Preparing Teachers for Relationships With Students: Two Visions,Two Approaches

Abstract

Meaningful teacher–student relationships are linked to a range of positive student outcomes. However, there is limited research on how teacher education programs attempt to prepare teachers to form relationships with students. This article employs comparative case methodology to explore how two different teacher residency programs—No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency—attempt to prepare their teacher residents to form meaningful relationships with students. Drawing on theoretical work by Martin Buber and Paulo Freire, this article finds two very different approaches to teacher–student relationships: Instrumental and Reciprocal. It concludes by discussing the implications of each.

Keywords

preservice teacher education teacher-student relationships,equity qualitative research practice-based teacher education

Introduction

The way teachers connect with students has great implications. Research indicates that meaningful teacher–student relationships improve students’ engagement (Cooper, 2013), resilience (Sosa & Gomez, 2012), attachment to school (Hallinan, 2008), and achievement (Roorda et al., 2011). However, it cannot be assumed that forming meaningful connections with students is innate, especially when most teachers come from very different embodied perspectives than their students in terms of race, socioeconomic status, religion, language, gender-identity, and more. Preservice teacher education should prepare teachers for relationships with all students, but there is little empirical research on how programs attempt to do so (Grossman & McDonald, 2008).

Teacher residency programs may be well-positioned to emphasize the relational aspects of teaching. Launched into the mainstream by Boston Teacher Residency in 2002, residencies offer a “third way” to educate teachers that attempts to improve upon the perceived shortcomings of both traditional and alternative preparation programs. For example, residencies pair novices with excellent mentor teachers in extended field placements that last up to a full year, often interweave theory and practice in coursework, and employ a cohort model that supports collaboration (Berry et al., 2008; Solomon, 2009). Moreover, residency programs often recruit a more racially diverse cohort of teachers, promote teacher retention, and improve students’ academic outcomes over time (e.g., Guha et al., 2016; Papay et al., 2012). It is possible that some of these components, particularly the extended fieldwork, may support residents’ ability to form meaningful relationships with students (McDonald et al., 2013). However, none of the research focuses on how residency programs prepare teachers for such relationships.

This article draws on data from the first year of a 2-year ethnographic study that seeks to explore how two different teacher residency programs—No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency—attempt to prepare residents to form meaningful relationships with P-12 students. In the process, this article seeks to address the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How do two different teacher residency programs envision teacher–student relationships?

Research Question 2: How do these programs attempt to prepare residents to form relationships with students?

In the following pages, I review the extant literature on teacher–student relationships, present Buber’s “I–Thou” relation as a theoretical framework for understanding and analyzing relationships, and discuss the methodology that guided the study documented here. I then turn to the findings, introducing each program’s vision, curriculum, pedagogy, and fieldwork as it relates to teacher–student relationship development. I conclude by discussing the two different approaches to teacher–student relationships and their implications for students.

Review of Related Literature

There are many quantitative studies, particularly in the field of educational psychology, that attempt to measure and address the impact of teacher–student relationships on student outcomes (e.g., Cooper, 2013; Hallinan, 2008; Roorda et al., 2011). Most of these studies draw upon surveys of students and/or teachers that feature Likert-type-scale questions assessing facets of attachment and relatedness (e.g., “I feel accepted by my teacher”) and then explore connections to similarly measured constructs (like student engagement of efficacy) or student test scores/grades. Some of these studies operationalize relationship development through a particular lens. For example, Cooper (2013) focuses on connective instruction (Martin & Dowson, 2009)—which involves connecting with students, seeking to understand them, designing responsive lessons, displaying care, and promoting student expression—and finds it advances students’ self-reported engagement in school. In a meta-analysis of previous studies related to teacher–student relationships, Roorda et al. (2011) find “further support for the notion formulated in prior research literature and review studies that TSRs [teacher–student relationships] influence students’ school engagement and achievement” (p. 515).

