The Risk of Reflection: Letting Our Students Teach Us What We Don't Know

Ellie Friedland and Tamika George

In his introduction to Shrunryu Suzuki's classic Zen Mind Beginner Mind , Richard Baker says that the purpose of all Zen teaching is to “make you wonder, and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own nature” (1970, p. 13). Isn't this what is going on for us in those moments when we bring ourselves so fully present that we make new discoveries that illuminate our understanding of ourselves and our world? Isn't this what we long for? What if this is the purpose of all teaching, not just Zen teaching?

If I borrow Baker's phrase and propose that the purpose of education is to make us wonder, and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of our own natures, then education is a deeply personal process, for the student and for the teacher. We teach, then, to provide the opportunities and conditions through which our students can wonder and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of their natures. The teacher-student relationship becomes a shared process of discovery. The teacher practices “beginner's mind” along with the student. As Suzuki said, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few" (1970, p. 21).

Paulo Freire calls this “problem posing education,” which happens through dialogue in which teacher and students … “develop their power to perceive the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as static reality, but as reality in process, in transformation” (1990, p. 70). That is, as the students and teachers explore their questions together they come to new understandings through which they can transform themselves and their world.

Constructivist approaches to teaching are also based on similar principles. Learning is itself regarded as development, not as the result of development. Teachers offer students challenging, open-ended investigation in meaningful contexts so they can raise their own questions, generate their own ideas and models, and test their validity themselves. Humans are regarded as meaning-makers, seeking to organize and generalize their experiences. Students personally imbue experiences with meaning through reflection and dialogue, and ideas are accepted as truth only when they make sense to the community (Lambert et al., 2002; Fosnot, 1996, 1989).

In all these views of education, the teacher teaches not by disseminating information, but by creating a relationship through which the student and teacher together can inquire and investigate. The teacher is more likely to have questions than answers. There is great relief in this, since none of us can know all that we need to know to reach every one of our students. This is especially true when we are teaching students who are different from us. As my student teachers often say, we cannot possibly learn enough about all our students' cultures, ways of thinking, knowledge, and experiences to fully understand them. But what if we regard this as good news, not as the unfortunate endpoint where we get stuck?

This kind of transformative relationship can be what the educational process is all about. Tamika George, a senior in the undergraduate Early Childhood Education program at Wheelock College , and Ellie Friedland, her teacher and student teaching supervisor, shared this type of educational experience. This is why you are about to read two narratives. This story is useful only when two truths are told authentically: the teacher's truth and the student's truth. These truths together make a whole story. It is about power in the teacher-student relationship, how assumptions and expectations are expressed, and how support is offered and accepted or rejected. It is about how a student and a teacher came together to wonder and to answer that wondering with the deepest expression of our own natures.

Tamika George wrote the following account after she completed her student teaching in the Early Childhood Education program at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts. Tamika is now teaching second grade in Tortola, British Virgin Islands .

I communicated in one class more times in one semester (Fall 1999) than I had in all of my two years at Wheelock. In previous classes, there was only one reason I tried to speak, and that was because I was going to be graded on participation. I tried, and after a time of trying, I gave it all up. I went into every one of my classes telling myself, “This is one class participation grade I will not do well in, because I am not going to speak.” I knew I had things to say, but I gave up on participating because of many feelings I was having.

First of all, I am not a talky talky type of person. I will talk, but I will not talk for a long time. I also prefer to be in the background and listen. Another problem in classes was I was not understood because of my Caribbean British accent. I was always asked to repeat myself. When I was constantly asked to repeat myself, I became very angry and I started to think to myself, “Here I am in America , which is so diverse, and yet I have to change the way I speak so that I can be understood. That doesn't seem right. Americans I have observed in my homeland never made changes, so why should I change?” Frankly, I just refused to change who I am for a place so diverse. I told myself, “I will not change the way I speak. I will use my British spelling. I will even write the date the way it was taught to me in the Caribbean .”

