Rachael Kessler's The Soul of Education

Usually when you read a book, if it "speaks" to you, you will have an epiphany . . . a point where you say "Wow!" I truly felt a deep, personal connection while reading The Soul of Education, by Rachael Kessler. Not only was it a connection to what I strive to do every day, but a connection to what I hope to do in the future, as well. My epiphany occurred while reading the subtitle of the book: "Helping students find connection, compassion, and character at school." For me, the subtitle can be broken in to three main points that I will strive to address.

First, you must focus on the words "connection, compassion, and character" because those are the most noble gifts, I feel, a child can hold. You often read books about one or the other, but not all three. The next part to focus on is the fact that we are helping the students. It doesn't say students are discovering, or teachers are teaching, but together, these gifts are being uncovered. And finally, all these will be uncovered at school. What is important about this is that as a "curriculum," these topics are just as important as algebra and biology, and deserve time and focus, as well.

One of the most surprising parts of The Soul of Education was that Rachel Kessler described exactly my plan for this year's back to school night. I'm about to have my eighth back-to-school night, and over the years, I've found them to be quite lacking. Though Kessler suggests that each teacher have an introductory evening program, every school I've attended has had a prescribed evening where parents are brought in to have an overview of the school year. And though I've accomplished the goals of the evening and accurately conveyed the curriculum, I always felt like I was on show for the parents, and that my goal was to impress them and prove to them that I'm "worthy" of teaching their child.

This year, my teaching assignment necessitated that I change my usual format. Because I'm teaching five subjects to one core group of students in middle school, when the parents cycle through their child's schedule, the parents of my students won't actually ever leave. Instead of spending ten minutes with me, they'll be spending fifty minutes with me. My goal is to use this time to engage the students in the inner workings of my classroom according to my philosophy, and not just have the parents engaged on me. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Kessler's vision was almost exactly what I have outlined to my principal.

Kessler says that when the parents come in, they can listen to your explanation of the curriculum, but that this is also an opportunity to have the parents participate in a "council" meeting on a theme relevant to them as parents (Kessler, p. 165). She points out that when we bring the parents into the classroom in this way, we can form a partnership with the parents, and that when we have a conflict, we are then better able to work together to solve the problem. John Dewey often emphasizes the role of the community in the classroom, which really helps the community buy in to the responsibility that lies on all members of that community.

Every month, I invite my parents to participate in round table discussions that are focused around a topic that's important to them and the developmental stage of their child. Our back-to-school night is going to be used to "train" the parents on the process of sitting together to discuss middle school topics. Hopefully this will help strengthen the lines of communication among the family. To be successful partners, we need to have a connection to our parents and the greater community, but not only that, the parents need a connection to their children, especially in middle school when they are asserting their independence, and to other people in their community. This is as much a time of transition for parents, and they need a support group as well.

For me, one of the hardest concepts to grasp in The Soul of Education actually was not initially presented by Kessler, but by Dewey. This is the idea of "incubation." Dewey describes the process that people go through when the "wheels go around" (Kessler, p. 96) and nothing seemingly productive is happening while the person, in our case a student, is mulling ideas in their head. Kessler describes, and is reflected by Nel Noddings, this period of silence, or for some students playfulness, as a "receptive state" where incubation is essentially given the opportunity to develop into creativity (p. 97). I really understand reflection and brainstorming, and other active forms of thinking to help further their creativity and productivity. But I suppose allowing this period of "incubation" requires risk and trust on the part of the teacher.

As a teacher, what you would see is "goofing off" or "spacing out" and it's natural for teachers to want to control every minute. We have been trained that "unstructured down time" is not acceptable. And yet here, we are told that it is not only acceptable, but essential for true productivity and creativity to occur. I'd like to think that I can watch a child incubate their thoughts without asking to write their thoughts down or to express their thoughts in some way. Personally, I find that I am active when I'm working through stagnant points in my thought process. This is a point where I need to remember Gardner's theories and remember that not only do people learn and teach using different intelligences, but they think using different intelligences as well. This addresses directly the fact that we are not "teaching" the students here, but helping them to find the important traits.

