In which an American Buddhist Monk Taught Me Something about Teaching...

When I tell people I'm a teacher, people usually make the following assumptions about me

1. I'm broke and stressed (which is not always true) 
2. I have an unbelievable and infinite capacity for patience and altruism (definitely  not true!) 

Strangers will say something along the lines of ......"Oh wow you're a teacher? Good for you. I could never do what you guys do all day. How do you even do it? Those kids must be tough! "

While I know assumptions like that come from a good place, I wish more people knew what the act of teaching really is. 

What I'm learning is...teaching doesn't require infinite patience. Teaching doesn't require an amazing ability to self-sacrifice for the good of society and our children. Teachers aren't saints.  In fact, nothing about a person's innate personality automatically makes them a good teacher.  Teaching is the act of practicing compassion. I'm learning now how to engage in that practice. 

In reading about compassion, I found the following definition especially helpful and relevant. 

"When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently towards what scares us...In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience- our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity"

Pema Chödrön The Places That Scare You

What does this random quote from an American buddhist monk tell me? A lot of things

1.  Generating compassion requires practice

• Compassion is a skill that can be learned and taught. As I learn more about myself, I'm finding more ways to be compassionate towards my students. The more I practice communicating compassionately with my students (especially when I'm delivering or explaining a consequence) the easier and more effective our conversations become. For example, instead of telling students, "According to the syllabus, missing work is graded as a zero", I can practice a more compassionate response that still enforces the consequence, "I can hear how much you care about your grade, and it's frustrating to get a zero". I've found that signaling to students compassion for how they're feeling sets the stage for a more productive conversation and more buy-in from the student.  

​2. Generating compassion is scary 

• Lately I've been thinking about safety at school. When I was a teenager, high school was not safe for me. I was not allowed to take risks, ask questions, challenge the status quo, or really explore things that mattered to me. Why? Because I was too afraid of what my peers would think about me. As a teacher, I see the same dynamics play out among my students. Learning is a vulnerable process, and students are terrified of that vulnerability.  Generating compassion for that kid who acts out, cries, or appears needy/overly emotional requires me to admit some of the things that make me feel most insecure and afraid. 

3. Compassion involves a relationship between equals

• This one is hard because as teachers, we're tempted to think that we not only have the authority to be right, but we're expected to be right. And if we don't know the answer, it's easy to quickly feel ashamed. Being put in a position of power and authority feels uncomfortable for me because....I definitely don't know what I'm doing. Nope, not even close. But....what would happen if I demonstrated compassion towards students from a position of equality? I'm not a high and mighty adult of authority but rather....somebody who is willing to be equally vulnerable with the student, somebody who is learning alongside the student, somebody who is equally flawed, somebody who is willing to say "Yeah, I'm also having a terrible day today. It makes sense that we can't concentrate when we're feeling so exhausted. Let's have class outside, maybe that will help"

4. Generating compassion for others requires that you know your own darkness well

• The more I learn about myself, the easier it becomes for me to spot those same insecurities, fears, and longings in my students.  If you can't identify or describe what hopelessness, insecurity, shame, and exhaustion looks like in yourself (and believe me...we ALL experience these emotions whether we want to admit it or not) then you won't see it in your students. I'm starting to see my students in more complex and compassionate ways. Compassion allows me to create safe spaces for students to take risks, mess up, and feel brave enough to come back the next day and try again.

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Of course, I'm not any self-proclaimed expert in any of this. But...I do think that the more we practice writing about, talking about, and sharing compassion, the closer we get to ensuring that school feels safe for all students.