Moreover, several scholars have conducted qualitative research in which teacher–student relationships emerge as an important factor in student outcomes (e.g., Ladson-Billings, 2009; Valenzuela, 1999). For example, in an ethnographic study of highly effective teachers of African American children, Ladson-Billings (2009) finds that such teachers establish “social relations” with each student that are “fluid, humanely equitable,” collaborative, and connected to the community (p. 60). In addition, in her ethnographic study of Mexican American students at one high school, Valenzuela observes that reciprocal relationships with teachers that feature “authentic caring”—where teachers attend to student academic and personal needs and affirm their cultural knowledge—support students to learn and achieve. These works centralize the experiences of students of color, and the authors indicate that meaningful teacher–student relationships may be especially important for historically marginalized students.

This body of scholarship on relationships, along with other empirical and theoretical educational work, offers insight into some of the relational competencies that may help teachers connect with all students. These include various forms of knowledge, such as knowledge of self (Gomez & Lachuk, 2015; Milner, 2003), knowledge of students (Gay, 2000; Martin & Dowson, 2009; Moll et al., 1992), and knowledge of society (Valenzuela, 2016; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). Scholarship also indicates teachers should develop various relational dispositions such as authenticity (Kreber et al., 2007), empathy (McAllister & Irvine, 2002), care (Cooper, 2013; Noddings, 1984; Valenzuela, 1999), and racial competence (Michael, 2015; Milner, 2003). Finally, scholars link specific actions to meaningful relationships with students; these include connecting with families (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004; Mapp & Kuttner, 2013), designing responsive curricula and instruction (Gay, 2000; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), and establishing safe and trusting class communities, also called classroom management (Gay, 2006). See Appendix A, available in the online version of this article.

Despite this scholarship on teacher–student relationship development, there is limited research on how teacher education programs seek to prepare preservice teachers for relational work (Grossman & McDonald, 2008). Relationships are sometimes addressed as part of culturally responsive teacher education (e.g., Gay, 2000; Villegas & Lucas, 2002) or social justice teacher education (e.g., Valenzuela, 2016), which explore the importance of preparing teachers for humanizing relationships with students of color that are built upon a foundation of racial competence and/or sociocultural awareness. However, relationships are rarely the sole focus of empirical teacher education research. In one of the only published studies of this nature, McDonald et al. (2013) explore how preservice teachers from one program learn to develop relationships with students in field placements in community-based organizations (CBOs). They find that fieldwork in CBOs seems to support new teachers to learn how to connect with students, but that this process varies based on the individual teacher’s personality and the “situational factors” present in their placements. Moreover, they find that the relational expertise displayed by mentors at these sites “seem[s] to matter for candidates’ inclination to identify and enact [relational] practices” (p. 25). However, this study does not address the program’s vision for teacher–student relationships, compare across programs, or account for how the teacher education program as a whole—including curriculum, pedagogy, or other fieldwork—facilitates the development of teacher–student relationships.

Teacher residency research also lacks a focus on teacher–student relationship development. Much of this scholarship consists of self-study, conducted by program insiders to document the creation and evolution of a residency (e.g., Klein et al., 2013; Solomon, 2009) There is also qualitative research that explores the role of context (Hammerness & Craig, 2016), mentoring (Gardiner, 2011), instructional rounds (Williamson & Hodder, 2015), or the process of learning to student teach (Gatti, 2016) in a residency program. Other studies attempt to assess the quantitative impact of teacher residencies; for example, Papay et al. (2012) use value-added models and find that over time, graduates of Boston Teacher Residency outperform their peers. Finally, there are broad reports that draw on both quantitative and qualitative data from multiple residency programs to provide insight into the components of effective programs and their impact (Guha et al., 2016; Perlstein et al., 2014). Of this research, only Gatti (2016) incorporates any direct focus on the relational aspects of teaching, exploring how teacher residents navigate conflict and classroom management in student teaching. In Gatti’s work, though, “relational resources” are framed as something preservice teachers innately possess; it does not explore how residency coursework may prepare residents to form relationships with students. Moreover, no extant residency research compares no excuses and progressive programs. I build upon this scholarship on teacher education, residencies, and relationships to explore how two different teacher residencies conceptualize and support relational work.

