In a book aptly titled Teaching with Feeling, educational psychologist Herbert Greenberg (1968) describes the process whereby students who don't receive sufficient attention or validation in their schooling years are later (hopefully) "picked up" by someone else. However, at the same time, he cautions:
A great concern in this regard must be the child who is neglected or disliked continuously. It is hoped that each child will find one teacher (perhaps in physical education, the shop, music, art), or the nurse, who will like him (sic). Or perhaps next year, with a new classroom teacher, he will be more fortunate. However certain children year after year, teacher after teacher, never click positively with anyone. These children are truly neglected in the educational process simply because they arouse no positive feeling in teachers (p.50).
As I am reading this passage, I am thinking a lot of different things. First of all, part of it does perhaps ring pretty true to many people's lives, if not most, even though Greenberg was writing in a time that is quite different from today's world. Emotional support or love never comes to everyone at the same time, and from everyone, especially when it comes to teacher and peer support. Perhaps one of the lessons that people eventually might get from this is that they are never really or fully "in control" of the process of connecting in ways that feel positive or sustainable. There is even a kind of joy in being able to bear moments of non-love or non-support and to even test one's ability to go through such periods when they are not being supported by kind teachers or guidance counselors.
On the other hand, I don't think that Greenberg is necessarily describing those fortunate students who have been able to develop the confidence to sustain periods of not being supported by teachers or authorities of some kind. Perhaps there are, as he describes, students who somehow did not find teachers who resonated with their character traits, and therefore did not develop the sufficient confidence to be able to see periods of non-support or lack as opportunities for personal growth and independence of some kind. In those cases, what kinds of choices can both the teacher and the student make to ensure that the student's need for emotional support in their learning is being met? This very much seems a timely topic in light of recent incidents of school violence, many of which seem to be instigated by people who are characterized as "loners" or aggressive individuals by the school system and surrounding society.
When students fail to accept themselves, it seems to be up to the teacher to be able to work on themselves to the point where they can model acceptance in the child. I don't think this necessarily means coddling the child or giving them insincere gestures of support. Rather, I literally mean that teachers need to accept their total reactions toward all their students as a part (but not all) of themselves in the changing moment, before students can mirror that sort of grounded acceptance.
In other words, perhaps, teachers can practice self-acceptance of the totality of their emotional worlds, with the aim of conveying that attitude of total acceptance to the students.
What this means is that when I (as a teacher, say) am completely okay with who I am right now, emotionally and physically, as a presence in this classroom, I am no longer trying to suppress certain elements in my emotional makeup to please students or fellow teachers. Nor, for that matter, am I grabbing onto these emotions as though I needed to prove to the world that they are inseparable parts of me and therefore need to be somehow championed. Instead, this lack of attachment and acknowledgement of emotions can create a sense in children that it's simply okay for them to be who they are, without trying to prove themselves through some violent or aggressive force.
In this way, my point is never to frame myself as "an authority figure who dispenses love to passive students". Rather, I see myself as someone who exercises wholeness (as best as possible) so that students can possibly awaken to little moments of wholeness in their present existence. This also replaces the hidden expectation that teachers are supposed to be indiscriminate dispensers of love and support, empowering students instead to find their own inner support within themselves through moments of presence and acceptance.
Greenberg, Herbert M. (1968). Teaching with Feeling: Compassion and Self Awareness in the Classroom Today. Pegasus
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