Where is the Love?

I watched a presentation by a fellow classmate in my Anthropology of Education course last night that really got me thinking about education and the role love plays in learning. In her talk-back she asked some probing questions about our relationship with school, and whether we felt love is necessary for “a productive and effective education.” As an educator, I feel it is a necessary component, but considering the world we live in, can this notion of love as it relates to education, possibly be derailing? Is it unfair to instill in youth a love for education, when the world we live in cares more about production, than the process of making?

Where is the love?

Is love even relevant? When answering her question many students felt that their experiences with learning, no matter the material, or how much interest they had in the subject, was marred by this lack of love, and this need to do well. Doing well, passing, when it comes to schooling, supersedes love. Doing well, was about getting to the next step, the job, the career. And, in deciding a career, or accepting a job, love was the last thing on their minds. Finances and stability was. Of course it makes sense, but is it fair? Why would love exist and fulfill if it isn’t even necessary?

Where is the love?

Time is also a factor. Who has time for love, when there is no time — there’s so much work to be done. So many people to compete against. There really isn’t any time to savor learning. Like a fine wine, to savor, allows for introspection, compassion, reflection — yet there’s no time for love?

A whole-bodied experience is missing in education. Instead, we work with our heads, with keeping up with trends, with technology, with rubrics, but not with love. Would you agree? Maybe sometimes giggles slip out, happiness fills the room because of an exceptional teacher or an interesting approach to learning, but love still isn’t seen as the main ingredient in education. Ingenuity is. Innovation is. Achievement is. But, I can’t help but believe that all of these things inspire or are inspired by some type of love.

Schooling is a tradition that indoctrinates worker bees, reifies hegemonic ideals, constructs (hyper)masculinities in students, legitimizes citizenship, but not love.

Remember when recess was a given? Remember gleefully running about the playground in the middle of the day? Remember making new friends that way? Discovering how much you loved kickball or laying in the grass is an important part of human development — it also happens to inspire a love of school. Yet, recess and joy is being removed from schools like a plague replaced with more instruction. More corporeal, more vacant of humanity.

Where is the love?

Remember when Kindergarten was a time for exploration, socialization, playing make-believe and dress up? Could this shift in rigidity be the thing that’s been killing the love? My kid’s in third grade and writes better than I did when I was 7th grade, but she doesn’t know what it means to love school. She knows what it means to want to be the best at school. And, I guess that’s cool. I guess. But, is it fair?

The time to just be a kid, the time to hug a tree, or a classmate has been systematically removed from the curriculum. We live in an era where achievement overrides all including love.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a student dashed by the monotony of politics in the curriculum. The rush to move kids through the system in preparation for upward mobility that serves more stress than joy, more inequity than justice is saddening. It isn’t like more achievement has eradicated inequality. Love hasn’t either, but I don’t believe it’s been given the space it deserves. Achievement in education encourages feelings of entitlement and expectation while love in education encourages compassion and reflection.

Love is a laudable notion in this world where instruction stops for state-wide testing. How can love matter if learning the world doesn’t. Isn’t the world and love one and the same. Isn’t love a source of metamorphosis, growth?

Where is the love?