Theoretical Framework

Philosopher Martin Buber makes the distinction between two different kinds of interpersonal relationships. First, there are “I–It” relations, which are transactional and superficial, as well as “objective or instrumental” (Guilherme & Morgan, 2009). In an I–It relation, one party uses another for a particular end or interacts with them in a limited capacity. Buber (1958) contrasts this with the idea of “I–Thou” relations, which are trusting, reciprocal, dialogical, and caring. In an I–Thou relation, a person meets and accepts another person, is fully present to that meeting, listens and responds to that person’s “whole being,” and views the other’s thoughts and feelings as equally valuable as their own. According to Buber, I–Thou relationships require more energy, but are inherently more meaningful for both parties.

In schools, the power differential between teachers and students necessitates a unique kind of I–Thou relationship, one that Buber (1965) suggests requires a fine balance of “giving and withholding oneself, intimacy and distance” (p. 95). Instead of perfect mutuality, the educator is responsible for taking the lead in working to recognize, receive, and acknowledge all children as human beings (not just as students) before even attempting to teach them, modeling for students the development of community. But Buber suggests this can and should still be an I–Thou relation, one based on “communion,” “dialogue” and “trust,” as opposed to “compulsion.”

Freire (1987) evokes Buber in his description of a horizontal “I–Thou” relationship between teacher and students, one “nourished by love, humility, hope, faith, and trust” (p. 45). Freire also warns of the perils of more rigid, perfunctory, and hierarchical forms of teacher–student relationships: “Each time the ‘thou’ is changed into an object, an ‘it,’ dialogue is subverted and education is changed to deformation” (p. 52). In other work, he describes this objectification of students as the banking model of education, in which teachers dispense knowledge from above into passive receptacles (Freire, 1970). Ultimately, Freire insists that humanizing and dialogical teacher–student relationships are especially important for students from oppressed groups, who must learn that their voice matters, too. In this article, I draw upon the idea of an I–Thou relationship as conceptualized by both Buber and Freire as a lens to understand how two different teacher education programs envision and prepare teachers to form meaningful relationships with students.

Method

This article draws from a broader study of relationship development in two residency programs: one based in a progressive independent school, Progressive Teacher Residency (PTR), the other in a no excuses charter school, No Excuses Teacher Residency (NETR).¹ In this study, I used ethnographic and comparative case study methodology (Stake, 2013) to explore relationship development in the two different residency programs detailed below.

Research Sites

Both of the teacher residency programs in this study were located in the same large metropolitan area on the East Coast. NETR was less than a decade old and operated out of the industrial building that housed Excellence Preparatory High School, the prominent no excuses charter school that founded NETR. Funded in part by grants (both private and governmental), residents in NETR paid a reduced amount for their preparation. NETR’s resident cohort was large (74 residents) and somewhat racially diverse (1/3 of the beginning cohort were people of color).² In contrast, PTR started several decades ago (well before residencies became popular), emerging out of Xanadu Community School, a progressive, independent P-8 school located on a pastoral hill in an affluent part of town. Although Xanadu sponsored the program, residents paid a sizable tuition rate that covered most of their program expenses. PTR’s cohort was small (16) and mostly white.³ I selected these two programs because both featured an intentional and explicit focus on the development of teacher–student relationships in elementary and secondary classrooms and had excellent reputations within their respective circles (no excuses or progressive). However, they approached relational work very differently, which offered a rich and illuminating contrast.

Data Sources

From August 2014 to July 2015, I conducted approximately 40 hr of observations of relevant coursework, activities, and events in each program. During observations, I took rich ethnographic field notes (Emerson et al., 2011), paying special attention to content related to the teacher–student relationship competencies identified in the literature review, the pedagogy modeled by faculty, and residents’ comments in coursework.

In addition, I collected and reviewed program documents, including promotional literature, program sequencing, required coursework, and syllabi. I then employed purposeful sampling in the selection of three to four program faculty and staff (Maxwell, 1996) for semistructured interviews of 45 to 60 min to understand more about each program; I sought participants who had expert knowledge about program structures, pedagogy, and/or relationship-related curriculum.

