for being likeable doesn't mean the professor is a good teacher.
3
@Charlie
In fact there is research supporting your point. Teaching evaluations are extraordinarily biased. They can be manipulated by maneuvers such as bringing cookies to students....
1
Mr. Brooks,
Coming out of the ivory tower for a moment, do you know what else affects learning? Class size. When I was growing up in Western New York in the 70s, my teachers used to tell us proudly that New York State was number two in education. Naturally, we wanted to which was number one: California. Currently, California is near the bottom and ranked 48th in teacher-pupil ration. We Californians need to stop that and Los Angeles teachers are currently striking not for pay so much as class-size reduction.
162
For some reason, Mr. Brooks, your essay reminded this reader of 'Goodbye Mr. Chips', and 'To Sir with Love'. By today's standards, these stories might be considered tear-jerkers, and yet they remain timeless for some of us.
My parent used to say that men were more sensitive than women, causing me to snort in derision, and she fancied herself a scientist in this emotional field. Yet, a man's tears are often more hurtful to see than a woman's. This is probably why we handed Judge Kavanaugh a position on the Supreme Court because his emotional outburst was unbearable and he was in need of being pacified.
As usual, I divert, but before returning to the subject at hand, let us remember 'The Dead Poets Society', my Captain. Orwell in his 'Joys, the Joys of School' is left feeling like a groveling failure by the time he takes the train to adulthood. No love there on his part.
Now. Without trying to get a high grade for informing you that you are one of my favorite teachers when it comes to learning how to think; to think, without diversion, I believe you are a bit of the right stuff, and above all a teacher of character, who inspires some of your students to go over the second mountain in your honest company.
All of us are students of life, and some of our finest teachers learn from the students they instruct. Perhaps you might enjoy the story of 'Stoner' by John Williams, an American professor. One has to be a bit of a stoic in the times we are living.
2
@Miss Le"
The title of Orwell's long, riveting essay about his school days is not 'Joys, the Joys of School" but "Such, Such Were the Joys"––and, given that it's Orwell, it almost goes without saying that the title is bitterly ironic.
1
@Ed,
I stand corrected with the right title, and Miss Le ends with a y. It is true that Orwell had a grueling time of it, where his teachers were enough to set one's hair on fire. He was used as their prize student and reduced to being a toady - when he left 'Such Joys', he vowed that he would never be made to feel like a failure again.
His first job; one which took place in Burma as a security officer, described by the above as a detestable one, caused him to shoot an elephant. Orwell learned that he was never going to be a coward again.
If you are interested in what was being taught in the rural areas of England in his time, you will find these revealed in his work entitled 'The Clergyman's Daughter'.
I completely agree with and appreciate Mr. Brooks’s opinion because what he says not only applies to enhancing the effectiveness of teaching but also applies to improve the effectiveness in persuading others in any situation. I am a Japanese business trainer teaching how to persuade others. Two major components for persuasion are logic and emotion. Analogy I use for good logic is clear water and analogy for emotion is the pipe through which water flows. In order to influence and persuade others, we need to have clear logic and need to widen the emotional pipe with the listeners. The current president doesn’t seem to have either.
5
I like to give my grandson's teachers a copy of How Can You Judge Your Child's Teacher? from Dr. Spock's The School Years. Most of them have never heard of Dr. Spock. "Children learn best by identifying with an adult who likes them, and whom they like and admire." Timeless advice for both teachers and parents, in my opinion.
18
@David Johnson
And how nice if they admired the adult because of his or her passion for intellectual work, not just because he or she appears to be sportsy, well-dressed, generous with classroom pizza, or going through a rough personal patch.
Mathematics, algebra included, is much maligned as being "hard" which does all students a great disservice and sets up obstacles to learning before it begins. It is not any harder than any other subject, it is just mostly not well taught. We need to give students real opportunities to learn and enjoy math rather than tell them it is too hard. Every child can be good at mathematics, and any other subject, if they are given opportunities to lean.
10
We’d be so much better off if Congress operated in the spirit of a school, or perhaps a good design firm. In both environments, competition is tempered by humility, curiosity, and a spirit of mutual achievement.
6
Theodore Keller taught philosophy of science at sf state, back in the day. It was a grad gateway course. many of us continued on to pg degrees because of his enthusiasm. He rode an Indian and eventually wound up at simon frazer. Thanks for the chance to say "Thanks, Ted, you were the best."
3
Not sure why "vulnerability" or empathy with my teacher would cause me to learn more or better. This concept may be applicable for children, but competence, respect and complete mastery of the subject matter - and an ability to communicate it - would seem to matter a lot more.