Another thing that contributed to me not speaking at all in classes was that I was a minority, and I was accustomed to being the majority at home. I felt uncomfortable in all my classes because there were times I was the only black in the class. And I was not just any black. I was a black from a different culture. I was a young black Caribbean woman. There were even times when I was in class with blacks, and I still felt uncomfortable because I was the still the only one of my kind. I was a young Caribbean woman. I was the only one of my culture. The only one. I related to other blacks to a point because the black culture spreads, and there are similarities no matter where you are from. However, I was still different from them. My culture differed from the black Americans and from the majority white culture.

There were many things in school that were different from what I was so accustomed to, and that added to my difficulty contributing in class. Back home in school in the Caribbean , when you wanted to speak, you had to indicate it by raising your hand, then waiting to be told you could talk. When I came to America I did not leave my manners at home, so I did that in my classes. At times, I was acknowledged, but other times I was overlooked. My hand level became lower and lower, and of course then I was acknowledged less and less. Finally, I stopped raising my hand in class.

Also, it is only good manners when someone is speaking, especially the teacher, not to be talking at all. Here I was in classes in which other students were talking while the professors were talking! That was downright disrespectful, and that made me angry. Professors let it slide, and I told myself they probably let it slide because this is college. But I was eaten up inside whenever this took place, because it was rude, and I was not accustomed to this where I was from. I just could not speak in someone's class who was being disrespected in this fashion. I shut down.

The only classes I tried talking in were ones that were taught by black professors. I talked a little in those classes because I was not a minority and then there was some level of comfort. I took two Caribbean-related classes, which I thought would be my comfort zone, and I would have a lot to say. I did have a lot to say, but I still didn't say most of it. I was way below the 50% level for participation. I still did not feel comfortable being the only one of my culture.

That is the way I went through my time at Wheelock up to my last year there. I was very much aware of what was happening with me. I would talk to my mom before the beginning of every semester and I would say, “Mom, whatever grade I get in this course, it could be better, but it won't be, because I ain't talking in class.” I wanted her to know my low grades were caused by me not speaking in class. I remember her always telling me to say something, even if it was one sentence. “Talk a little bit, Tammie,” is what she would say. All I would say was, “I will try, but I won't promise it will happen. I will make a big effort.”

Although I usually don't break promises, I still did not make any great effort in this area of my performance in class. I would go to my classes, sit there as secluded as possible, coat on, and not say a word. I always kept my thick brown coat on because, yes, I was cold in New England , but also it gave me a sense of security. I felt untouchable in that coat because it was a way for me to bury more within myself. I remember there were times I would just bury my head in my coat. It was a way for me to stay more to myself.

I have to admit that not speaking in class was also a form of rebellion for me. Professors were always correcting my British spelling. It didn't upset me when they corrected other spellings that were wrong, but when MY words (the British words) were corrected, that was a form of disrespect for who Tamika was. And it was disrespect for my culture. I was not changing for no one. No one at all.

So I was in my third and final year at Wheelock and still had not contributed in class, for all the time I was in college. I knew this was a make-or-break-it year as to whether or not I would get to be a teacher. I was beginning my student teaching, and I needed to do all that was required of me. That meant even speaking in class. I felt the pressure, I was anxious, and I felt full of pride. I was totally overwhelmed. It felt less likely than ever that I could speak in class.

This was going to be like all my other classes, or worse. I would be the minority, black, Caribbean woman, alone. This class would be torture, because it was close to four hours long. Talk about having the pressure on! I knew I had to contribute because this was going to be the making of me, Tamika, as the teacher. I knew that if I didn't talk in a four-hour class I'd really stand out and, boy, was I right. I stood out. The professor tried to get me to talk in class, and when she did I would be a wreck. I would start to shake, and I would bury my head in into my coat which, of course, I always kept on. Professor Friedland tried to get to know me, but I never gave her a chance. I would come into class, sit in the same spot all the time, with my head on my hands, and make my facial expressions even more intense and serious than usual, as a way to say, “Don't bother me.” I left as soon as class was over.

