Just Faces

When I was student teaching, life was interesting. I remember getting asked out on a date by one of my students in class. As in I asked, “Do you have any more questions about the material?” And the student replied, “Yes, would you go out with my Saturday night?” I remember an incident where I accidentally caught my food on fire in the teachers’ lounge (quite embarrassing for someone trying to ‘lay low’). But what I remember most was a conversation that I overheard between my mentor teacher and one of her colleagues. They were discussing how to divide the students up between them. He said, “It doesn’t matter. They are just faces to me.”

I was appalled. Ever since then I’ve been working against that his mantra. May I never reach the point where students are just faces.

I know that at some high schools we can teach one hundred students in a day. Or sometimes in college we can have one hundred in a classroom. But once all we see are faces than we have lost sight of our vision.

Each student walks into our classroom with a history, with a personality, and with unique needs and talents.

Names are important. That’s where we start. But showing up early to class so we can talk to our students, attending their games, going to their concerts, meeting their family that’s the next step. We start to take a history; we start to see them in the context of their lives. We do what one educator recommended: the proper study of teachers is their students.

Sometimes I’ve taken notes. There was a student who told me that she had never had a birthday party. I wrote that down. Someday I might get a chance to orchestrate a birthday party for her.

It’s when we start to know our students and invest in their lives that teaching becomes worthwhile. It’s our professional secret. Investment in other people reaps personal satisfaction.

I pity the teacher now who only saw faces. He’s missed out on what makes teaching truly worthwhile. Last year a student said, “Oh you must like teaching because you know you’ll make a difference in someone’s life.” My first thought after she said that was—“No, I like teaching because I like my students.”