The teacher as substitute parent

In the 1980 hit single Don’t Stand So Close To Me by The Police, Sting rasps about a discomfiting, if rather common, aspect of the teacher-student relationship: “The teacher/the subject/ of schoolgirl fantasy.” Perhaps that topic is too touchy that it’s better sung than talked about in interviews, but Sting, a teacher before he joined The Police, denied the speculation that the song is based on personal experience. 

If he found the reality of young, impressionable minds pining for the classroom authority figure troublesome, I would like to venture something that I, as a teacher, find equally, if not more, disturbing: the way that, as a friend wryly observed in his blog, school has become a “socially-acceptable form of absentee parenting.”

Teachers, I’ve noticed, have been thrust almost the full weight of molding and shaping the minds and the characters of children not their own. 

“Make her write, ha?” mothers tell me about the daughters they’ve enrolled in my writing workshops. “Make her finish something; she never finishes what she starts.” A chill kinda-sorta runs down my spine when I hear things like these. Aren’t talents and character traits nurtured and developed in a home environment? Aren’t parents, rather than teachers, the primary caretakers of those? Did I sign up for this ?

“I want her to be the next J.K. Rowling,” one parent has actually told me. Sure, no pressure there. One worldwide best-selling author comin’ right up! (If I knew how to do that, wouldn’t I have already made me the next J.K. Rowling?)

Perhaps because it’s the age when children aren’t speaking to their parents because parents are the “enemy” but I feel the “substitute parent” weight even more in my high school writing class. I would find myself staying up at night, biting down my fingernails, and asking the patron saint of teachers (note to self: Ask studious Catholic mom who this person is) how to guide this group of not-quite-adults into becoming thoughtful, self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and balanced individuals. And then I would catch myself saying, Hold up, Patron (or Patroness) … is that really in my job description? Was I within the bounds of my work as a teacher … or was I crossing a line here? Why did I feel like that other thing that I, in fact, wasn’t these kids’ parent?

But then, again …Aren’t teachers supposed to parent that is, to nurture and support their students? And aren’t parents supposed to teach their children, by example? Aren’t these two roles then the parent and the teacher essentially interchangeable?

Because when I was looking around for real-life references for how to teach, my eyes inadvertently fell upon parents. I find my friend Kat, for instance, to be a wonderful teacher to her teenaged daughter Zoey.

Zoey sings, dances, plays the guitar, paints, draws, writes a wickedly funny and thoughtful blog. Kat credits Zoey’s biological dad for these gifts, but I do think it’s Kat’s own openness and enthusiasm for learning that has (subconsciously) given Zoey permission to be as open and enthusiastic to trying and pursuing whatever strikes her fancy. Kat doesn’t give herself a lot of excuses or guilt-trips for not doing the things she loves (as, sadly, a lot of parents do) and so, I’ve noticed, neither does Zoey. Mother and daughter simply go out there and do their own thing, sometimes together.   

My friend EJ’s adoptive son, Malay, is now like his adoptive single dad in the film industry. Whether intentional or otherwise, my friend, I’ve seen first-hand, had successfully passed on his love for filmmaking to his eldest son. For his dad’s feature film debut, for instance, Malay made the teaser trailers that can be seen all over his Facebook page.

Kristen Stewart (better known as The Twilight saga’s Bella) says, in one magazine interview, that she has learned the most from her mother and not because her mom launches into morning sermons or goes into regular advice binges. “I’ve just learned a lot from watching her,” Stewart said.

For my friend Gayle and her husband Marc, there is no question too delicate or too dumb from their sons Hakeem and Clyde to be carefully weighed, considered, and answered by them. This way, they encourage and nurture their sons’ curiosity and isn’t curiosity the beginning of learning?

From watching my friends whose way of parenting I admire (and, yeah, through Kristen Stewart’s testimony about her mom), I’ve discovered that teaching by example by far, the most effective way to teach is a parenting skill. Which means that one of the primary roles parents play in their child’s life is to be that child’s teacher, and that this role doesn’t necessarily come naturally; it can be learned and developed.

And where do parents learn this skill from? Yes, I see you raising your hand…That’s correct! Did you hear that, class? Parents can learn the skill of teaching from teachers.

There is a sign at the entrance of the school where I teach that says, “The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher.” I am not a parent, but when I do become one, I would like the above wisdom to be my guiding mantra. I imagine my parent friends share the same belief: That the object of parenting a child is to provide the child tools in order that that child may grow up to be independent and self-sufficient with a healthy self-esteem, may I add. That last bit is actually the telling trait of my friends’ kids. I don’t think I would consider myself a good mom if I made my grown children highly dependent on me and incapable of making and trusting their own choices.

Judging from the way she teaches, I imagine that my yoga teacher Binky would make a great mom. Rather than making herself indispensable to her students, she has developed a workshop called Growing Your Own Yoga Practice, which is designed to “enable [her students] to get along without [her]”, to be able to do yoga on their own.

Binky is being as much a parent to her yoga students as Kat (and EJ and Gayle and Kristen Stewart’s mom) are being teachers to their children. And so, I am being a parent when I walk into the classroom. I am being a parent when I keep doing the things that I love and excitedly share that with my students. And, I have to admit, I am being a parent when I look at a student’s essay or short story and think, By gawd, you are going to be the next J.K. Rowling!  

So when I remember to, I tell myself it’s OK to feel that chill down my spine at the thought of my students. I tell myself it’s OK to be a little bit disturbed by the sense of responsibility. I tell myself that it’s OK to stay up nights wondering if the kids in my writing class are going to be alright, if they are going to turn out to be strong, mature, evolved individuals. After all, that’s what parents and teachers do.