I had trouble addressing all my professors by their first names, even though they told me to. This was expected at Wheelock, but it was difficult for me to do. I tried to adapt to it because this was a request of my elders, and I did not want to come across as being disrespectful to anyone. But I saw it as respectful to address adults by their last name. I had also come out of our school system where it is the custom to address teachers by their last names. I felt much more comfortable calling my teachers Professor (their last names) but it wasn't what was done at Wheelock. Again, I was different.

I noticed what I was doing through my reflections after each class. I did care what happened in class, and I looked back at what happened each week. I saw that I was not talking. I saw that I was being childish by withdrawing from the professors, and I was being rude. There was one time I got so frightened and panicky when I was called on that I buried my head into my hands, and I could not gain composure fast enough and I started to cry. I made sure no one could see. I was becoming depressed, and because of this I was falling behind in the coursework.

I had written a note to Professor Friedland in my first assignment, asking her not to correct my British words. I knew deep down that I was being rude by choosing this method for letting my professor know about my needs. I did this because I wanted to see her reaction. She respected my wish, and I think that she saw this as an opening to try and get to know me. Anyway, she did what I asked, and she wrote me back saying that she would not correct British spelling. She also commented on the thoroughness of the work that I did. This was good. I was thinking, “This is someone who might be respectful of who Tamika is.” I saw that she might be respectful of my culture too. I still had a big guard up, though, and I was not going to take it down just like that. It came down though.

My professor asked to meet with me after class and asked a very important question that I couldn't remember a teacher ever asking me in person before. Professors had written to me on my papers, but I always thought, “If this is going to be a personal comment it should have taken on a more thoughtful and personal form.” She asked what she could do as the professor to help in me contributing in class. This was major for me. I had a lot going on in my head and a lot of ideas and views about what we were discussing in class, but I only talked inwardly. I was the only one who knew my views. Now maybe I was going to be heard in my own manner and not have to worry all that much about being asked to repeat myself. It took a while, but this professor and I started a new journey.

Professor Friedland and I made a contract. I had to contribute at least one thing in each class. In the beginning she opened the way by calling on me. Since she was supervising me in my student teaching, she knew when there were things from my classroom experience that related to what we were doing in class, and she would ask me to speak about it. I did, because I loved working with my children. It gave me this special happiness that I was not feeling in class. But when I started to talk about them, that happiness came into class. When class was done, I would talk to her about what I did in class. She always commented on what I had said in class, and one thing that I liked was that, after a while, she started asking me if I thought I could have added anything else. And, boy, there were so many other things that I could have said! By doing that she helped me take it even further.

One thing that made all this possible was my professor's ability to just be able to relate to me and that she tried to understand where I was coming from. I loved that. I want to do that as a teacher. I strongly believe that teaching is not about me (the teacher), but it's all about the children. I have to start where they are, go to their level first of all, be there for a while, and then see if I can move them up to my level (the teacher) at a comfortable pace. I saw Professor Friedland doing this with me. So it was a win-win situation.

With the things we set up, I was talking in class, sometimes as many as four times in a class. I wasn't just responding to the professors, but when other students had something to say I would reply to them, too. I said to myself, “I'm not talking as much as some people, but man I'm talking my butt off, talking more than ever in all my time in college!” I felt respected, and I felt my culture was being respected. Once that is getting its respect I am cool with everything. I will express the real Tamika.

By the end of the semester it felt like I had found a new inner being within myself. I was being more open and, I think, friendlier. I am not saying that I had been stuck up. I paid respect to the few students and professors I knew by saying hello, but not much more than that. Talking to people did not change all that much. Once I had interacted with someone, I always tried to keep that friendly door open by saying hi. If hi was not returned, well I partially shut the door of saying hi to that person.

Then I did something that was a real big challenge for me. This was big; not only had I opened up and talked in class, but I was going to be talking in front of strangers.

I remembered I had seen something in the school newsletter for a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day brunch that was happening on campus, and if any students wanted to they could sign up to read poetry or sing. I really wanted to do this, so I thought I could be part of this indirectly by having someone read my poems. I wanted to do something in memory of my grandparents, so I decided that I was going to read my own poetry at this school function. I thought about it and I told my parents at home that I wanted to do so. Then I called them back again and told them that I was not going to go through with it.

