Episode 216: Teacher-student relationships in education

Hey guys, you know what I want to talk about? Let's talk about student and teacher relationships and the effect it has on education. What do you guys think? How much does that matter?

Well, I don't know, look back to your relationship with your teachers and you think back usually the most fondly about the ones that you had a good relationship with or that inspired you in some way. So I would say it has a pretty big effect on your learning outcome.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's crucial. But it's got to be used well. And I think that’s the thing is that because what you want is you want to form a basis where you get to know someone really well, right?

But with the intention of knowing them well enough to get enough information to teach them well. So because I've seen some disastrous sort of where like it doesn't happen often that where some teachers maybe to be a more friendly or friends with the children.

And it kind of backfires a little bit. I've seen that happen. I think it's a case of like, you have to establish like really good relationships, but understand what it is you're trying to get from that relationship to ensure that you do your job well.

I think that's a really, really like, it's not just about, you know, being nice and kind and probably don't explain this very well, but I think it's a really important bit.

No, I think I totally get what you mean. Like if you're trying to be too nice, right? And friendly, and you know, there's a job at hand, right? You you have responsibility to make sure all those children learn something.

It's an interesting idea. like, look, just as you said that, Robin, you know, I was reflecting back on, which teachers had a real positive impact on me and which ones had not such a good impact on me.

And there's two things that I remember very clearly. There was one teacher who took a great interest in my success, which really turned me around and actually made me do something useful in secondary school while the, let's say, five previous years were basically a waste of time.

And that's unfair, but I wasn't engaged at all. I didn't want to learn, and I certainly didn't want to be there. But one teacher changed that for me.

Changed my whole view on education. and, and he was, I guess the main thing this was that I felt that he actually cared about my success. Right. And that was quite significant. And there was another case where I had a very, so one, this is a, going back to primary school, elementary school, when I changed from one elementary school to another move, you know, we moved as a family, it must've been 10 or 11.

So was near the end of primary school. was 10, I think. And it was like, was, is in the 1970s and it was a bit of a weird time for education in Quebec and Montreal. And this, I came from a very structured sort of disciplinary school, right? It was like very regimented, you know, almost Victorian-like. There was an old building and all that kind of stuff. And I went into a school that was like, it was like the teacher sort of like, it was Wild West. was like anything could go in a cloud.

Anything could happen. It was just chaos, you know? It appeared as chaos. I don't know if maybe she was a lot better than I'm giving her credit for the teacher. But I just remember that like there was no structure and we never knew what we were going to do. And that had a really bad effect on me.

And that was actually kind of a turning point for me where I just sort of kind of gave up on my schooling. Right. You know, and that carried that attitude forward. I became very problematic from that point on. So I can think of two instances where there were catalysts for me. You know, what about you guys?

Two different ways, I suppose. One, I completely agree with you. I think looking back, there was a couple of teachers in primary school who were wonderful because in New Zealand at the time, there weren't a lot of people that traveled, so they led very curious lives because they traveled and they did things that I found fascinating.

And so they kind of weaved in a bit of that. But I think that you're right. I think the one thing that separated them out from the others was they were really consistent. You knew what you were going to get with them and the roles had been established.

So my role as a student, this is what you do. This is your job and this is how it works. And my job as a teacher is this and this is how it works. And there was an utter consistency to it. And then, you like I had another teacher who was an absolute, like genuinely shouldn't have been a teacher. No, you know, was awful. And today he'd get, not just fired but arrested probably. But so he had consistency.

There was no question about that. You could set your watch by the guy. It's just that what he did was so flawed and that there was no sort of empathy or warmth or anything that suggested other than you will do what I tell you to do and some of you will do it and you'll be okay and some of you won't and your life will be miserable for a year.

And so I think it is, to me it's that sort of, like you say Andy, about people that you genuinely believe that they felt like you could do something good. Whatever that may look like, because they felt, you know, I really like this and it might not have been like a core subject that might've just been, I'm really good at traveling or whatever it was that opened our eyes up to something.

