Without “Developing Self-Compassion First,” Students Cannot Flourish in a Writing Classroom

Duh! I mean, this is something that most, if not all, educators have been taught by their experienced 
and knowledgeable teaching professors-- but in my personal experience teaching “for real” (that is, as a fully certified professional), it is a statement that’s typically only glossed over by school administrators and districts. This is not right! Teachers are responsible for their own self-compassion, but their educational communities should guide them toward developing it.

As I learned in a course titled “Psychological Perspectives on Language and Teaching,” which I took in the summer of 2017 with Professor Holtzman at Rhode Island College, people cannot learn and work their best if their most basic needs are not met. One of the specific learning theories that we looked at in that class was Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” which is illustrated by a pyramid-shaped flow chart detailing what needs must be met in order for others to be met as well. At the top sits what he called “self- fulfillment needs,” which include “achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities.” The second most-basic level of the Maslow structure contains “safety needs,” which are defined as safety and security. The level after that is called “belongingness and love needs,” and it consists of intimate relationships and friends.

Suffice to say, according to Maslow, in order for students to thrive in school, they must feel an authentic sense of safety, love, and belongingness in the classroom. Of course, as teachers, we know that we are the ones responsible to actively foster an environment of all three elements. That concept connects to this week’s course readings because some of the authors explains that the way that teachers can develop a positive classroom culture (that’s what I am calling it in my seventh-grade English classroom this year) or “climate,” as Matthew R. Kay sometimes calls it in his Not Light, But Fire book, is by first starting with themselves. 

This point is clarified in “Grow Your Own: Developing Self-Compassion First,” which is a chapter in Angela Stockman and Ellen Feig Gray’s book titled Hacking School Culture: Designing Compassionate Classrooms. The authors state that even if administrators and districts adopt social-emotional learning policies and plans for their schools, their efficacy depends upon all teachers executing them with their respective cohorts. According to Stockman and Gray, the first thing that teachers must do to ensure that all students are comfortable and empowered enough to do their best work and learn the best is to practice self-care and self-compassion. “It’s impossible to create compassionate classrooms for our students if we aren’t cultivating compassion for ourselves,” they say (Gray and Stockman 16). Among the action items that they recommend educators complete are practicing gratitude, setting intentions, and having a playful spirit (Gray and Stockman 18-24). 

I agree with the aforementioned authors because a) their ideas make sense and b) another writer from this week’s readings, Linda Christensen, supports their theory. In the introduction to her book Teaching for Joy and Justice, she writes that, “Students will rise to the ‘challenge’ of a rigorous curriculum about important issues if that rigor reflects the real challenges in their lives” (Christensen 3). This is sort of common sense when you think about it, but to take it one step further, I think that we teachers should ask ourselves just how easily students could connect these “real challenges” to their curriculum if they were learning in a classroom where their personal lives were not prioritized (which Kay wrote about in his book) and mistakes were unacceptable. Basically, teachers and students simply cannot get to the place that Christensen describes without having self-compassionate teachers who foster a compassionate classroom culture for all learners.

The biggest questions that I have after reading and reflecting on these passages are about how we can support other teachers and ourselves to become more compassionate and take better care of ourselves. This month, the district that I work in is kicking off  a “mindfulness” professional development series, which I am signed up for, but are/can others? What else can we do to support each other working toward these goals?