I told Professor Friedland what I wanted to do, and she immediately said she thought it was a great thing to do. But she also asked me why I wasn't going to read my poetry myself. When I kind of smiled and shrugged my shoulders, she told me I should read it myself. I think she could tell that I really wanted to, because she said she'd help me practice how to read it in public. So I decided to go through with it again, and I signed up to read two of my poems. I was willing to do it, even though I was terrified, because I wanted to share something about my culture. One of the poems tells what I learned to see and understand in my culture through my grandmother. I love my grandfolks and my culture, and I wanted to share that. I got excited about it, and I met with Professor Friedland in the empty auditorium to practice. I stood up on stage and read my poems to her and to the empty theatre seats. She kept interrupting me when I wasn't loud enough or was going too fast or when she thought I should emphasize something more. She said people would understand me, even with my accent, if I spoke slowly, clearly, and with expression.

By the time I'd gone through the poems a few times, I actually felt confident reading them and was reading with real expression of the feelings in them. I must say Professor Friedland became a big driving force behind what I wanted to do. There were times when I called her and told her I didn't think I could go through with it. She always told me that, of course I could do it, and she also said I couldn't back out.

When the day of the reading came I was so nervous! I was still afraid people would not understand me because of my accent. There was no way I could go up to the podium with my winter coat (my security blanket) either! I did find a replacement for it, though. I held a piece of paper towel in my hand while I read my poems. But no one knew I was clutching my paper towel, and I read my poetry with a clear, strong voice.

I had asked Professor Friedland to sit in the middle of the audience so I could see her, but when I looked at her I had to look away quickly. She had tears streaming down her face. I knew if I looked at her too long I'd start to cry too, so I looked at other people in the audience. Many of them were crying too! When I finished reading, they stood up and applauded for a long time. People came up to me and said how beautiful my poems were and how well I had read them. They all understood me, and they said I didn't look nervous at all.

This was huge for me. I had moved from being someone who never spoke in class to someone who did some talking to someone who read her own poetry in public! I didn't think this was possible. I am thankful for this experience. In my last semester at Wheelock, I talked in all my classes. I participated. My last year in college made up for the years I had not expressed my ideas.

I want to be a teacher so I can have relationships with children that change us all. I want to be an adult in their lives who encourages them to know their own ideas and express them freely, as they want to express them. If I can do this, I will be happy as a teacher for a long time.

Ellie Friedland wrote the following account after she completed the semester as Tamika George's professor and student teaching supervisor in Early Childhood Education at Wheelock College .

I was sure Tamika George didn't want to be in class. For the first two classes she came in, did not take off her heavy brown coat, and sat looking down at the table where she sat or, worse, with her head folded on her arms. I didn't know if she heard anything that went on in class or not. She did not converse with other students before or after class and didn't say a word during class discussions unless I called on her. And this was not just any class. This was the three and a half hour weekly combination of seminar and curriculum course that junior or senior students in early childhood education take while they are in full-time student teaching. They are expected to participate in class by discussing their experiences in their classrooms, by offering ideas and opinions about curriculum development, classroom management, inclusive teaching, and other aspects of teaching. They are expected to integrate theory and practice and to critically analyze what they read and what they observe.

Student teachers at Wheelock are highly motivated and eager to learn and to share their experiences and ideas. They readily rise to the challenges of student teaching and of the accompanying courses by offering their observations, ideas, and questions about what they are experiencing in their classrooms and what they are reading. Tamika was the exception. She was silent and withdrawn.

