Is It Kind? Is It Safe? Does It Build Community?

My friend Carol introduced these three queries to the school community. They were the only "rules" set by her son's sleep-away camp, and they have since gone viral through our school community. They resonate deeply with the Quaker values of my school. Early in the school year, I shared them with my students, and they loved them. The children remind each other to think about safety (in sometimes funny ways, as one child is jumping from a chair and making another fear for his block construction). As three and four year olds, they are also experimenting a lot with the boundaries of friendship, which all to often looks like unkind behavior (like the ever-popular "You're not coming to my birthday party!") And so the kindness is a work in process. The community aspect is still a little murky for their young minds, but they are chewing on it.

Today, however, I realized another profound application of these rules: my own behavior as a teacher. I aspire to be the kind of teacher who speaks quietly and is listened to, who asks open-ended questions to draw out children's learning, who reflects on what the children know and are learning, who understands children's development and acts to support their growth, who loves her students and is loved by them, and who finds joy in learning alongside her students.

Today, I was not that kind of teacher. I was the kind of teacher who feels like she needs to be in control of the classroom, the kind of teacher who calls a student from reading in the book area to put their shoes in the right spot, the kind of teacher teacher who tersely shushes the restless children at nap time, the kind of teacher who repeats her demands for good behavior frequently while helping children follow through infrequently. To be fair, everybody has off days. When this happens to me, I understand that I feel like I need to be controlling children's behavior, and sometimes, in the moment, I can even feel how futile this is, how much it is stressing me out, and the effect it is having on the children. Today, it felt like I was being unkind in my effort to enforce kindness and safety. It felt like I was harming community by seeking to impose artificial rules (Did I really ask, "Do you remember the rule about shoes?" Is there even a rule about shoes? Or had I just made that up on the spot?)

And so this afternoon, as I was breathing through yoga class with my colleagues, I was reflecting on my day, releasing the tension from my shoulders, and realized, that today, I had not lived up to the values that I hold at my core. And realized that as a kindness to myself, and to my children, tomorrow I would try again to live up to the kindness and love that I want in my community. And because I am lucky enough to work with young children and caring colleagues, I know that they will give me as many chances as I need to figure out how to build this community with safety and kindness and love. And I hope that I can return the favor.