But there was an absolute consistency in terms of the roles in the classroom and they were never messed with. It was the same every day. And I think for me anyway, looking back on it with those two experiences, that combination of the two was really beneficial, certainly for me.

Similar, similar story. I would say for me to be engaged, you know, there had to be a connection with the teacher. And it didn't mean the teacher was my buddy, but certainly someone that brought out the best learning in me, you know. They presented the topic well.

Especially, I think of subjects that I wasn't as interested in and when that teacher could make me interested and want to learn more about it, I had a biology teacher in high school who he was amazing. and you know, was really in, I was excited about going to class every day.

I was looking forward to dissecting something or learning something new. And I don't know if many teachers could have made me feel that way about biology at that time in my life. yeah, and others that, know, when it's a subject I'm already interested in and the teacher is engaging on top of that and they bring out that excitement absolutely that just improves my experience, I guess.

But then looking back at bad teachers, absolutely. Those that seemed that they were just there filling time and they weren't excited about teaching. They weren't teaching you anything. They weren't engaging the students. Yeah, I mean, it was a waste of time for everybody. So there definitely has to be, you have to connect with the teacher, I believe, on some level, whether it be through the subject or they can relate to you in some way to get you more excited about what it is that's going on in the classroom.

I think the other aspect that's different today than for a chunk of our growing up. And I'd also suggest actually for a chunk of perhaps our children's growing up quite early in the piece, is that I think there's bigger demands now for teachers to know what's happening outside of school. Like I think teachers always did, but certainly in the UK.

But I don't know enough, you might be able to fill me in in terms of Canada, but this is certainly true of New Zealand as well, that social care has been decimated. So it's almost like there's another layer again of knowing what's happening and having it intervene. I remember when I was in school, the thresholds for us intervening where you would have assumed that someone else would have, which kind of gave you that separation a little bit. So you didn't have to become...you know, involved in something that is really sensitive, you know, like really sensitive stuff and it's often quite upsetting stuff.

That tolerance now has changed so much because the social care system's gone. And I wonder in terms of that sort of relationship and knowing your students and those sorts of things, that there's almost a change, a shift, and it's more so than just, when I train to do your job well.

There was always an element of that sort of holistic view. You knew the family, you knew this, and you got a sense of it. And you always wanted your children to trust you enough or trust someone in the school enough to say something. But I also wonder about that now. I wonder that the teacher's job and finding those boundaries of sort of intervening of families, those sorts of things. I think there'd probably be a shift in that now.

And that will be hard. I think it would be really hard too if you didn't have much experience, I think, coming into it. So maybe there's another layer there as well about knowing and that relationship becoming more crucial because other services aren't there to help in the same way.

So teacher as social worker basically, right? Is kind of what you're... See, I... So having had my children in elementary schools, primary schools in England and in Canada, I never got a sense ever in Canada that it was even ever even talked about in schools, that, but you know...have to have to keep in mind that my children went to you know schools and really sort of you know suburban kind of leafy you know they weren't in inner city schools right there weren't problematic areas both in Canada and in England but in

was going to say, you'd be surprised, actually what you might find though Andy is in some schools, they can be actually less served in some respects. There might even be more put on some teachers in that respect. Sorry, keep going.

But yeah, so, but my point is, so there was definitely a different vibe. So like, you know, when my, when my children were young and going to school, elementary school or primary school in England, you know, and, and again, leafy sort of suburban, you know, neighborhood, you know, you had to be there when school closed to pick up your children. If you weren't there.

They wouldn't let your children go home with some other parent or anything. They just wouldn't. It just wouldn't happen. You had to be there, right? There was a non-negotiable. You couldn't just walk into school. That's just unheard of, right? And it's still the case. Any school in England, you can't just walk into the school. Here, even though I don't have children in the school, I could totally walk into the local primary school and wander around the halls. They'd probably do it for about 10 minutes before anybody even notices I'm in there.

You know, like all the doors are unlocked. You know, it's just a different vibe. You know, three o'clock, doors open, all the kids run out. Where are the parents? That's the parent's problem, right? And you know, and that's quite common. I mean, Robin, is that your experience as well?