I didn't understand Tamika's behavior, but I was certainly sure that it indicated something negative. Maybe she didn't really want to teach or was resistant to the academic coursework; maybe she was one of those people who are too terrified to speak in class (not a good sign for someone going into teaching); maybe she had had bad experiences in courses and was defensively expecting more (this was my first semester teaching at Wheelock College, and though it had an excellent reputation, I didn't know what it was really like for students); maybe she was uncomfortable because she was a student of color, from the British Virgin Islands. She had a heavy accent, and when she did speak in class, because I had called on her, students often had trouble understanding her and asked her to repeat what she had said. Maybe she was angry or resistant to learning; maybe she had an “attitude” about professors or about being a student in general or about any number of things I couldn't know about.

She was a mystery to me, and I was disturbed. Participation in class is vital for everyone, and I'd made it clear in the syllabus that it was an important portion of the course grade. She certainly wasn't going to do well in the course. I knew, too, that Tamika's pointed lack of participation would affect the group, who were just warming up to each other, to me, and to student teaching. This class had to be a place for them to receive and give support as well as knowledge and techniques. Tamika's attitude could be detrimental to the group atmosphere of safety and comfort that had to be present. I wanted to approach her, but I was hesitant. I didn't want her to feel pressured or singled out, and I didn't want to push her into more negativity.

While I was worrying about all this and trying to decide what to do, the students handed in their first assignment, a summary and their reflections on the first assigned readings. When I got to Tamika's work I feared the worst. There was a note she had written to me on the first page:

“Professor Friedland,
Please do not penalize me for my spelling. I use the British spelling of some words, and they are correct.
Tamika.”

“Ahh, “I thought, “this is going to be bad. She has a chip on her shoulder, she has an attitude about requirements and evaluation, she is clearly defensive. She's creating distance by addressing me as “Professor Friedland” when I'd asked to be called Ellie (and it's the norm at Wheelock for students to call professors by their first names) and by writing me a note instead of talking to me. I'm sure she put little effort into this assignment. And she'll probably be resistant to all feedback.”

But Tamika's notes and summary of the readings were thorough and complete, and her reflections were thoughtful and insightful. She had clearly read carefully and had thought a lot about what the material meant, how it fit her own thinking and what she had learned previously, and how it related to her work in her student teaching classroom. The tone of her work was actually enthusiastic, positive, and engaged.

Who was this person and what was going on? This contradicted all I saw of her in class. Was she angry or not? Was she as disinterested as she appeared in class or as engaged as she seemed in her assignment? Did she want to learn? I responded briefly to her note in writing, since that was the mode of communication she had initiated. It felt stilted to me, and I'd have preferred speaking to her, but I wanted to let her create the initial boundaries. I thanked her for telling me about her British spelling, and told her I would not mark it wrong. However, I would note other misspellings and errors and had done so in this assignment. I also wrote that I was impressed with her thought and her work and told her the specific strengths I saw in it.

Tamika was as withdrawn as ever in our next class, with her coat on and her head down most of the time. When we took our fifteen minute break I happened to see her leave the classroom and run into a professor in the hallway. He was someone I had met briefly, an African American man who taught music classes. I watched Tamika grin a huge grin that lit up her face as I'd never seen it, initiate a hug with him, and then chatter away with such excitement she barely stopped to breathe. Her face and voice were animated, alive, and, incredibly, she was loud.

She came back into class as quiet and hidden as usual. Who was she? I would never have thought Tamika ever behaved the way I had just seen, and certainly not with a professor. Why was she so different with him? Why was she so actively withdrawn in my class? The most obvious answer was that he, like she, was a person of color. Was this about race? Was she so uncomfortable in my class that she suppressed who she really was and what she had to say? If so, why? How could I find out if it was about race? And what could I do about it?

To add to my concern, Tamika only handed in part of the assignment that was due that day. The work she had done was excellent, but she had not completed all the readings. She wrote me a note acknowledging the parts of the assignment she had not done and saying that she would get them done right away. But she didn't, and by the next week she was falling seriously behind. I decided it was time for us to talk, and I asked her to stay and talk with me after class.

We went into a nearby empty classroom, to be sure we had privacy. I didn't want her to worry about other students overhearing our conversation. But I left the door open so it didn't seem overly dramatic, hoping she wouldn't feel threatened. I began by again acknowledging her excellent work, then expressed my concern that she was not keeping up with assignments. I asked her what I could do to help.