Furthermore, I conducted 60-min semistructured interviews with a representative sample (in terms of race, gender, content area and grade-level focus) of nine to 10 residents in each program. These interviews provided me insight into how new teachers in each program made sense of the relational aspects of teaching, including how they felt their programs supported them to develop relationships with students. Finally, I selected two white secondary humanities residents from my interviewees in each program (four in total) to observe 2 to 3 times in their field placements, which provided me a sense of how white residents—who may have difficulty forming relationships with students of color (Sleeter, 2008)—drew upon program coursework in their interactions with students. I also interviewed each of these focal residents a second time at the end of the residency year, and interviewed their Guiding Teacher (PTR) or Coach (NETR) to understand how others perceived their developing practice. See Appendix B, available in the online version of this article.

Data Analysis and Validity

Data analysis occurred in a multistep process, relying upon both inductive and deductive coding strategies. First, I analyzed each case site separately (Stake, 2013), inductively coding the data using thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) to consider emergent themes. For example, the code “efficiency” emerged over 100 times in observation and interview data from NETR, while the code “individualized instruction” emerged over 70 times in PTR data. During this process, I also drew upon analytic memos that I generated in the field to help me refine my codes. Second, I revisited all the data and applied deductive codes generated from the relational competencies identified in the literature review; for example, the code “reflecting/developing knowledge of self” was applied to relevant data from each program. See Appendix C, available in the online version of this article. Third, when data collection was complete, I engaged in a cross-case analysis (Stake, 2013). During this phase, I applied codes that emerged from individual sites that seemed relevant to both and made note of similarities and differences across cases. Fourth, I generated core focused codes from the inductive and deductive analytical processes that supported the development of initial theories. During this stage, I began noticing a trend toward codes like reciprocity, dialogue, and reflection in one program and efficiency, instrumentalism, and control in the other; this led me to identify the relevance of Buber’s I–Thou relation as a frame to better understand the two residencies’ relational approaches. I then returned to the data again, looking for both confirming and disconfirming evidence of these theories.

By triangulating data sources in this study—including document analysis, direct observations, and interviews—I intended to reduce the “systematic biases or limitations of a specific method” (Maxwell, 1996, p. 75) and adequately address the multifaceted subject of relationships. During data collection and analysis, I also considered the “dissonant voices” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) that ran counter to general trends in the data (e.g., NETR residents who voiced critical interpretations of program) and I collected additional data or conducted further analyses to adequately evaluate these. Because the study of relationships is by nature a subjective process, I also wrote copious process memos in an attempt to monitor my own biases and reflect on my positionality as a white woman doing research in this space (Boyatzis, 1998). Moreover, I completed member checks by meeting and discussing my inchoate findings with individuals from each residency and shared snippets of data and discussed my initial theories with colleagues who “have some distance from the study” to gain further perspective (Maxwell, 1996, p. 93). In these ways, I attempted to ensure the rigor of my data analysis and the validity of my findings.

Findings

In the ethnographic sketches that follow, I present both residency programs’ approaches to teacher–student relationship development through their mission and vision, curriculum and pedagogy, and fieldwork to illuminate how teacher–student relationship development is deeply intertwined with each aspect of the program. The section on curriculum and pedagogy reflects the relational competencies emphasized by each program, while the remaining sections primarily reflect emergent findings. Overall, NETR conceives of relationships as instrumental, what Buber would call “I–It,” focusing on discrete relational actions as a means to advance achievement; meanwhile, PTR conceptualizes relationships as reciprocal, much in line with Buber’s “I–Thou” ideal, and prepares residents to cultivate relational forms of knowledge and dispositions. In both programs, residents characterize their clinical placements as most salient in their learning to connect with students. I analyze these findings in the discussion that follows.

No Excuses Teacher Residency

The overall mission of No Excuses Teacher Residency is to prepare “exceptionally good first-year teachers” for no excuses schools. This directly relates to its vision for preparing low-income students of color for social and economic mobility, or as faculty say, “Social Justice . . . through good teaching technique.”

