Integrating identity and respect into the classroom: Llardo, Buber, and Me

As a relatively new teacher, I am still trying to balance the relatively complex aspects of this new job, making Lladro’s (1972) statement that “it is that teachers of interpersonal communication are engaged in the conduct of a sort of therapy which has arisen in response to the needs resulting from the fact that we are living in an age of transition, an age of anxiety” (p. 5) all the more poignant. I have already, in my first semester, found myself acting as a mentor to my students – having to offer life advice and support. It is a role that many teachers never choose to take (and one that I myself never had with a professor). Buber (2000) stated that “as experience, the world belongs to the primary word I-It. The primary word I-Thou establishes the world of relation” (p. 5), explaining my problems with the traditional educational system – it is primarily one described as one that used the “banking method” – where the teachers view the students as accounts waiting to be filled with knowledge. I try to teach using an I-Thou relationship with my students, one where I have a relationship with my students where we see and regard each other as individuals, as people with personalities and with needs. This means that I spent extra time planning for lessons, emailing students, and assuaging people’s fears. However, I’ve found this to be an infinitely more rewarding relationship. I received two separate thank you notes last semester from students. Apparently, treating my students as actual people not only ensures that I receive good teaching evaluations and that they have higher learning motivation, but I believe that it is what helped to keep disrespectful talking/texting behaviors out of the classroom. By respecting my students and by treating them as people with significant problems, issues and identities, I think that they in turn recognized that I was a person as well. Instead of being a faceless educator at the front of the room of faceless students, we saw each other as worthwhile people.