Tamika talked about how she struggled to manage her time (student teachers at Wheelock are incredibly busy) and about how she had difficulty getting to all the assignments. I offered a few time management and organizational strategies, but she had tried them already. She did accept my suggestion of making a schedule for when she'd complete each section of the weekly assignments, and to my surprise she agreed to meet with me every week after class to check in on her progress.

I think this approach worked for her because she could be in charge, she created the deadlines, and yet she had my active support to keep to those deadlines. I decided to take the risk of going further, since Tamika seemed comfortable. I told her that I was struck by the difference in her written work, which showed her interest and ability, and her demeanor and lack of participation in class, which seemed disinterested and distant. I told her that it was clear to me from reading her work that she had good ideas and much to contribute to class, and that she would benefit from such contributing. She nodded her head as I talked and even smiled a little. I got the feeling that she agreed with me and that she liked that I had noticed.

She told me that she did indeed have ideas and responses she didn't express in class and that she knew her course grade would be lower because she didn't speak. I asked if she wanted to participate, and she shrugged, but with a sort of nod and smile. I was beginning to see great willingness in her, but I still had no idea how to help her. So I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her express what she wanted to in class. She smiled and shrugged again. I actually had the feeling that she was beginning to see me as an ally. So I suggested that she make a commitment to say at least one thing in our next class. Part of the agreement would be that if she didn't say anything for most of the class, I'd call on her. Her face lit up at this idea, and she heartily agreed.

She did say one thing in the next class, and every week after that contributed at least once, usually more. Her comments and questions always extended or deepened the class conversations. She became an active participant in small group discussions or work sessions, and other students began to look to her for ideas and suggestions.

She performed exceptionally well in her student teaching classroom, where she was outgoing and unusually compassionate and gentle with her first graders. She was keenly tuned in to students and responded to their needs with creativity and originality.

Tamika and I met every week after class for the rest of the semester. We developed an easy, playful relationship with honest communication. I began to feel more comfortable with her style of relating and communicating. I continued to be conscious of how I interacted with her because her reactions were not what I was used to, but I found I could follow her lead.

Tamika completed her student teaching and my class and did very well. At the beginning of the next semester she came to me and told me she was thinking of having someone read her poetry at a special Wheelock event being held to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. All I said was, “Fabulous, you've got poetry to read! But you should read your work yourself, not have someone else do it,” and she immediately agreed to read, though she was terrified. She clearly wanted to do it … and she needed only a little support and encouragement. We had a brief rehearsal/coaching session in which she worked on speaking loudly, clearly, and with expression. After that she was still scared but more confident. A few days later she came to the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration to read two original poems to a crowd of about fifty students and faculty. Other students and faculty sang or read poetry, but no one else was performing her own work.

Tamika dressed up for the occasion and beamed with anticipation (and nervousness). She brought two friends with her, who stayed at her side and encouraged and cajoled her. She was animated and alive. When her turn came, she stood firmly in front of the crowd and read her poetry with a voice that filled the room. She looked directly at the audience, so that later people said they felt she was speaking just to them. Tamika's poetry evoked her home and her culture with beauty and pride, and she presented it and herself with clarity and power. Power. Even though I could hardly see through my tears, I looked around the room. No one was moving and all eyes were on Tamika. Most of those eyes were wet.

Here are some reflections about what I learned from Tamika. I hope I go on learning from my students, and I wish the same for all teachers.

•  “ Dialogue and problem-posing never lull anyone to sleep. Dialogue awakens an awareness. Within dialogue and problem-posing educator-educate and educate-educator go forward together to develop a critical attitude.” (Freire, 1973, p. 127).

If we are going to set up an environment in which our students can participate in true dialogue, we have to be committed to and engaged with that dialogue ourselves. We have to stay curious. We have to be open to being led to new places by experiences and by our students. I believe teachers have to take, not just give. If we enter into the teaching/learning process with a willingness to be changed by it, there is fluidity in the process, and we have the chance to learn and grow. If we have this chance, we can set up this opportunity for our students as well. Our students can then participate fully and meaningfully, and they can be changed by the process too.

