By Nicole Kaznowski
Buffalo, NY – She actually said it out loud. She said: "I don't have to care about them. They should just want to learn!" I think my eyes got a little wider and I closed my mouth. It was one of those serene argument moments, when you've made someone say something horrible a little uninvited nugget of truth. I felt like Jack McCoy when he's grilling the defendant, who just a minute ago looked smug and sure of himself, but now he's just spit everything out in a rage. "Yeah, I did it and I loved every minute of it!" McCoy just stands there with that look on his face a mix of surprise and satisfaction.
I didn't choose to become a teacher because I really like being self-righteous, though what I've just said might hint otherwise. Sure, I'm idealistic and I get myself into a lot of idealistic arguments that's just who I am. But there's at least one thing I will get self-righteous about and that is that a teacher does have to care. Yeah, it's a clich , but I think sometimes people just don't get it.
There may have been a time when students just did their work because they knew it was the right thing to do. And there are kids out there who do just that. And maybe there never really was a time when every kid or even most kids did. You can get mad that "today's" kids feel entitled and demand that a teacher earn their respect, but what does getting mad actually do? I like to look at it from the practical side: if my job is to help students learn, and if caring about them and trying to earn their respect helps them learn, then caring is my job.
But I think it goes deeper than that. I want my classroom to be a place where kids feel like they have something to say. And if I want them to feel that way, I have to want to listen. I have to choose to see them as people. People are lazy and they're grumpy and they have attitudes, but they also have amazing stories to tell. And as an English teacher, I live for stories. I can certainly make space among the books on my shelf for the lives of my students. I think they need that space, because they might not be able to find it anywhere else.
Don't worry, I won't forget about the SAT and the AP and the ELA. I won't forget about spelling or about the difference between good and well. There's plenty of room on my shelf for all of that, too. I know my responsibilities and maybe a little part of me did nod along when she said that kids should just want to learn, but the rest of me said: okay and what if they don't? What are we going to do about it?
Listener-Commentator Nicole Kaznowski is a graduate student at the University at Buffalo and a student teacher at Cheektowaga Central High School.
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