I once heard that when you add up all the hours, you spend a third of your life sleeping. If we turn that into school terms, if a child goes to school for 12 years, almost four of those years will actually be spent in the school building. And, a teacher spends often 50% of their day on school or at school. What an opportunity we have to work together! When a child comes home from school any more, they have practices, lessons, homework, dinner, and then bed. When is there time to talk about the issues they face each day? When is there time to process the changes they are going through? Just understanding this requires that we address those issues in class, and make time to listen to the children.

One passage in particular has caused me to reflect on the last couple of years of my teaching, especially in reference to a few particular girls. It could be that it spoke to me because Rachael Kessler speaks about seeing exactly what I see. Very often, at around seventh grade, the year after I have had a group of students, I notice that several students often go through a "gothic" phase where they dye their hair and start wearing black makeup. Every year I see this, when I talk to the seventh grade teachers, it's as if we are talking about completely different people; the students have gone through almost a complete personality shift from what I knew to be true. I've come to realize that this is a phase many students will go through, but never once did I stop to wonder what exactly might cause that phase. I always attributed to simply looking to find a comfortable identity. Kessler goes into so much more detail, and has truly caused me to open my eyes.

Kessler quotes a student who says,

"Now I see that there are some good things, some great and beautiful things about being a woman that I cherish. I'm ready for them now, I think. But back then, it was like I died. Like the body, the self that I was so used to, that was me, was gone - gone forever and I was someone else that I couldn't even begin to figure out. I didn't ask for that change, you know. It just happened to me." (p. 150-151)

Reading that caused me to think back to my middle school years. The beginning was terrible, and I can recall not even washing my hair very often. So much happens to you that you really can't control. Being thrown into a middle school can be very traumatic, and your family life changes as well. You start spending a lot more time away from your family because you have a new found social life. And you don't necessarily see what you're missing until you reflect back on the changes that you've gone through. I, fortunately, had a pretty intense rite of passage. When I was going through my dark time in middle school, my parents and I ended up at a family therapy "retreat." I missed the first few days of 8^th grade, but it was such an important thing to do. Though the retreat was for a completely different purpose, I was given the opportunity to acknowledge and validate all of my feelings and internal struggles, and I learned how to talk to my parents about those issues. I won't say that the rest of my growing up years was completely without turmoil - far from it, actually - but what I had all of a sudden was the power of expression. I had been given the ability to say everything I needed to say, and I truly went through a complete transformation. I began some of my happiest years of school. Now, I try to provide that opportunity for my students. Not many of them will have the "gift" of a family retreat, so I do what I can to allow them to express anything they need. As was brought up in class, this can bring up questions and issues that some teachers may not feel comfortable addressing.

Kessler has given a great suggestion for handling the issues we, the teachers, can use when we're confronted with questions that may be difficult for us to answer, or inappropriate to be answered in school. The concept of "returning the question" (Kessler, p. 65) originally presented by Aline Wolf, a Montessori specialist, allows the difficult questions to be acknowledge, which honors a student's contribution, but then places the question back in the hands of the student. This allows the students participating to be empowered, as well, by allowing them to talk about the issues and answers.

So many difficult discussions end up surfacing in class, and as teachers we can't always avoid the hard subjects. But, we must remember that we are not responsible for answering all of the questions. Just providing the time to talk among themselves validates that the issues are worth your time. To me, this is reminiscent of Malcolm Knowles. Though he really focused on adult education, the values we instill in a child are the same ones they will carry to adulthood. Adults need to be acknowledged as having pockets of expertise, and this expertise they have gathered through their experiences is a valuable resource. But younger learners need to know, also, that their experiences and expertise is a valuable resource as well. Acknowledging their value only leads to a greater self esteem, which carries over into adulthood.

There are so many important lessons in The Soul of Education that really resonated with me as a teacher and as a person. I am reminded to keep a balance of curriculum and "soulful" studies in the classroom. We are helping to create future adults that need to be a member of society, and what we see working beside us in the future will be a direct result of what we do in the classroom. We need to honor as many needs as possible of our students and their parents. Working together, we can create a community who is reflective and empowered to be successful in their lives and in our classroom.

Source

Kessler, R. (2000) The soul of education: Helping students find connection, compassion, and character at school.