Love's Place in the Classroom

It’s strange that the topic of love isn’t discussed much when determining what makes a classroom successful. People tend to discuss academic philosophies, classroom management, curriculum, maybe even the physical environment, but they don’t talk about love.

I say love is central, and it trumps all other aspects we could possibly consider.

When I say I love my students, I mean that I am seeing them for who they truly are, appreciating and accepting them right there in that space. My love for them isn’t dependent on their cooperation or compliance. It’s not affected by their academic performance. Some take longer to get to know than others, and so it follows that some take longer to love than others, but love comes … always.

It comes from my curiosity about how they operate in the world, what they think about life. It comes from watching their valiant efforts, day in and day out, to overcome limits and stretch their abilities. It comes from honoring the risks they take to be honest and forthcoming with one another. It comes from noticing them testing the community waters for safety, and then, finding it consistently secure, extending themselves to others in new and wonderful ways.

And as I love them, they have a model for how to love and accept others. One day, when a boy in our class announced in dismay that he’d just accidentally wet his pants, the class simply heaved a collective, sympathetic sigh. “Ohhh.” Not a single person laughed. A soft conversation began about how these things happen sometimes to probably everyone. He left the room to change, and it was never brought up again.

When the most introverted girl in our class got up in front of the group to excitedly share about her discovery working with the electricity set, her classmates honored her with rapt attention and compliments for speaking in front of the group. They recognized this important moment for her. They accepted her for who she was and were able to appreciate the great risk she was taking in that moment.

Without this love, there is no safe place to take these risks. Without taking risks, we stagnate. Even worse, we develop unhealthy coping mechanisms to protect ourselves from the pain we feel at not being able to express ourselves fully; at not being seen fully. These coping mechanisms look suspiciously like the “behavior problems” that teachers and schools spend so much effort to punish, diagnose, medicate, and remediate.

Our schools are filled with children; children separated from their families for a large chunk of the day. How can we not acknowledge the vital importance of love in their school lives? Do we really think that for those six hours of the day, love can be suspended and they won’t be affected by it?

I’m not saying all we need is love… but it truly does need to be the all-encompassing field within which we do this very important, very sacred work of caring for our world’s children.