The most common perception of Love is this:

If you love me, you will want to (and should) please me.

Of course we all fall somewhere on the spectrum of this perception.  How important we think "pleasing other people" is has an enormous effect on us as teachers.  I'll talk about how dangerous it is to be on the extreme end, a place I have been a few times in life, and how dangerous it is to the relationships in the classroom.

If you love me, you will want to please me.   Or...just as dangerous...
If I love you, I will want to please you.

First, this is not a reciprocal statement.  If we love each other, we will want to please each other is an entirely different matter.    The statements above are about expectations. 

Think about it:  Is your working definition of " to love"  equal to  " to make happy"?

Teachers who believe that they should demonstrate love for their students by making them happy are setting themselves up for eternal failure in the classroom.   (Ever try to make a teenager happy?!!!!!!!!   )

Why?

A)  There is no way to make 20+ people happy at the same time.
   Rewards systems take on outrageously ridiculous power or are a complete farce.
C)   Students will recognize this as a weakness and use it against the teacher on a regular basis.
D)  The list of people to make happy becomes endless and exhausting: students, aides,  secretaries, custodians, parents, administrators.....etc. etc.

Teachers who believe that students should respect (ie love) their teachers and demonstrate their respect (ie love) for their teachers by pleasing them are also in a pickle.

Why?

A)  Children and teens are by nature egocentric.  They are not going to take the 
teacher's needs into consideration often enough to please anyone on a regular basis.
  Children are by nature tuned into their own peers, not to adults.
C)  Many children are not raised in a home where adults make the (proper) decisions and then the children are expected to heed those decisions.  They are often in a position where they must choose whose decisions to follow (if there are decisions made) and therefore see most adults as someone that they can choose to listen to ...or not.

We must ask ourselves these two questions:

Am I teaching so that I can make other people (ie my students) happy?
and
Am I teaching so that every day I have a classroom full of people to make me happy?

If so, we are teaching for the wrong reasons.

Truthfully, very few, if any, of us go around telling our students we "love" them or that they must "love us."  In words.  However, with our actions and our expectations we may be giving that message loud and clear.

When I catch myself thinking, or saying, things like this I know that I am headed in a dangerous direction:

"I worked for hours to put this together for you!"  (and you don't like it...I'm hurt)
"They don't appreciate me." (and they should)
"You are so ungrateful."  (and you shouldn't be)
"Who else would do this for you?" (I love you more than your other teachers do)
"No one studied.  How could they do that to me?"  (If they cared about me they would study)

It is easy to be a martyr in our profession.  But dangerous to the heart, mind and soul.  Besides, if our students' behavior is tied in to how much they like us, how will they function in another classroom or with a substitute?  Do we really want students to think of us as martyrs?  Won't they (and their parents and our administrators) begin to see us as people who should give and give and give without establishing appropriate boundaries? 

The other dangerous route is determine our interactions with students based upon their schoolwork.    Do I smile at all students who are honestly attempting to answer a question or only to students who give right answers?  Do I give extra privileges to students who hand in more creative projects, raise their hands more often in class or turn in more homework on a regular basis?   Think about it.  How often to we "say" if you are _____________, I will like you more?   More often than I would like to admit. 

I'll be blunt.  Exchanging emotional rewards for desired behavior is not bribery.  It's manipulation.  Is that really the best foundation for our classrooms?

These may seem like underlying pieces to our classrooms.  However, as a mother, I can tell you that these are the first and the most critical messages that our students receive.  The vocabulary?  The equations?  The dates?  The concepts?  They are much less important to our students than the way that we treat them.

So I have had to ask myself....How do you perceive Love?  How do you live that perception in your classroom?  Is that the message that you want your students to receive?  If not, what can you do?

I invite you to do the same.

with love,
Laurie