This broader “social justice” vision leads to a sense of urgency that pervades the program. As is common in many no excuses schools, NETR faculty—all of whom are white—indicate that there is no time to spare in the education of the low-income students of color in their schools, who they believe have not had access to the same quality education as more affluent students. To change this trend, faculty aim to prepare teachers who can be immediately effective. NETR begins with a formula to inform how residents see effectiveness:

\begin{array}{l} C l a s s r o o m L e a r n i n g = L e s s o n Q u a l i t y \times \\ \sum I n d i v i d u a l S t u d e n t E f f o r t \times (1 - M i s b e h a v i o r T a x) . \end{array}

In this formula, Lesson Quality and Individual Student Effort are both rated on a scale of 1 to 10 units, with 1 representing very low quality or effort, and 10 representing very high. Meanwhile, the “misbehavior tax” refers to the percentage of class time “lost” due to student misbehavior. To reduce this “tax,” faculty stress the importance of strict classroom management procedures. They also introduce three other levers that teachers have at their disposal to increase learning by this formula. The first two have to do with the efficiency and rigor of a teacher’s lessons and instructional activities, while the third is “Professional Relationship Capital.”

“Relationship capital” is framed as a means of “investing” students in the class and the teacher so they will “work hard and be nice.” This establishes teacher–student relationships as a tool to improve student effort and behavior. However, faculty do not suggest there is any connection between “relationship capital” and lesson quality. The impact of relationship capital is thus constructed as unidirectional, altering the behavior and effort of the student, but not that of the teacher. Nonetheless, it frames teacher–student relationships as an essential input in the formula for learning.

NETR’s founding director, Todd, explains the program’s vision for the development of teacher–student relationships:

I think the foundation of the relationship is that my job is to try to generate maximum effort in thinking from you [students]. That’s my job. It’s not to be your friend. It’s not to learn everything that’s going on in your life, although at times I do need to know those things in order to get to the other [stuff]. If I’m learning that or investigating that, it’s only to get to the end goal of how I get you to work and think as hard as you can in the time that I have you with the content and the subject matter that I’m charged with teaching you.

In this way, NETR conceives of forming relationships with students as instrumental: a process that must be undertaken to inspire maximum effort and desired behavior from students. In explicitly establishing relationships as a means to an end, NETR constructs teacher–student connections in terms that are more consistent with Buber’s (1958) “I–It” than “I–Thou” relation.

Curriculum and pedagogy in NETR

All day Friday and Saturday in the fall, residents complete NETR coursework and engage in teaching simulations that emphasize teaching moves or actions. The three anchoring courses residents complete include Classroom Management, Instructional Methods, and Relationships and Student Investment. Faculty employ a similar pedagogical approach in all of these courses.

One of the three “foundational ideas” about teaching content presented in the Instructional Methods course is: “My job is to increase student learning in the most efficient way possible.” NETR faculty practice what they preach in this regard because they rely upon a repetitive and fast-paced format for the transmission and integration of residency content. For example, most NETR sessions begin with a “Do Now,” followed by a PowerPoint on focus material, then resident “turn-and-talks,” videos of teaching particular skills, some form of a whole-group share out, and “teaching simulations” in which residents practice these skills with a small group of other residents. A resident named Ellen explains of the program’s pedagogical structure: “We’ve gotten very used to [this] and we’ve gotten very bored by it . . . We feel ourselves doing what the kids do.” Although Ellen claims to be “bored” by the pedagogical structure of coursework, she acknowledges the symmetry between the systematic way residents are taught and the way the program prescribes instruction for students.

Course curricula similarly focus on discrete actions. Todd acknowledges,

I’d say relative to other teacher prep programs we don’t spend as much time thinking about who we are and what we bring to teaching and our backgrounds and how that’s driving our beliefs and actions. I think generally we’re of the mind that you change actions first and that changes beliefs.

So instead of focusing on self-reflection or child development, NETR’s coursework focuses on distinct “moves.” In the Classroom Management course, for example, residents learn a series of “proactive” and “reactive” moves to maintain order in the classroom. In the course on relationships, residents learn moves and strategies to help them connect with individual students, promote student investment, systematically call parents, acquire “Culturally Affirmative Teaching” (CAT) practices, and teach students specific character traits.

