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David Small’s graphic-novel memoir, Stitches, recounts – from Small’s point of view – both the secret and obvious pains he and his family endure during the author’s childhood and adolescence. Counseling and art emancipate Small from his family’s dysfunction. Art becomes Small’s “home” and “voice” and gives him “everything [he has] ever wanted or needed since” leaving home at age 16. Small credits art with fulfilling needs his family either created or could not meet. Small’s parents seem unwilling to grant him approval because it would require them to confront their own pain, especially regarding decisions they have made about David and their family. When Small’s father eventually owns up to his role in hurting David, dad’s speech comes across more as personal expiation than familial reconciliation. Small moves out shortly thereafter, demonstrating the inadequacy of his father’s admission in closing the rift between them. Small’s artistic liberation and formation of an identity apart from his family are especially compelling against the backdrop of his early life.

zap by r.i.c.h.

Josh Lieb’s darkly comic young-adult-lit novel I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be your Class President offers another take on a son’s quest to shape his identity in response to a father’s lack of approval. Oliver Watson is the titular genius who controls a global empire of legitimate and criminal enterprises behind a prop mogul and the mask of “dumbest boy in [the] English class.” His father is afraid of him because Oliver represents both lost opportunities and the opportunity to stop making excuses and excel, which is a terrifying prospect for dad. Knowing his father’s weakness for token shows of nobility – such as turning down high paying private-sector jobs and the “democracy” of student elections – Oliver decides to win his school’s election for class president to ruin his father’s memory of student council service. Oliver thinks that by proving a seemingly dumb kid like him can win, he’ll corrupt his father’s belief in student democracy and cheapen dad’s former glories. Oliver loses the election in a scene of comedic triumph, but in losing he wins his father’s approval. His dad, after all, is a fan of noble causes like defeat. To signal the change in their relationship, Oliver calls off the squadron of fighter-bombers on its way to raze his school. His father’s approval fulfills Oliver’s need to belong so much that he no longer feels the need to destroy his school, a place where he clearly does not belong.

With all the complexities of human experience at play in our lives, especially during the holidays, I’m not going to venture much further into analyzing the two disparate studies in father-son relationships. Instead, I’ll write about teaching, which we all know is totally simple.

I think of the power-struggle as perhaps the most obvious form of dysfunction in teacher-student relationships. I think of teachers and students for whom power struggles and defensiveness are classroom norms. We all have students whose behaviors trigger us into feeling the need for control, and all students have teachers who trigger the same. How we handle ourselves as community members determines how far struggles escalate in the classroom and which behaviors we and students choose in response to one another. Sometimes we over-react; sometimes conscious of our over-reactions, we under-react; sometimes we get it right, defuse the situation, improve our relationships, and get back to the essential work of teaching and learning.

I think here about David and his parents. David was a mirror for them of the choices they had made as partners and parents. Because they were afraid to honestly confront some of those decisions, their frustrations and regrets transferred to David. How often do we teachers see our emotions and choices reflected by our students? How comfortable or skilled are we at stepping back, depersonalizing the situation, and dealing with our own decisions and emotions before more fairly assessing students’ choices and humane and effective responses to them? How much time do we spend coaching our students to find what really matters to them and to work for it, even when triggered by an adult’s actions or demeanor? How much time do we spend showing students how to redirect themselves to work rather than reacting defensively to redirection from a teacher?

When I think of Oliver and his dad, I think about our expectations for students and how often we give them positive reinforcement and feedback on the way to meeting those expectations. To our credit, though we disagree on the particulars, as a profession we teachers believe that all students can learn. How can we help one another act in accordance with that belief even when the chips are down, the work is late, and the kids are disengaged? How do we balance out internal feelings of disappointment and frustration with external, proactive, and positive steps towards righting the course of our shared work with students?

Many of us find effective ways to help many students feel motivated and successful, but there are so many disenfranchised and disengaged youth for whom education is a power struggle rather than a means of emancipation from childhoods of adversity. What is our message to these children? How do we judge them? Are disappointment and frustration inherent in the structure of work and assessment we have told them to do? Does school put us all on the defensive?  Does school create us and them?

Sadly, yes, in many ways, it does.

So here’s my challenge to myself this holiday season:

1. Remain thankful for my time with my students and for their willingness to come to school each day.
2. Engage more often in a healthy, internal struggle to measure my actions in helping students re-connect with education.
3. Engage less often in dysfunctional, external power struggles in the classroom.
4. Re-assess what my students believe about school, themselves, and our class.
5. Make education better for all of us.

Speaking at NCTE, Junot Diaz said that we create monsters from youth when we don’t provide positive positive reflections of youth in our culture and the media it promotes. We need to work to make sure students see positive reflections of themselves in us. When they look at us they’re looking for a part of themselves. They shouldn’t see disappointment and frustration. They shouldn’t see monsters.  When we look at them, we too, are looking for parts of ourselves and we don’t want to see monsters. We’re going to have days where nothing works; we’re going to feel defeated; we can’t project that feeling on students. Looking at our students should lift us up; we should lift up our students. There is always a chance to make things better so long as we dare ourselves to look away from defeat.  Act without fear.  Re-engage with your vision of teaching and learning and reflect it to everyone in your classroom.