new school year | Mel Hawkins & Associates

The first of the essential variables of the education equation are the relationships between students and their teachers. A universal truth can be said to be that “the quality of one’s life is a function of the quality of our relationships with the people in our lives.” We often hear of individuals blessed with wealth and fame only to learn their lives are consumed by broken relationships and one or more devastating addictions. We are sad to learn how many of these lives come to a tragic end.

When it comes to young children in school there is nothing more important than secure, nurturing and enduring relationships with one or more teachers. This is particularly true of five- and six-year-old children who arrive for their first day of kindergarten, but it is just as true when students move, at the beginning of a new school year, to a new teacher whom they have never met.

It is my assertion that the heart is a portal to the mind and that our best chance to be successful in helping students experience academic success, emotional growth, and good behavior is a close and enduring bond with one’s teacher.

What we know about the remarkable brains of our children is that they are programmed to soak up the world around them and can learn whatever is available to be learned—even after deprivation, illness, and injury—with a little help from its friends, of which teachers are among the most important. Often teachers are the most important.

Yes, we all know how much it helps if parents are involved and accept responsibility for their children, but we also know parenting has never been more difficult than it is today. Whether a child has wonderful relationships with parent(s) or a relationships that are toxic, their teachers and classrooms provide a safe and caring oasis in what is an otherwise difficult and hectic life.

For many of us thinking back on our years in school we are lucky to remember one or two favorite teachers who, for one year, made a difference in our lives. For those of you reading these words who are teachers, how many favorite students, over the course of your career, are peaking around the curtains of your memory, and still bring a smile to your face.

During the first few weeks of the school year, the development of special relationships must be our highest priority, one that is sacrificed for nothing, at any time. A sad reality in our schools throughout the U.S. is that, at the end of every school year, we sever many of the special relationships we were successful in forging over the previous two semesters. It can be equally distressing for students to find that friend(s) whom they looked forward to seeing every day, will be in a classroom down the hall at the beginning of a new and often frightening new school year. Just another routine practice creating distress for kids.

In a June 1, 2022, article in EdWeek, by Hayley Hardison, with the title, “Looping with Students: When it Works and When it Doesn’t.” Citing a 2018 study she concludes that, “. . . looping with elementary students resulted in improved student test scores with the benefits greatest for students of color.”[1]

Not all agree and there are exceptions to almost everything in life. What I have endeavored to do in the development of The Hawkins Model© is, first, to develop some strategies to facilitate the formation and duration of these relationships, and second to make the model adaptive, seeking alternate approaches when students and teachers found this strategy to be counterproductive.

The development of long term, positive relationships between classmates also creates advantages for teachers as they strive to manage both the power of peer relationships, whether positive or negative, and the behavioral issues that often disrupt our classrooms.

In a subsequent blog post we will describe what I believe to be the best way to capitalize on this idea of the “primacy of relationships.”

The existing education process almost totally discounts what I believe to be the single most important variable in the education equation.

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[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/looping-with-students-when-it-works-and-when-it-doesnt/2022/06

Never have we begun a new school year with as much enthusiasm as students are bringing to the first day of this 2021/22 school year. Even man of the children who have traditionally dreaded the return to school look forward to seeing friends, favorite teachers, and a return to some semblance of normalcy. It will not be the same normal, of course, as we cannot yet know how the year will play out and what the new normal will be.

We must not get so caught up in our own enthusiasm we forget there will be other children who will return to school with trepidation. Many of these children have taken refuge in such things as shelter-in-place, quarantine, social distancing, and remote learning. For them, the return to school will be traumatic and teachers and administrators must be prepared to recognize the signs and help such students make the transition. We have all read about the mental health crisis facing children, post coronavirus. Post-traumatic stress disorders can have a devastating impact on the lives of children as well as adults.

There will be many children from families whose lives have been forever altered by the coronavirus. Many will be grieving for family members whose lives have been lost or have had to deal with the trauma of separation from loved ones during prolonged hospitalizations. The children of these families have had to live and may still be living with the fear they and other members of their family are vulnerable and may face greater risks upon return to school.

There will be classmates, across the aisle, who have witnessed and maybe embraced the anger and frustration of parents over what they call the Covid pandemic hoax perpetrated by conspirators perceived to be “radical leftists in a government out to destroy their democracy.” Some of our students have stood with their parents during anti-vaccine demonstrations and protests over mask mandates.

As teachers strive to form relationships with and address the varied emotional issues with which their students will be dealing, they must begin to assess and address the disparity between what students have or have not learned during long stretches of remote learning. Given the variance of the progress or regress of students, do we choose to remain loyal to a tradition of moving students forward as a class, from one benchmark to the next, per our respective state’s academic standards or, do we try something new that will allow us to focus on building relationships and differentiating based on the unique needs of our students?

Do we encourage students to share their experiences from the last eighteen months using oral, written, and other forms of communication or expression? Would such stories be beneficial in helping children of such divergent points of view gain better insight into classmates who view and interpret the world through different lenses?

Given the crises we have faced, even if from different perspectives, how fervently do we seize the teaching/learning opportunities presented by the full range of events of the last few years? How do we factor in the demands of parents concerned what we teach in school will conflict with what they teach at home? Will there ever be a better time to use current events to broaden the perspectives of our young people and find our way out of a contentious political and social environment where the truth has become whatever we choose it to be?

Even if we choose not to incorporate such discussions, formally, it seems inevitable these issues will come up during the normal course of events. How do we prepare our teachers to deal with them?

Has there ever been a better time teach our students the value of education and how the knowledge and skills they acquire will determine the number and kinds of choices and opportunities they will have as they transition from childhood to the responsibilities of citizenship? It will not be many years before today’s students will be tomorrow’s leaders, faced with the challenge of seeking resolution of many if not all these issues, or finding common ground. Do we strive to help them prepare for that responsibility or do we shun our own responsibilities?

The experiences during the coronavirus and such controversies as the Covid Pandemic hoax, social distancing, anti-vaccine protests, mask mandates, and other conspiracy theories have changed us and have changed the world. Some changes have frightening implications for the future. The blessing is, the Covid pandemic has provided an incredible opportunity to make a fresh start, to do something new and exciting in many aspects in our lives, not the least of which is education. Has there ever been a better time to reimagine the education process that dictates how we go about educating our children.

The reader is urged to examine The Hawkins Model© created to provide a new way to help our students learn as much as they are able at their own best pace, even in such times as these. An overview of The Hawkins Model© can be found at www.melhawkinsandassociates.com. Please examine it not seeking reasons why it will not work rather striving to imagine what it would be like to teach and learn in such an innovative environment.

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The Primacy of Relationships