•  Education needs to have an overtly and explicitly stated anti-bias purpose. The classroom is the appropriate place for students of all ages to learn about differences and to learn to respect them. This includes and goes beyond learning about various cultural practices, beliefs, and ways of thinking. In my view, this includes not only racial, ethnic, and cultural differences, but differences in sexual orientation, ability/disability, language, and religion. We teachers need to actively talk about differences and about issues of discrimination, bias, racism, sexism, homophobia, able-ism, etc.

•  Teachers need to be aware of our assumptions about students and that they may indeed by invalid. We should always ask students the meanings of their communications instead of assuming we know what their verbal and nonverbal expressions mean. We should never assume that we know our students from their behavior and communication in class alone. I was completely misinterpreting not only the reasons for Tamika's behavior, but also her motivations and concerns underlying her actions.

My success in this story pivoted around a chance moment of seeing my student in the hallway with another professor. I don't know how I would have proceeded if I had not seen that moment, but I'm sure I would not have been as strongly positive with her. I was, after all, until then, thinking that she did not want to be in class or did not want to be a teacher or in general did not want to cooperate. These were negative possibilities generated by what I saw in her behavior in class.

We must assume that we will not usually have such serendipitous moments that show who they really are in class, including when we work to make it a safe environment. I have learned to assume that not only all students can learn, but that they want to learn, even if their behavior indicates otherwise. As a teacher of young children I was able to remember this, but as a teacher of college students I lost sight of it and let my biases lead me too much.

•  Cultural sensitivity is inadequate. Cultural competence is necessary. It needs to become one of the basic competencies required for teachers. The metaphors we use to speak and teach are culturally bound, in ways we are usually unaware of, because we take our metaphors for granted. If we can learn and use metaphors and concepts from other cultures, we can be open to understanding.

•  Teaching is always about relationship. We need to make relationship and its importance in teaching ever-present and overt in the classroom—this takes constant work and awareness. Our role as teachers is to make sure our relationships with students are ones that make learning and growth possible for them and for us. We have to be willing to be changed by it all. I have always believed this, but sometimes I forget and think teaching is about knowledge or even shared experience. Everything that happens in a learning situation happens in the context of the relationships in the situation: teacher:student; student:student; teacher:group. These relationships are complex, and we don't know all that is affecting them. But if we don't see that a relationship is not allowing a student or students to learn and thrive, we have not done our job.

The story of Tamika George and Ellie Friedland is about the teacher-student relationship, the power in that relationship, how expectations are expressed, and how support is offered. How the person with power reaches out to the person with less power is perhaps the most vital factor in whether or not the student, with less power, can accept help without giving up something of vital importance to her. This may be the power she does have and needs to hold onto, it may be the power of remaining true to who she is rather than giving it to an “other” dominant way of doing or being.

Honesty in relationships with students is key. The other key is the teacher being willing to share power. This must include honesty about what the teacher does not know or is unsure of (I'm sure it was sharing my confusion about the ways I saw Tamika in and out of class that helped make me safe and trustworthy for her). I had to let go of the veneer of the knowing professional/adult/authority and let her see my vulnerability and doubt. This made us partners in finding what she needed to succeed, and it made it possible for her to trust my commitment to her success more. I the teacher did not find the way to reach/help a student who was struggling. The student and I together, in equal partnership, found the way for her to succeed.

•  Teachers need to remember that every student has a “cross cultural experience” whether they look and sound like us or not. No student is like another, even if they look similar and have a similar background. Every student has invisible forces, from the past and present, working on her that influence how she sees and understands communication, the relationship between teacher and student, the relationship between students, and the teaching/learning process.

•  Teachers cannot rely on their knowledge of human development or their years of experience with students to understand any particular individual. All that knowledge and experience is useful to provide starting points and to generate possibilities for understanding how to communicate with, how to facilitate learning for, an individual. Only the individual can inform us about her/himself.

