I am a white male in my forties, but that does not define who I am. Early on in my career in education I realized this was true for my students as well. I realized my early struggles in teaching had nothing to do with my students being black or with them living in poverty. It had to do with me. I had to learn that in order to motivate and inspire learning, I needed to connect and establish a relationship with my students.
As I reflected on the events that transpired recently in my home city of Baltimore, I was upset at how the news media portrayed the incidents as they occurred. They applied an outside narrative to the group of citizens without really knowing their situations and what led them to be out on the streets on the day of the riots. It made me think about how we relate with others. Why are we so stuck on our own concerns and so oblivious to the needs of those around us? As educators, how can we move our reform conversation away from the obsession with standards and test scores and toward the interpersonal connections that research has shown are so vital for student achievement and great leadership?
Students living in poverty in Baltimore and elsewhere in the United States face many issues that have a negative impact on their education and outcomes. Issues that often can keep them and their families stuck in an endless cycle of poverty. When we have these students in our classrooms, have we as teachers and leaders thought about how we can improve their long term outcomes? Often our focus will be on the short terms gains and improvements seen in better test scores. This lacks the vision necessary for improving the outcomes we all need. What if we focused on ensuring we prepare educated citizens who make a positive impact on society?
So, what are we really doing about it? When I was a classroom teacher, I found that my focus needed to be on who my students were, what their interests were, what motivated them, what set them off, what made them happy. All of this was crucial to understanding how they were achieving and what caused them to struggle. Using this information and research-based strategies for effective teaching, my students and I succeeded together. We all learned together. They learned the curriculum and successful strategies for learning, and I learned about them and about how my interactions with them helped or hindered their progress.
I truly believe that the key to closing the achievement gap in education in our country is to focus on getting to know the needs of each student by establishing relationships. Students are all different, so to generalize how to best meet the needs of this group or that group of students is only going to go so far. Let's discuss our plan for building better relationships between students and staff. What are our strategies? How have we provided the training for educators to be successful? Are educators having open conversations about their own personal biases and how they help or hinder these relationships?
In each position I have held, I have been steadfast in my belief that we must see culture and diversity not as problems to overcome but as benefits to the educational experience. The fostering of multiple perspectives within the field of education helps us solve some of our biggest challenges. We must look at our students as our own, knowing that their parents want the same things from education that we want for our own kids. We must see every staff member as a family member with needs and interests that can be identified only through developing close relationships. People will do what they are told when you order them to, but people will surprise you with amazing things when you inspire them through connection and motivation.
I would love to tell you the name of the book I learned this from, but I can't. This lesson was blessed upon me by my students themselves. When I connected with my students, it changed my life. I learned so much from them and everyone I have met since, and I am a better educator and person because of what they have taught me. If we can learn that learning from each other benefits everyone involved, we can improve the outcomes we seek, especially the outcomes for the kids who were on the streets of Baltimore that night.
Randy C. Aleshevich is a Montgomery County educator and teaches graduate-level education classes at Loyola University Maryland. His email is raleshevich@gmail.com.