It's the Relationships First

I was inspired this past weekend by Sam Neill's blog post over the surge of student activism in the wake of the Parkland shooting. She opens with an illustration pulled from one of her favorite children's books, Mike Mulligan's steam shovel. This got me to thinking about one of my own favorite children's stories, "I'll Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch.

Now if you haven't read the book, be prepared to cry when you do read it. It's the story of a small child who, throughout the years, continually makes a mess of things. But no matter whether he's a toddler, a child, a teenager, or even an adult, his mother sneaks into his room each night, rocks him, and sings to him the following song:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always.
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be."

At the end of the story, he goes to visit his mother, who is very old and very sick. So sick, she can't sing the song anymore. The son, however, reaches down to pick up his mother, rocks her back and forth, and sings the song to her. The book then closes at his house with him singing the same song to his brand new baby daughter.

It was a book that used to creep me out a bit as a tale of helicopter parenting run amok. But over the years, ever since I've had kids of my own, it's become one of my favorites to read to my kids. No matter how much that little boy screwed up, no matter how many problems he caused for his mother, she puts that aside and comforts him. It's an illustration of the sort of unconditional love that I think all teachers strive to show to their students.

If relationships, at their root, are about love, and if building relationships with students are crucial to being an educator, then being an educator is about figuring out how to love those who are under your care.

You don't have to look hard to see this is true. Just look at all the different professional development activities that teachers go to. They are about figuring out how to reach students who have undergone trauma, students who are depressed, students who are disabled, students who have an exceptionality, students who, in short, it's sometimes hard to build a relationship with.

So many #ksedchat discussions on Twitter consistently come back to the importance of building these relationships before we can truly see growth in our students. The social-emotional components are often critical to achieve academic success, which means educators often need to fulfill the basic needs of our students before we can address their learning. Being able to present the information alone is insufficient. If it were, what would be the need for teachers to exist at all?

Time and again, I see the best teachers express a belief that every one of their students is valuable. That every one of them has potential and purpose if only we can tap into it. The whole idea of a public education is built on the notion that every single one of us has value and is worthy of all that life can offer them if they work hard enough. It calls on teachers to express the kind of love in Robert Munsch's story. No matter how difficult or trying the child is, that is MY child. And your child. And they deserve our best.

Forever and always.