Yeah, similar for sure. certainly don't have to, we could easily just walk in the front. There's none of that formal checking in type of environment.

And what about New Zealand, Adam? I mean, what's it like over there?

Yeah, I think that there's definitely, that's the way it always was. But there's a shift. There's no question that there's a shift towards, you know, just more, just being more conscious, I think it was just more people.

And I think too, think that, you know, this is going to sound very sort of romantic. Yeah, of course, there's in the city, it was a bit different, but for a lot of places in New Zealand, the school service, the small community, so everyone knew everyone, right? So you couldn't help but know, you just knew.

Everybody knows each other, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But, you know, so I'll give you an example. I mean, so my, you know, one of my daughter's friends, secondary school, there, they have a business club, right? The kids, you know, and they asked me to come and talk to them, right? This is a self organized club. There's no teachers involved as far as I could tell. Right. And you know, so, so the boy said, just come.

And when you come in, just come in this door and there's a bench there, like a sofa, just sit there and I'll come get you. You know, so just walked in, just like middle of the day in a second, walked in the side door, sat on a bench, waited about five minutes. He came by, collected me, walked through the halls with him all over the school, whatever, brought me to a classroom. He talked to a bunch of kids and then, you know, wandered through the school back out again.

That would never happen in a secondary school in the UK. Right? So there's a different vibe for sure. Now, is that going to stay like that forever? Probably not. I kind of like that. I like that I live in a place where that can happen. But, you know, but it's different, right? that social care. See, I don't get it. I'm not saying that teachers aren't aware or aren't told to watch out for certain things over here, but I don't get any sense that they're.. like it's a big part of the agenda over here.

There's two parts to that. This is going slightly on a tangent, but it links back to it. So I remember that one of the big shifts was when as headteachers, school leaders, there was always a guessing game about what Ofsted we're looking for. What happened? Can we see what's happening in the latest reports if you're due? And someone, I remember someone got a report that was the lowest category because there were safeguarding issues.

And the safeguarding issue was that there was a fence or something that had a hole in it, hadn't been repaired, which means that in effect what you've described, Andy, someone could walk through. And this affected the Ofsted rating of what was largely considered a very good school. You know, really served the community well, the children learned well, did all those things that you would want a school to do. The argument was it didn't keep them safe.

The reason why I point that out is because after that, mean, the fencing companies must have, you couldn't get a fencing company for love nor money because everyone's thinking it's part of the Ofsted report, if I don't get this all sorted.

And our school did exactly the same thing. We had it, so we put an intercom on the front gate. So you had to be buzzed through just to get into the front gate. Then there was the front door of the school. You had to be buzzed through that. And I know that in part, because when I first started at that school, we didn't have that.

And it was that really small community aspect where, yeah, it was far more free flow. You had parents coming in doing some gardening. You'd sort see them out the window. They'd be helping out on the school field, just tending to the flower beds, all that sort of stuff. But it changed. And I think that, again, it's that high state's accountability that maybe, you know, maybe I know that the UK has some of the highest accountability.

That sense of accountability measures with so much at stake over something that I'm not saying, you want to keep, of course, your number one job in the school is not actually, you know, it's keeping children safe. That's your absolute pinnacle. That is what you have to do first. Keep them safe, then teach them. So, but I think it's things like that where something happens, and I'm not saying that there shouldn't be changes.

But it changes almost the societal aspect of schooling overnight because that becomes one of the indicators as to whether or not your school's a good one.

Yeah. Okay. But let's, let's go back to the original question, right? And I think Robin, you were originally the one who, who, who, who kind of brought this up, you know, in discussions we had outside of the podcast. So what's the effect on children? Right. So, so, you know, let's take it to an extreme, right?

So now we've got this lovely community school that's maybe got a garden people can wander in and out of, and, there's doors all over and whatever. And it's you know, it's just like any, like the community center in a way. Right.

And then you've got a school that's gated, you know, “I'm here to, okay, just a moment.” You know, the gate, big metal gate, you know, it's kind of prison like, right? What's the message that the kids are getting and, and, and how, how does that affect them?

