Teacher-bots

"It doesn't serve anybody to pretend that we're teacher-bots with no emotions, which I think sometimes teachers feel like they have to be." So says Alex Shevrin, a teacher and community facilitator for Edutopia who used to work at a therapeutic high school.

Here's something else Alex Shevrin said: "If I had one wish for every school in the country, it would be that they made time for teachers to really sit down and talk about how they're feeling in the work."

Why? Why should teachers sit down and talk about how they're feeling in the work?

Oh, baby! Let me count the reasons:

1. Shevrin's quotes appear in an Edutopia article about vicarious traumatization, or secondary traumatization, or compassion fatigue, or "the cost of caring." The point of the article is that teachers who encounter traumatized students (and statistics cited in the article suggest that the chances of such an encounter are quite high, as "more than half of all U.S. children have experienced some kind of trauma") are in danger of experiencing trauma themselves. What is a tried and true way to avoid secondary traumatization? "Talking it out" (as the article suggests). Talking to a peer, a therapist, a spouse, a peer group. So one reason educators should sit down and talk about how they're feeling in the work is to prevent their own traumatization.

2. Talking out feelings helps metabolize them. Not talking out feelings helps compound them. It's better to digest feelings (and figuratively poop them out) than it is to allow them to build up into a thick constipated knot that erupts when you least expect it. And I think we've had enough of that useful metaphor.

3. Just talking out feelings can be helpful. But talking about feelings in a particular way can be miraculous. That is, when teachers view their emotions as data, not just as inconvenient obstacles, they can learn a WHOLE HELLUVA LOT about their students and their classroom. They can learn

   1. how they themselves are contributing to bad behavior

   2. how their students might actually be feeling and why

   3. what kind of treatment their students expect from adults and others

   4. what they can do to correct misbehavior and attune classroom relationships

4. Talking about feelings with a small group of peers (such as a Teacher Support Group) not only helps metabolize emotions and foster miraculous behavioral changes in the classroom but forges strong, reliable bonds among colleagues. As Micere Keels, an expert who is quoted in the Edutopia article on vicarious traumatization puts it, "Reducing professional isolation is critical. It allows educators to see that others are struggling with the same issues, prevents the feeling that one's struggles are due to incompetence, and makes one aware of alternative strategies for working with students exhibiting challenging behavior." It also fosters deep connections that teachers can draw on whenever they need them -- and most teachers need them.

5. Talking about feelings makes people feel better. Plain and simple. Overcoming our fear of emotions and just letting them live is a very good way to let them go.

I share Alex Shevrin's wish. I really really wish teachers would "really sit down and talk about how they're feeling in the work." I wish it because it would make teachers feel better; it would help them stay in the field; it would help them feel safe and healthy; and it would help their students learn.

Down with teacher-bots.