Student-Centered Teaching as Radical Compassion & Collaboration
We had been home for a week when she started wiping her toothbrush compulsively and would not let me get close to her because she didn’t want me to “breathe on her.”
Our beautiful, independent, extraverted 4 yo had, within a week, turned into an indecisive child paralyzed by anxiety, struggling to get through each day.
We called the clinic, connected with a child and family therapist through Counselling Connect, started an antibiotic for strep and I tried not to cry after I was unable to lie beside her because it ruffled the covers & they didn’t “feel right” against her body.
OCD is a cruel disorder that is triggered in those with a disposition by situations outside of their control. Both incomprehensible to little ones and illogical to parents, it knocks the freaking wind right out of you. As a parent, you feel completely and utterly at a loss. Parenting instincts are devoid — it goes against all that feels natural, everything that has worked in the past. And watching your child in complete anguish, and not being able to touch them, stabs you in the heart and leaves you with a throbbing, unrelenting pain.
Order vs disorder. Structure vs. no structure. Part of this condition was propelled by a week at home and no “markers” for time, day, and very little consistency and routine.
The exacerbation of chaos for little ones, and teens alike, is compounded by the underdevelopment of the frontal cortex. Although we tried to reason with our 4 yo, “There is nothing to be afraid of, you are OK,” there was no escaping sensory overload, and resulting tics and cyclical anxiety.
As I reflect on this school year, on students and teachers , and on the future (destreaming, for example), I am reminded of the importance of listening actively to the ones we are teaching. And to those who are teaching. And responding to their needs. Sometimes they are calling for less structure, other times they are calling for more.
The concept of radical student-centered teaching has emerged as a hot topic among educators, and a few weeks ago, during a discussion, a question emerged about allowing students to just do what they know, what is comfortable.
I think about this in relation to our 4yo who feels as though she has no control and is writhing with anxiety. And about so many students I have worked with this year (especially, but not limited to ELD and ESL students for whom everything is new, and who are asking for structure, although they don’t always have the words to express this).
And I wonder if radical student-centered teaching might be interpreted as radical compassion — listening to what a student needs, not what we want them to need. And creating safe spaces for them to explore and learn from one another, instead of from us. And building a community where students (and teachers) feel like they can make mistakes, and that it is OK, because mistakes lead to growth. We are all in different points in our learning.
If we are going to move forward, we need to do so together. Otherwise, we contribute to fueling further opposition and widening achievement gaps (debts). I think here about increasing political polarization in the US & Canada prompted by divisive rhetoric rather than an active listening & see some parallels here to the way pedagogy can be taken out of context and interpreted in a simplified decontextualized form; how the Black and white world of social media can distort and divide.
During our second meeting with the psychologist, tension between us had increased. Two parents, two approaches, and not a lot of listening to each other.
“We’re struggling,” I managed to get out, holding back tears, “I…just really just want to get on the same page…”
Our approaches are different. My husband believes in the importance of boundaries and structure when supporting our daughter , otherwise her world will be ever-more-limited in terms of what she wears, eats, does— and, while I also do, my mothering bleeding heart was succumbing to the immediacy and urgency of the anguish and giving in to sensory preferences and extreme compulsions.
“Boundaries are important to maintain, and so is empathy. Giving her the tools to cope with discomfort and move beyond it, and knowing you are working together to help her to do this is key.”
The psychologist asked us, one-by-one, to identify what we valued as parents. As we listened to each other, although we expressed our values slightly differently, we found we want the same thing:
To create a safe and caring environment for our children. For them to feel empowered and loved, and unparalyzed by anxiety. To be able to understand and empathize with the feelings and experiences of others. To be collaborative & persist through challenges. To take care of each other and build community. And to be able to relax into discomfort.
She introduced us to a collaborative planning tool to help us determine how to best do this. The planning tool is meant to be done together as a family — involving the kids empowers them as they are be part of the process.
“Let me share my screen & show you what it looks like.”
We read through the planning tool:
Begin with empathy — I noticed you are feeling…
If you are feeling in the red zone, tell others your code word and decide what you will do in that situation (leave, take deep breaths, play eye-spy)…
The planning tool combines our approaches (my husband’s to set boundaries for behaviour, and mine, to approach with empathy first).
The problem was not our vision of parenting, afterall, but that we were approaching parenting as individuals instead of collaborators.
Collaborative work is key to parenting and teaching. And so is radical compassion for each other and the students we serve. Radical compassion involves actively listening to each other and our students, assessing readiness and responding, engaging each other in guiding the process of when to push, when to pull, and when to let each other sit back and do what is comfortable in moments of uncertainty.
