Blog Post #11: Radical Care

Of the four teacher maps analyzed in "Mapping Interconnected Care," the one that resonated with me the most today was Michelle's, who purchases and provides snacks for the students in her class who are falling asleep. I think about the one student I have, out of seventy, whose head, without fail, always falls down into the crook of his arm on the desk during my last lesson of the day. Since I began noticing this trend, at about the mid-point of the year, I have been stuck in the thought that this is obviously due to the student being bored or uninterested and that my lessons are not engaging enough.

It was not until this reading that I really thought about this student and my relationship with them. My small efforts at asking, "are you okay?" or "what's up?" have mostly fallen on deaf ears, though I am sure there is something behind this situation. As Michelle does daily in her practice of care in the classroom, I think it is powerful to "reject the notion of teachers' all-powerful accountability for student academic performance" by viewing her students as "human beings coping with extraordinary challenges."