LITMIR.BIZ

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pursue learning the way that I have. My stepmom, Anita Theisen, has also helped support my growth as a person and offered a great deal of moral support as I navigated the worlds of motherhood and professional employment. I appreciate my brothers, Nick Theisen and Alexander Theisen, for their enthusiasm and love. I am also lucky to have my parents-in-law, Eva and Chuck, who have provided moral support, generous childcare when they visit, and understanding. I also want to thank my East Coast family—Pat Bicchieri, Erica and John Boudreau, Kelly Brooks, Judy and Jack Davidson, Jim Davidson, Lisa Davidson, Jill Mirman, Sheila Ouellette, Brian and Courtney Ouellette, and Diane Roche—for being there for me while I conducted this study, for nurturing my heart with food and song, for helping me stay connected to my mom, and for reminding me that I am never alone. And to my extended family in Phoenix—Lisa and Karl Knickmeyer, and Cathy Theisen and Denise DiLallo—for helping sustain me with good company and food.

      Thank you to my longtime love, Nils Homer. Over the course of nearly 17 years of partnership, Nils has encouraged, supported, and endured this journey alongside me. In college, when I was a teacher, and throughout this academic journey, he has always seen me for the best version of myself, pushing me to do and be more. He has also been a loving father to our two girls, enabling me time and space to get this done while parenting very young kids. Above all, I could not have done this without him. My daughters are my most profound inspiration. I want them to be proud of their mama. And they also inspire me to imagine a better world with better relationships in and out of the classroom. And before my girls came along, my students in Los Angeles set the stage for this work by showing me the power of teacher–student relationships; they continue to inspire me.

      During the 5-year journey of researching and writing this book, all the people named above have encountered their own challenges and transitions, as is part of the human condition. My knowledge of this makes their support all the more meaningful, as they made time to ensure I did not feel alone in my own challenges. No one can do something like this alone; it truly takes a village. I feel so lucky for “the village” that has led me to this point and now buoys me forward. As I have researched and experienced, human connection truly is a powerful force for good.

      Introduction

      I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. —Maya Angelou

      When people talk about their favorite teacher, it is often the teacher who took a special interest in their work, identified their potential in a particular area, helped counsel them through a personal issue, made a piece of literature relevant to their lives, or even attended their quinceañera, bar mitzvah, choral performance, sports game, or other activity. These are the teachers who formed relationships with students, and sometimes influenced the trajectory of their lives. Research also supports the power of meaningful teacher–student relationships to advance students’ social and emotional learning and academic outcomes.^[1]

      But it cannot be assumed that forming meaningful connections with students is innate, especially when most teachers come from very different embodied perspectives (in terms of race, ethnicity, class, socioeconomic status, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.) than their students. In fact, connecting across lines of race might be particularly precarious for teachers.^[2] Although race is a social construct, and a single racial category can incorporate several different cultures and ethnicities, skin color is one of the most apparent signifiers of difference and “racial considerations shade almost everything in America.”^[3] For example, research suggests that white teachers often carry “deficit” perspectives of students of color into their practice, impeding the development of meaningful relationships with them.^[4] Because the vast majority of teachers—and those in teacher education pipelines—in the United States are white women, but most students today are not, it is imperative that teacher education programs equip beginning teachers with the relational tools to overcome this “mismatch.”^[5] Unfortunately, there is not enough empirical work on teacher–student relationships, particularly in the field of teacher education.^[6]

      There are a few prominent conceptual works of scholarship that focus on teacher–student relationships as a crucial aspect of good teaching across racial and cultural differences.^[7] Moreover, some qualitative scholars have explored what meaningful social justice teaching or culturally relevant pedagogy looks like and found that forming fluid, caring, and humanizing relationships with students of color is an integral part of this.^[8] There are also a number of empirical studies, particularly in the field of educational psychology, that attempt to measure and address the impact of teacher–student relationships on student outcomes; nearly all of these studies find a significant link between meaningful relationships and positive student outcomes.^[9] But we know little about how teacher education programs seek to prepare novices for such relational work.^[10] We know even less about how this preparation translates to beginning practice once teachers are in the field.

      Instead, most of the empirical research on teacher education focuses on the “cognitive” aspects of the profession—topics like content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and appropriate scaffolding for students.^[11] What we see as “soft skills” often take a backseat to what are perceived to be harder skills. But this imbalance is unjustified for a few reasons. First, as Carol Lee points out, forming relationships with students involves a great deal of cognition; it requires concerted attention to students’ sense of identity, emotional states, personal goals, learning history, and culture.^[12] Additionally, the basis for these so-called cognitive competencies is often established by teachers’ relational abilities, as they are better able to design curricula and instruction that is appropriate for students when they really know them. And when students leave schools, they are more likely to remember the teacher who “saw” and connected with them on an individual level, than the teacher who was adept at something like lesson plan sequencing and transitions. Truly, most teachers, too, thrive on these connections, which contribute to what Dan Lortie would call “intrinsic rewards.”^[13]

      But how do we conceptualize meaningful teacher–student relationships?

      Meaningful Teacher–Student Relationships

      in Theory

      Martin Buber offers theoretical guidance on human relationships. In his most seminal book I and Thou (1958), he makes the distinction between two different kinds of relationships in which humans engage.^[14] First, there are “I–It” relationships, which are transactional and superficial. In an I–It relationship, one party uses another for a particular end or interacts with them in a limited capacity. New York Times columnist David Brooks provides this example: “A doctor has an I-It relationship with a patient when he treats him as a machine in need of repair.”^[15]

      Buber contrasts this with the idea of “I–Thou” relationships, which are trusting, reciprocal, dialogical, and caring. In I–Thou relationships, a person meets and accepts another person, is fully present to that meeting, listens and responds to that person’s “whole being,” and views the other’s thoughts and feelings as equally valuable as their own. Drawing on Buber, scholars like Guilherme and Morgan have sought to further explain the difference between these two relationships: “It could be said that the I–It relation is an objective or instrumental relation that allows human beings to provide for and fullfil their basic needs and desires because we are material entities, but it could also be said that the I–Thou relation is a subjective or spiritual relation that allows human beings to fulfil themselves creatively, emotively and spiritually because we are also subjective entities.”^[16] According to Buber, I–Thou relationships require more energy, but are inherently more meaningful for both parties.

      In schools, the power differential between teachers and students necessitates a unique kind of I–Thou relationship, one that Buber suggests requires a fine balance of “giving and withholding oneself, intimacy and distance.”^[17] Instead of perfect mutuality, the educator is responsible for taking the lead in working to recognize and receive all children as human beings (not just as students)

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