Students and Teachers

Robert Marzano has an article on this idea of teachers and students. Teacher/student relationships are an important ingredient in any successful education program. Marzano believes that there is a direct correlation between strong relationships between teachers and students and effective instructional strategies. But, his view on how deep these relationships go is open to debate.

Marzano writes, "Positive relationships between teachers and students are among the most commonly cited variables associated with effective instruction. If the relationship is strong, instructional strategies seem to be more effective. Conversely, a weak or negative relationship will mute or even negate the benefits of even the most effective instructional strategies."

What constitutes a good relationship? Marzano writes, "Perhaps the most powerful message from the research is that relationships are a matter of student perception. They have little to do with how a teacher actually feels about students; it's what teachers do that dictates how students perceive those relationships. This fact can be quite liberating. Teachers will certainly have an affinity for the majority of students in their classrooms, but from time to time they may react less positively to a given student. However, this won't really affect how the student perceives his or her relationship with the teacher. The major factor is how the teacher interacts with the student."

I am not sure I totally agree with his assessment. Teachers should care about students in more ways than just as students. Of course, if you teach over 100 students a day there is no way to develop any other kind of relationship. Marzano goes on to cover several actions that teachers can use to convey an attitude that is caring and relational, but shouldn't these actions be authentic? Shouldn't the relationship go deeper than perception? The article in its entirety can be read by clicking HERE. Read it and see what your thoughts are. Blessings!

Funny

Another funny sign that may be closer to reality than anyone wants to admit.

Trust: Missing in Action

People just do not trust people the way they used to trust people anymore. Can you blame them? Has the idea of trust changed, or have we become more untrustworthy?

It is said that trust is both an emotional and logical act. Emotionally, it is where you expose your vulnerabilities to others, believing they will not take advantage of your openness. Logically, it is where you have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable manner. In practice, trust is both emotion and logic.

Ideal trust is, in my opinion, a perfect balance of emotion and logic. Each balances the other in ways that do not allow one to dominate the other. This balance is very much managed by environment, culture and people. These three factors weigh heavily on a person's idea of trust. Young children from broken homes have trust issues because nothing in their lives - environment, culture or people - were trustworthy so the natural outcome is that these children grow to never trust anyone. The funny thing about trust is that it tends to lead to true happiness.

I do not think one can be truly happy in life if one never trusts anyone. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines trust in the following manner,

"Trust is an attitude that we have towards people whom we hope will be trustworthy, where trustworthiness is a property, not an attitude. Trust and trustworthiness are therefore distinct although, ideally, those whom we trust will be trustworthy, and those who are trustworthy will be trusted. For trust to be warranted (i.e. plausible) in a relationship, the parties to that relationship must have attitudes toward one another that permit trust. Moreover, for trust to be warranted (i.e. well-grounded), both parties must be trustworthy."

"One important criterion for trust is that the trustor can accept some level of risk or vulnerability (Becker 1996). Minimally, what this person risks, or is vulnerable to, is the failure by the trustee to do what s/he depends on that person to do. The truster might try to reduce this risk by monitoring or imposing certain constraints on the behavior of the trustee; yet after a certain threshold perhaps, the more monitoring and constraining s/he does, the less s/he trusts that person. Trust is relevant “before one can monitor the actions of … others” (Dasgupta 1988, 51) or when out of respect for others one refuses to monitor their actions. Hence, a refusal to be vulnerable tends to undermine trust or prevents it from occurring at all."

Trust requires risk, and in today's world, risk is something we have tried to eradicate in the same manner as polio. People want guarantees not risk. We want to avoid risk because risk is not fun and includes a healthy chance that failure is next. As we try to eliminate risk from our lives, we have, at the same time, begun to erase trust as well. No one realizes this because we truly believe risk is a bad thing. After all, shouldn't all people be guaranteed a home, car and a nice life? Is this not the American life? I am not sure it is.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy references the nature of trust in the following manner,

"When we trust people, we are optimistic not only that they are competent to do what we trust them to do, but also that they are committed to doing it."

I am not sure we are committed to others in the same way we are now committed to our own happiness and well being. Commitment is a part of trust and missing in today's world. Commitment can really not be defined as commitment if the action of committing is aimed at self. If there is not commitment to an other or others then trust is not and never will be developed in full. And the ironic part of all this is that we are eliminating risk in order to move closer and closer to true happiness. What we do not realize is this: our removal of risk has not moved us closer to happiness but farther away.

