We Are the Weather

As well as packing away the Christmas decorations, one of the things I enjoy doing each New Year is having a good declutter.

I feel like I’ve spent my life moving house (I’ve just counted: I am currently in my 22nd house), so I’ve built this habit more out of necessity than anything else.  Both of my parents were hoarders (nothing wrong with that), and I am pretty sure I would be, too, if I had managed to stay in one place long enough.  

Going through one box, I found a stack of old notes from when I was 18 and in my first year of teacher training college.   These relics are over 25 years old and only managed to survive because they were fortunate enough to be jammed between two treasured childhood photo albums that I must have thrust into a packing box between moves.  

If I had found them years before, I would probably have tossed them out. However, I am absolutely delighted that I did not.

The notes are a load of photocopied chapters from ‘teacher’ books we must have been asked to read for a seminar session.  I’ve always liked annotating my work, so my eyes are drawn to one particular comment that I have made in the margins of one tatty page: “We are the weather!”

Here is the passage:

I have come to a frightening conclusion.

I am the decisive element in the classroom.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanised.

Haim Ginott

I can not honestly say that it made much of an impression on me as a young 18-year-old.  I probably had much more important things on my mind than philosophising about the weather.

But as I reread it, with a little more grey in my hair, it resonates more than ever.

We, the teachers, are the weather in the classroom. The mood or energy we bring will be reflected in the classroom.

If we have not turned up to class – neither will our students.

If we genuinely try our best – our students will respond in kind.

If we sow compassion and kindness – our students will grow with us.

This all makes sense to us. We can all remember those teachers who were as unpredictable as the weather, kept us on edge, and thunderous in nature. Conversely, we also recall those who always carried warm words of encouragement and made us feel safe and loved.

It’s always about the teacher. 

Now, as I wonder how much wisdom I must have thrown away over the years, I think I’ll keep my notes for a little while longer.

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Dr. Haim G. Ginott (1975), Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers, New York, NY: Macmillan.