Mapping Interconnected Care

                          

In this piece, Victoria Restler meets and interviews various teachers from New York City who discuss the different ways that they care for their students. I found it interesting how each teacher had their own way that they presented themselves to their students, how they teach their students, and care for them and meet their needs.

• Sarah (A bat signal for LGBT students)
• Michelle (The $nack Factory)
• Lee (As I am at home, I am in my classroom)
• Eli (Looking at myself through the eyes of students)

Michelle: Also known as the teacher who supplies the snacks. When students were falling asleep in her class, she was under the impression that they thought that she was boring. However, after her first year of teaching, she looked deeper into why the students may actually be falling asleep. Maybe they were working until 2AM and got a limited amount of sleep. Maybe they skipped breakfast and their energy level is low. To show her students that she cares, she supplies snacks that may give them the energy boost they need to start their day. Some may see this as coddling the students. "Instead, she advances a view of her students as human beings coping with extraordinary challenges, and frames her own work in terms of creating a home-like safe space."

Lee: Clean Everything! As an educator, Lee feels as thought the children should have a clean and organized space to work in. This is for many different reasons. For starters, this is just the type of person that Lee is, as she states "I clean all the things". She believes a space that a child is learning should be clean. However, she doesn't just think about the cleanliness of her classroom, she thinks of the impact is has on her students.  For example, many students where she teaches come from an home where cleanliness does not always exist. So, she feels that providing them with a clean area is showing respect to them as students and as people. This also helps the students to become more organized themselves. Lee feels as though the students "deserve this" and wants them to view it as this way too.

Personally, I have also seen these reflected in some of the youth spaces I have volunteered in. Snacks have been present a lot of the time as well as cleanliness and dressing professionally. However, I don't know if teachers/youth workers that I have worked with bring the snacks, dress professionally and make sure the space is tidy for the same reasons that these New York educators say. It would be interesting to ask these same questions and go through the same process with educators and youth workers we know to see what results we would get. Would they say the same things as said in this article? Would they say they dress professionally and tidy up because it is part of their job? One would be interested to find out the answers to these questions.