1st Edition
Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships Centering Children’s Perspectives on Connection in the Classroom
Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships centers children’s perspectives on closeness in the classroom while giving teachers questions they can consider toward cultivating more mutually affirming social and emotional dynamics. Despite many educators’ best efforts, today’s norms around relationship development can be excessively adult-first and inattentive to the wishes, needs, and desires of school-age children. This book looks beyond prescriptive methods for relationship development by modeling accessible practices for internal reflective work and deepened considerations of childhood agency and social power imbalances. Using firsthand observations and interviews in schools, relevant autobiographical perspectives, and a thorough yet accessible evidence base, author Clio Stearns prepares in-service teachers to explore their own vulnerabilities and challenge the prevailing notions of adulthood as a fixed state of knowledge and authority.
Introduction 1. Can you be close to someone and still be yourself? 2. Can you be close to someone who has power over you? 3. Can you be close to someone and be very different from them? 4. Can you be close to someone who is just the one you’re with? 5. Can you be close to someone and want them to change? 6. Can you be close to someone who doesn’t want to be close to you? 7. Can you be close to someone when it feels like the world is ending?
Biography
Clio Stearns is Assistant Professor of Education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, USA, and author of Consent in the Childhood Classroom: Centering Student Voices Across Early Years and Elementary Education.
“Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships is a unique exploration of the connection between children and their teachers. Dr. Stearns poses questions that challenge the reader to use philosophical, sociological, and psychological thinking to make sense of the small world of the elementary school classroom. Through case studies, the reader enters two classrooms in search of possible answers to the human equation of classroom life.”
- Lesley Koplow, Founding Director of the Center for Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street College, USA
“Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships leads educators through a series of questions aimed at troubling the seemingly straightforward idea that many of hold as an unassailable truth: that ‘good’ relationships are the heart of effective and transformative classroom practice for students and teachers alike. Stearns challenges us to think critically about what makes a relationship ‘good’ and to explore the boundaries of closeness and intimacy that emerge when we consider issues of power, agency, and choice in our instructional practice.”
- Sara A. Clarke-deReza, Associate Professor and Chair of Education and Co-Director of the Cromwell Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington College