Trust is missing and slowing disappearing. We are skeptical of most people because of our lack of commitment to our fellow man and that lack of commitment to our fellow man is eroding away the whole idea of trust. One day we will recall, with fondness, what it was like to trust someone and to be trusted by someone. Sadly, that day is closer than you might think. Blessings!

Perspectives

Perspectives are interesting because everyone has one, and everyone usually has a slightly different one. All perspectives are important and valid. We run into trouble when someone asserts their perspective as reality. While it may be true and real in most instances, rarely is it reality.

The problem, as I see it, is this: how do we determine in our daily lives which perspective to live out? How do we determine if ours is right or wrong? These are hard questions with even harder answers.

If we try and define the word we will find a variety of definitions all contributing to our current connotation. For instance, it is defined as "the state of one's ideas," or "the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship," or "the mental view or prospect." Have I added clarity to this picture with these definitions? Maybe some, but not enough to provide answers to the above questions.

Perspective is really how one takes in the world, interprets it and then, how those interpretations dictate a life lived. Still, we are no closer to determine right perspectives from wrong ones, but I believe that is the wrong question. Sure, there are right ones and wrong ones. Serving your fellow man is morally right while taking your fellow man's life is morally wrong, but that gets us no closer to determining those perspectives worthy of following or those that are "right."

These are the wrong questions. We all have a perspective, but the key to this whole thought is not which one is right, but instead, which ones will be barriers to our communication with each other. I believe our lives should be spent in dialogue about what is right and what is wrong. When one perspective is presented as reality and promoted as reality it limits the dialogue that is vital to life itself.

We are social beings and our calling should be spent honing our ability to communicate with each other not building barriers to eliminate communication. Every barrier that prevents us from sharpening that ability should be addressed because communication is how we live our lives. Examinations of racism, oppression and slavery see these very traits. One perspective is presented as reality, barriers are put up to prevent discussion and all energy and force is used to ensure that the chosen perspective is protected as the right perspective.

I learned this lesson the hard way recently. I am one of those who believe my perspective is right more than it is wrong. You can see right there by that statement that I am already headed down the wrong path. Well, right or wrong, it does not matter when it becomes a barrier to dialogue. Dialogue is the key to life. It is this process of communication that must be protected always. How does one do this? I would suggest taking this question around to others and beginning... a dialogue! Blessings!

Michel Foucault and Power

As we watch the events of the last week unfold in the middle east, I do not think there is anyone who thinks there will not be some shift of power in the region. Is this shift of power good or bad? I guess it depends... on who you are.

Power is a very unique and different concept. Michel Foucault has some interesting thoughts on power. He writes, "What, therefore, would be proper to a relationship of power is that it be a mode of action upon actions. That is to say, power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted "above" society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in a society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible-- and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of power relations in a given society, their historical formation, the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish others."

This is the crux of power and why people are willing to risk their lives for it. When we live in such a way that action upon action is on-going and equal then power is in balance and peace reins. However, when one action rules over all other actions, well, then all the other actions await their chance to get back on top of the dominant action. I think this is what we see currently spilling out in the middle east. All these actions have been dominated for so long by one dominant action that there will be no way to control and calm these actions until the one that has been dominant for so long ceases to dominate.

As we watch change take place, we can do so understanding a little more about power. Foucault writes, "In effect, between a relationship of power and a strategy of struggle there is a reciprocal appeal, a perpetual linking and a perpetual reversal. At every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaries. Equally, the relationship between adversaries in society may, at every moment, give place to the putting into operation of mechanisms of power. The consequence of this instability is the ability to decipher the same events and the same transformations either from inside the history of struggle or from the standpoint of the power relationships. The interpretations which result will not consist of the same elements of meaning or the same links or the same types of intelligibility, although they refer to the same historical fabric, and each of the two analyses must have reference to the other. In fact, it is precisely the disparities between the two readings which make visible those fundamental phenomena of "domination" which are present in a large number of human societies."

This American idea of freedom and equality, while constantly criticized, has yet to find its equal. It is a combination that can keep power in check, if allowed. If power is not held in check, the consequences are deep and tragic just ask those in Egypt and Jordan. Blessings!