As I sit to prepare for the school board meeting on Monday — and, boy, do I prepare — I review the agenda, previous minutes, watch previous meetings, scour social platforms to uncover the latest drama du jour of local political candidates attacking our beloved teachers. I attempt to perfectly curate a 3-minute speech that will seek to change the hearts and minds of those so desperately seeking to tear down the people who spend more time with my children during the weekday than I do.
Reflecting back on more than a year of raucous, marathon board meetings I have noticed a common theme with some residents that is repeated ad nauseum during these often vitriolic meetings: “just focus on the 3 Rs.” Which, in this context, refers to the basic skills taught in schools: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Just focus on the basics and everything will be fine.
Or will it?
In a perfect world we might be able to do that, but I think we all know the world we live in is less than perfect. Some kids come to school hungry and are unable to concentrate because their bellies are empty; our schools feed them. Some kids can’t concentrate because their parents are divorcing, or they have experienced loss, violence, or homelessness. Some kids in the throes of stress or trauma cannot sit in a chair or they disrupt learning environments because they don’t have the tools to self-soothe or make sense of the confusing feelings they’re having.
But, sure, let’s scream at schools to only focus on the 3 Rs.
Folks, I’m sure they’d love to. I’m sure teachers wish it was that easy. The reality is that in order to teach those things, all the moons need to be aligned. What I mean by that is: sad, lonely, angry, hungry, scared, bullied, kids don’t learn optimally. Who addresses those needs in children? Who creates an environment for optimal learning for students? Who provides the children with the tools to be their best selves in school? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it is not the people fighting social/emotional learning in the classroom.
I could go on and on about how social/emotional learning has benefited my children, specifically choice theory, and that whether its called SEL, strengths-based learning, or whatever, every teacher knows that learning is a “whole child” activity. Successful learning outcomes are directly related to the nurture and support of all areas of child development. This isn’t new.
Matter of fact, author Glennon Doyle wrote that she contacted her son’s teacher, Kathy Pitt, because she could not understand his math homework. She discovered Pitt was teaching something she felt was even more important than academics: Kindness.
Doyle posted on her blog momastery.com of the experience and I share it here:
A few weeks ago, I went into Chase’s class for tutoring.
I’d emailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math — but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She emailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.”
And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom staring at rows of shapes that Chase’s teacher kept referring to as “numbers.”
I stood a little shakily at the chalkboard while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, perched on her desk, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but l could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common.
Afterwards, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are the least important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community – and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are Kind and Brave above all.
And then she told me this:
Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chase’s teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.”
Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down — right away — who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children – I think that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold — the gold being those little ones who need a little help — who need adults to step in and TEACH them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts with others. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot — and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said — the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea — I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
Good Lord.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that ALL VIOLENCE BEGINS WITH DISCONNECTION. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy KNOWING that children who aren’t being noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and with the world within her reach. What Chase’s teacher is doing when she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year old hands – is SAVING LIVES. I am convinced of it.
She is saving lives.
And what this mathematician has learned while using this system is something she really already knew: that everything – even love, even belonging – has a pattern to it. And she finds those patterns through those lists – she breaks the codes of disconnection. And then she gets lonely kids the help they need. It’s math to her. It’s MATH.
All is love — even math. Amazing.
Chase’s teacher retires this year – after decades of saving lives. What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day- and altering the trajectory of our world.
TEACH ON, WARRIORS. You are the first responders, the front line, the disconnection detectives, and the best and ONLY hope we’ve got for a better world. What you do in those classrooms when no one is watching — it’s our best hope.
Teachers- you’ve got a million parents behind you whispering together: “We don’t care about the damn standardized tests. We only care that you teach our children to be Brave and Kind. And we thank you. We thank you for saving lives.”
Love — All of Us
You see, it’s all just math and I’m so very thankful for it.
