Permission to reprint is granted with proper attribution (see last paragraph). 569 words.

The Teacher as a Friend:

How Being "Touchable"
Can Change a Student's Life

By Stan Cody, Author, Teaching Out of the Box

Juan did not start out as a student in my eighth grade history class, but I noticed him around school and in the schoolyard. He stood out because, as a newly immigrated student from south of the U.S. border, he had a difficult time communicating in English. He was around thirteen years old and a very short kid about 4' 8" with a loud horn of a voice who couldn’t be missed. Among our predominantly English-speaking population, he was having an extremely difficult time and felt intimidated. When I inquired of his teacher how he was doing in class, she just took a deep breath, as if to say, Not good; and What am I going to do with him?

During one of our snack breaks, I decided to try out my Spanish on this kid who was struggling so both social and academic levels. I went up to him and said, in my unforgiving Spanish:

Hola, Juan. ¿Cómo estás? Oye, ¿cómo está tu elefante? (Hey, how is your elephant?)

Juan looked at me and said with a frown on his face: No tengo ningún elefante. (I don’t have an elephant.)

I replied: Lo siento mucho. (I am very sorry.) Yo tengo uno y mi elefante tiene una bicicleta y también un paraguas. (I have an elephant and my elephant has a bicycle, also an umbrella.)

Juan’s answer to that audacious statement was: ¡Qué loco! (Ho, crazy!)

The school approved my request for Juan to be transferred into my history class. I made the class fun for Juan and before long he was smiling, learning English and enjoying school. You know, if you’re not enjoying something, life can be sooooo hard. Why not enjoy it?

Every day when he came into class, Juan yelled in his blasting, heavily accented voice, “Oiga, Sr. Loco, ¿cómo está?” We had made friends. We could rely upon each other the rest of the year. Because of this friendship, Juan never feared the bigger students.

Teachers must be touchable, reachable and even unashamed of making a mistake or having a certain student as a friend. This is what some people call vulnerability. It’s what I call friendship and it’s easier to do than constantly being on your guard so as not to “get too close.”

Every student wants to be loved and wanted and wants easy access to the teacher. Shy students often see their own wall of fear between them and the teacher. For many students, the teacher becomes an untouchable being with no empathy or willingness to learn of the student’s challenges, who offers no easy path to student-teacher communication and certainly no opportunity for laugher, fun or friendship between them.

Be the one who teaches outside the traditional box. Ease up, relax and enjoy your students. Regularly surprise them with imaginative teaching techniques, exercises and games they enjoy and learn from. Keep them guessing about the fun you’ll introduce in the next class. Make friends with them. They’ll be your friends for life. Best of all, they’ll learn a few more things than they would have otherwise.

Stan Cody taught for 33 years in Southern California’s public schools. The author of Teaching Out of the Box, he can be reached at stan@stancody.com or through his website, stancody.com. Teaching Out of the Box is available at Amazon.com.

Contact Stan Cody's promotion & publicity team:
Email or call 714 228-1101 (Wordpix Promotions)