I'm interested in hearing any responses to this short opinion piece!
Teachers Are Not Social Workers
By Caroline Cournoyer on January 13, 2011
Teachers should spend less time worrying about students' problems at home and more time creating a positive learning environment at school, wrote Edutopia blogger Ben Johnson.
He raised the concern that some teachers, especially those in training, "think that their number one calling in life is to dig deep into the lives and homes of their students, ostensibly, so they can better understand them to teach them."
But rather than doing the work fit for a school counselor or social worker, Johnson said, teachers would benefit students more if they focused on giving them the best education possible.
"Of course we care for the students and their plights at home," said Johnson, but for some students, school is the place they go to escape. "So why do we want to rub salt in the wounds and bring to the forefront all of the problems they face at home?"
Johnson recalls what he did when one of his students came to class with bullet holes in his jacket and an injured leg: He carried on with the lesson, believing that the student "wanted to learn because he was there and had made a tremendous effort to limp to school." According to Johnson, "students know that education is the solution for many of their problems."
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2011/01/teachers_are_not_social_workers.html
The more I read this post the most shocked and disturbed I was. First when Johnson says "school is the place [students] go to escape" he ignores the fact that you can't escape the trauma of your life by simply moving your location. Trauma, especially psychological trauma, carries with you and if you have no avenue to work through it, it will never alleviate. He trivializes the heart of a teacher's work, to nurture the development of his/her students by supplying them with knowledge. You can't benefit students who can't even focus on their work because the teacher chooses to ignore them, all of them. Students may go to school to escape their lives, but they do not go there to be ignored.
ReplyDeleteStudents also escape to school for help, which is arguably what his gunshot victim/student did. Ignoring his students needs, including his blatant physical needs, because the student made "tremendous effort to limp to school" is beyond naive and cruel on Johnson's part. For all he knows that student limped his ass to school to save his own life, maybe it was not safe for him to return home, the streets, or where ever. Maybe Johnson put himself and his other students in danger because the shooter could of followed the kid to class. The point is Johnson will never know because he couldn't take the time to ask.
When you are struggling to live everyday, education is not the solution for most problems if you have no support, but it can be part of it. I think Johnson is naive and hurtful to his students especially in his statements and teaching philosophy.
Ignoring a student's home life is a careless mistake of anything educator who remotely cares about the well beings of their students. Every aspect of a student's outside life, though we have little power to control it, contributes to the attitudes, behaviors, actions and mentalities of that student sitting at that desk within your classroom.
ReplyDeleteYes, educators are not social workers or genies capable of magically fixing all of a student's personal struggles, but to not provide some support (whatever that may be) is a disservice to that student, the classroom and your profession.
However, he did raise some valid points that I sincerely feel is essential in what educators should keep in mind. As educators, especially in urban settings, it is vital for teachers to provide "the best education possible" as it is one of the keys in solving their problems for future. There is such a fine line when dealing with personal complications of a student, but I personally feel that when a student is in your classroom, for that time period, you have to provide them with the comfort, tools and resources needed to learn the most from that day. You can't and should not "accompany" a student home since you don't have that power, but you do have to power to do what you feel is necessary to "help" that student within your classroom.
For many of these students, "you" should not be their 2nd parent/guardian/social worker. Nevertheless, for many of these students, your classroom is their second "home"--so why not make it an embracing, stimulating environment?
But simply disregarding a student's pain from outside the classroom is blatant neglect and causing just as much hurt as their personal life has caused them.
Don't add to their problems and you may not be able to be their problem solver, but you can at least try to ease their problems by providing them with the support and knowledge for them to resolve it on their own.
It feels like the blogger is taking too extreme of a position? I feel like everything we have read, everything we have seen in the classroom so far has called on teachers to be very flexible and adaptable. Taking a stance such as his makes the teacher rigid. What do the students need? Did this teacher take the student aside after class and ask him if he were OK? He would if he saw him walking down the street (I hope). What is so different about this student being in the classroom?
ReplyDelete