10
@c smith I think it would depend partly on what one is teaching, which Brooks does not ever seem to get around to. At the undergrad, masters and doctoral levels in my education, I definitely related more to the profs who seemed somehow "real". I had one Biogeography teacher actually cry in class when he described coming across the stump of the last known individual of a rare tree species that had been cut for firewood. I empathised not only with him and humanity's loss of yet another species, but also for the people who's lives were at stake and who needed the wood for heating/cooking. I would say the on balance, yes, empathy can help strengthen the educational experience.
7
I teach in the years that some find tortuous , eighth grade years. I survive this easily because I always build friendships with the students. They learn best for teachers they like we teachers need their permission in a sense, to teach them. If they are emotionally filled up, there is no room for learning. I have occasionally received some scorn from other teachers for it but teaching through compulsion is a losing proposition
49
@Buoy Duncan
You say that in a sense a teacher needs the students' permission to teach them.
As a teacher myself for over forty years and a student of teaching for all that time, I think that's the truest, most brilliant comment I've ever heard about teaching. Seriously.
18
The reason Republican Ronald Reagan was able to work with the solidly Democratic Congress during his administration was that he was emotionally aware enough to try to find common ground with the Congress. Reagan accomplished some of his objectives, didn't accomplish others, but both he and Tip O'Neil always observed the "6 o'clock Rule" - that everybody was friends after 6 o'clock.
28
@Mary F.
The reason R.R. "worked" with the Democrats is that enough Democrats secretly wanted the same reactionary programs, and they voted for them.
Unfortunately, the victims of his policies, including civilians killed by U.S.-sponsored terrorism during this period, weren't celebrating together at 6 o'clock, though it's only fair to say, this Reagan faction of the Democratic took over completely during the Clinton years.
5
@Mary F.
Reagan's handlers made him a master at theatrical manipulation -- indeed, he was a good actor. He did a great deal of damage that the country is suffering for right now. Emulating him would be a mistake.
4
@jrd Absolutely. The Carter Administration started the Democrats to neoliberals ball rolling, showing them the deregulatory path to corporate largesse. And we're still mired in the same mental gumbo.
I teach writing and rhetoric at the university level, and while I agree with these ideas wholeheartedly, I think that beyond an emotional connection what students respond to is an atmosphere of mutual respect, transparency, and curiosity. The great reformist educator Paulo Freire's work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" places this into the context of acknowledging the inherent politics of the classroom, and how the classroom is a space of cultural action. Recognizing this and teaching from this place of understanding surpasses an emotional connection - it connects with students on an intellectual and creative level and imbues students with authority over their own learning.
120
@Alison I am also a university professor, and I begin each class with an excerpt from Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It sets the stage for the rest of each semester, in which my students and I become co-educators and learners. Every class is an intellectual journey, and my biggest regret is having to turn away so many students who want to share that ride.
11
The irony of student empowerment through a writing course is that if most students had a choice they wouldn't sign up for these writing courses in the first place.
1
There are so many factors that go into a student's/child's learning process in any given day such as hunger or sleep deprivation, or problems at home contributing to the overall stress of trying to keep up with peers and their pressure.
I can appreciate that we should all stress ''kumbaya'' moments and show empathy. I think that is the core to any good person, let alone a child trying to learn. Teach a child to learn instead of practicing to remember through repetition, and you have another key. Allowing the student to be a part of the curriculum (or even go at their own pace), and I think you have the trifecta.
As far as Congress, there is but a simple lesson, that most seem to forget : The job description is to be a representative of the people that voted them into office. (not just a select few that sign checks to them)
Maybe we could send them back to school.
34
David has become the perpetual Pollyanna of the NYT oped section. Student-teacher relationships are important, but there's oh, oh so much more to quality education.
Regarding the final sentences -- "How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core? Come to think of it, how would you design a Congress?" -- the answer is obvious in the case of Congress: Fire most of them and start from scratch. (It wouldn't hurt to do away with gerrymandering, either.)
29
Of course there is more. He is writing about one aspect -- one that is very important and largely ignored.
If he spent his time telling us things you already understood and believed, would you find that useful?
10
@Orthoducks
I complain about him as being a Pollyanna too.
Not because I always want him to be writing about what I know, but because he has advocated ideas which have damaged our culture and our people, is in the position to make a difference, but does not seem to care, especially about the poor, of whom I believe he knows little.
I think thousand upon thousands of teachers and principals who year after year only see 25% of their students graduate from high school, would snort at his sense of priorities because they have nowhere near the luxury to consider anything but holding down the roof in the middle of a tornado.
He writes luxuriously for the wealthy, and Im critical of a man who has two weekly columns in the Times, writing about his own class and world, over and over. It just isn't interesting to me, and its not helpful to anyone.
As for the theme of this column? Water is wet.
2
@Orthoducks,
Probably.