This is another conversation we should be having. Now we're getting into the environment of the school.

Is it different or is it the same thing? I mean, it's kind of like the whole school, the relationship between the teacher or the, let's say the administration of the school, which includes the teachers and the pupils. What does that have an effect on children?

Yeah. Well, obviously, I mean, which one would you rather be going to? I mean, it's, think it's, and it can be a great school. I get it. But yeah.

There's some of the best schools are like that, right? So I think it very much depends on your community and the community you serve, right? And, but to over-regulate, like this, guess there's a problem I have with, with Ofsted. It's like, if the school's doing just fine and the kids are doing just fine and it's not gated, well, what's the problem?

And I think the thing is that it was potentially, there may not have been a problem. There might have been a problem in this one school, but it kind of spreads like wildfire. But I think you've touched on a really good point, in that there'll be fantastic schools where parents can't come in without an appointment. They just can't even walk their children into schools. There'll be some that can. But I think what I find fascinating is it will always change the dynamic.

Like I always felt like when I was in school leadership, I'd always stand on the road at the front every morning and see people in. And my rationale for that wasn't just doing it for sort of PR or thinking it would be a nice thing to do, is that I figured it was gonna save time because some of the issues that parents might wanna raise with me.

We could do it in a far less formal, they didn't feel like they needed to, you know, like we could head things off before something turned into bigger and we need an appointment and now we've taken time off work and now we're coming into here. And so my rationale for doing it was to get a sense of what was going on, but also to kind of nip things in the bud so that it didn't turn into something bigger if you needed to then make an appointment and all those sorts of things. Or at the very least I could triage where there's something needed for an appointment.

But I think there's always going to be, because if you stop that, if I didn't do that, and we stop that, then that's going to change things. Because now there's going to be that nature of, right, well, we need to book an appointment. It can sometimes have a different outcome.

Again, like trying to bring it back to how does all of this affect children? I think that the thing to consider is that whoever's in charge of making the decisions of how schools are run, because it'd be different in different places, right? Those people, like I think...

I think the job should be to make sure that those people are competent to make those decisions, right? Yeah. And that they should use effectively their experience and common sense to make decisions that make sense for the school in its environment.

And not necessarily be handed down as rules and regulations from too far above. Right? So like, you know, if you're running your school, Adam, you know, you should have every right to make the decision about what's appropriate for your school based on what you need to do and your current circumstances. where I start worrying about things like that is when it starts being dictated from above that you must do this.

Right? If you're a small village school in the middle of nowhere, you know, and surrounded by fields everywhere, in an open area, why do you have to and spend half your budget of that year building a big metal fence around the school? It doesn't make any sense, right? Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough one though, right?

But can I just say one thing before I wrap up? Because I want to bring it back to what we started talking about originally. If I just reflect on my own kind of, you know, experience and stuff, and talk about the primary school and mid-school thing.

The first school I went to was like from a different universe. It was a different time. It was like very Victorian. We had a boys entrance and a girls entrance. Okay. The boys played in one field, the girls played in the other field. Okay. And that was the school and it was very strict. And it was like, if you did something wrong, you would get the strap.

The teacher would send you to the head teacher, the principal's office and you boom, you know, the strap, leather strap. And that was, you know, like, yeah, that doesn't happen really very much. I don't think anywhere. Right. At all. Well, in some countries, it might still happen.

But I actually did better and felt I knew the boundaries, right? I'm a very young child now, right? I knew the boundaries and it didn't feel unsafe there. And I didn't feel, and I kind of knew what was expected and school was just a, was a pleasant place as far as I can recall.

And when I went to this other school where it was like the teacher was my friend and it was very open and you know, we never knew what we were going to do and we would spend like maybe, you know, three quarters of the day doing art often, you know, I didn't, I didn't do well at all there. It put me on a bad journey that I really, you know, my personality needed that, you know, yeah.

The structure. so no, and so that's it. There's no, there's no one answer and there's no right or wrong. And what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. But these are all factors that need to be kept in mind, I think, in the classroom and at the school.