I would like to
advocate for teachers as professionals, that is, teachers who stay. Teachers who stay establish and build
relationships with colleagues and support staff. They readily lend supplies,
become the source for institutional memory, serve as trusted advisors and can
point colleagues, parents and students to which resources best explain the difference between factors and
multiples. Teachers who stay earn the confidence of students, their
families and the larger community. They are invited to family picnics,
introduced to grandparents and recommended to cousins. Teachers who stay can be
counted on. Their former students come back for advice, help with homework or
to introduce a new baby. Teachers who stay are enriched by and
contextualize experience and knowledge over the course of time. They know when and how to voice concerns and objections. Teachers who stay
care. They are not cultural tourists in the community where they work but
active members. They contribute to food banks, participate in voter
registration drives and march against unfair police practices. Teachers who stay
function as beacons of continuity and consistency in communities where familial disruption and
economic instability are the rule not the exception.
But
teacher-student –family -community interactions are not the only examples of
the benefits of relationship building. Many daily interactions are enhanced by
the existence of ongoing and long-term relationships. For instance, I've
visited my local beach so frequently and for so many years that when I leave my
beach pass at home, I am still admitted - because they know me. Then there is
the owner of my favorite Mexican restaurant who remembers that I like a salted
margarita and a few weeks ago lent me travel books because he knew I was going
away. And there’s the print shop that doesn't charge me tax when I develop
photographs because the staff knows I'm a teacher and the pictures are for my
classroom. Conversely, it has been my experience that the delivery of excellent medical care and services has been reduced because, like the teaching profession, medicine has
devolved into a series of discrete interactions designed only to achieve a set
of metrics while failing to recognize the importance of the arc of
relationship.
The other day I
got a letter in the mail from my health insurance company informing me that I
had to select a new primary care physician because my now former physician no longer
participated in their plan. It is the third such letter I have received in ten
years. This "doctor churn" was not the norm when I was a child. In
fact, my entire family went to the same doctor for more than twenty-five years.
He understood our health concerns in multiple contexts: individual, family,
community, short-term needs and long-term goals. I remember my mother calling
our doctor at night. I remember my doctor coming to my bedside at home. I
remember my doctor meeting me in the emergency room when I needed stitches. At my new doctor's office, I spent time filling out forms which asked if I'd ever
had surgery or was allergic to any medications. There is no way that that
questionnaire or the five-minute consultation that followed could substitute
for a quarter of a century of relationship building. There is no way I would feel
comfortable calling my new doctor for medical advice in the middle of the night
- at least not yet. We just don't have that type of relationship.