I think this is a valuable perspective for experienced teachers (of anything and anyone) to remember. After years of success it gets easy to assume we understand the “type” of person we work with. But if we apply such general knowledge to any individual, we are certain to be blind to important information from that person that may not fit with what we think we already know.

Also, if we think we understand our students we won't feel the need to ask them what they need from us, or how to communicate in ways that work for them, or what they value—we are in danger of thinking we already know and not asking.

•  Asking a student “What can I do to help?” is not sufficient. Most students will not have a response to that, especially if it is the first or near the first communication about the difficulties the student is having. It is not a door opener. Asking the student to join me in the search for what will help is what worked. Then it is my job, not the student's job, to come up with possible strategies for her. It is her job, with me, to alter and refine these strategies to fit her needs.

•  We need to remember, daily, why we wanted to teach in the first place and make sure we are still living and teaching that way.

I didn't know how to reach Tamika. Tamika didn't know how to get what she needed from her college teachers. At first, much of what we did together seemed like an accident, but we were paying close attention, and we were both willing to see what we didn't know and what we needed to change. We created a relationship in which we could be honest and explicit about our assumptions, biases, and needs. That transparency made us see each other much more clearly, and the more we saw ourselves fully, the more we learned from each other.

We are both teaching now. Tamika is teaching second grade back home in the British Virgin Islands , and Ellie is still teaching at Wheelock College . If we are both going to create environments in which our students can participate in true dialogue, in which they can wonder and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of their natures, we have to be committed to and engaged with that process ourselves. We have to stay curious. We have to be open to being led to new understandings by experiences and by our students. We have to see and claim our mistakes as we participate with our students. We will miss things. We will sometimes think and act from our biases, and we will sometimes be unwilling to share our power. We will wait too long or act too quickly or with the wrong words for some students.

Pemo-Chondron, an American Buddhist nun, discussing the relationship between spiritual teacher and student, wrote,

Historically, there is always tension between things getting too tight and then too loose. From my point of view, it doesn't matter what is happening as long as it is all out in the open and we are not feeding into the fundamental source of suffering, which is ignorance. (Tworkov, 1993, p. 21)

Of course, “keeping it all out in the open” isn't so easy. It requires the ongoing practice of paying attention to what is real for us, and for our students. Being open to awareness and truthful dialogue, and so to teaching, requires being open to seeing what we specifically do not want to see in ourselves, things we would rather deny. It means paying attention to our students with more clarity than usual, more separateness from our prejudices, assumptions, and smart ideas about them.

But all practice is about sincere effort, not the degree of success. So practice is inherently compassionate. Part of the practice of teaching is the practice of compassion for our students and for ourselves. That is the resting place from which we venture together into inquiry and investigation. Then we take the risk of reflecting on what we did and what we learned, and through dialogue develop our critical attitude and analysis. We bring our compassion to this reflection, too, and make adjustments in our teaching practice. This brings us to new awareness and new dialogue, and the practice continues.

References

Fosnot, C. T. (Ed.) (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice . New York : Teachers College Press.

Fosnot, C. T. (1989 ). Enquiring teachers, enquiring learners . New York : Teachers College Press.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness . New York : Continuum.

Freire, P. (1990). Pedagogy of the oppressed . New York : Continuum.

Lambert, L., Walker . D., Zimmerman, D., Cooper, E., Lambert, M. D., Gardner , M. E., & Szabo, M. (2002). The constructivist leader (2 nd edition). New York : Teachers College Press.

Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen mind beginner mind . New York : Weatherhill.

Tworkov, H. (1993). No right no wrong: An interview with Pema Chondron. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 3 (1), 16-24.

Ellie Friedland's primary area of study and practice is education and the arts. Her current work focuses on education as the spiritual practice of awareness and on integrating listening and speaking throughout the curriculum.

Tamika George has a B.S. in math/science with a concentration in early childhood education. She is an early childhood teacher and year head for Class One at the Althea Scatliffe Primary School in Tortola , BVI.