In one session, faculty break down a series relationship building moves. One move is called “the sneeze,” which faculty describe as remembering and commenting on little things about students—like a distinctive sneeze—so students feel their teacher cares about them. One course reading includes an example of a teacher who systemized a way to achieve “the sneeze” with a large roster of students by keeping a spreadsheet in which he recorded “little nuggets” about the students when he heard them, periodically reviewed the sheet, and integrated these “nuggets” into class. Faculty offer three additional relationship building moves. “The High-Five” is described as voicing appreciation or offering a friendly gesture like a high five to a student when they do “something great or for no reason at all.” “The Private Check-in” is reserved for when a student seems to be struggling or having a difficult time to display care about students’ feelings. Finally, “the Chat for No Reason” is exactly as it sounds, encouraging teachers to talk to students for no reason and find out about them, outside of instructional time. This is a sort of catch-all move for everything else involved in forming relationships with students and faculty do not dwell upon in it any depth.

Then there is the “one big” relationship building or rebuilding move: the “one-on-one conversation.” Faculty establish this move as more complex than the others and provide a template and a rubric to support its execution. The template organizes the conversation into proceeding categories: (a) identify the problem and its impact, (b) ask questions to better understand, (c) discuss solutions, and (d) check for understanding. The accompanying rubric for this rates one-on-one conversations in increments of 10 (with a high of 40) on measures of Respect, Clarity, and Accountability. Again, relationships here are framed as a means to an end—a way to address “problem[s]” by reducing misbehavior and increasing student effort. In another session, NETR prepares residents to call parents and guardians early and often, providing a template to help structure these phone calls, and a version of the one-on-one rubric to evaluate the success of these conversations.

However, the implementation of these moves is complicated by the strict disciplinary imperative at no excuses schools that threatens to strain nascent teacher–student relationships (Golann, 2015). Faculty address this through the idea that residents must manage the “tricky balance” of “authenticity” and “authority.” Residents are tasked with finding ways to implement discrete moves in ways that feel authentic to them, all while holding firm to a system of classroom management that assumes the teacher is the “ultimate authority” and has the “right” and “responsibility” to ensure “100%” compliance from students. Toward this end, residents complete a “Relationships and Student Investment Plan,” which asks residents to list their personal goals and describe their preferred moves to achieve this balance.

Residents offer varying perspectives on this explicit relational coursework. Alina suggests,

It makes you kind of cringe because you’re like, oh God, there shouldn’t be a textbook about having relationships. I would die if any parent ever saw this booklet and read it, it’s so embarrassing. [But] I do think some of the bare bones, you absolutely must do this or you won’t have a good relationship, are right.

Another resident, Jose, says he appreciates this straight-forward coursework because he is “older” and “more introverted” than the other residents, and feels relational moves “don’t come innately for me.” While somewhat “cringe”-worthy because of their explicit instrumentalism, these relationship building moves present residents with an explicit toolbox of strategies to help them connect with students.

The Culturally Affirmative Teaching (CAT) coursework—centered around encouraging students from “nondominant” groups to “navigate” dominant culture—receives more push-back, though. During one CAT session, a resident named Stephanie challenges NETR’s recommendation that all teachers should have explicit “code switching” conversations with students (using a derivation of the “one-on-one” format) about the need to adopt behavior from the culture of power (Delpit, 1988) to succeed in school and life; she implies that when mostly white teachers attempt to do this (at least in the way NETR prescribes), it comes across as assimilationist. In a later interview, Stephanie suggests that she believes NETR coursework lacks the “internal work” required for racial competence, which is essential for forming meaningful connections with students of different races. Alina, too, critiques this coursework, suggesting that the all-white faculty seem unable to guide the residents toward more racial competence because they “are no further along in their racial identity development than any of the residents.”

Clinical placements in NETR

NETR residents spend 8 to 12 hr a day Monday–Thursday in no excuses schools, serving as tutors for the same small group of students. In Tutorial, which begins a couple weeks before coursework, residents are paired with no more than 10 students, who they see in small groups at different times over the course of the day. For several weeks in the spring, as Tutorial continues, coursework is replaced by student teaching on Fridays in one teacher’s classroom, and in Saturday Academy, where there is no other teacher in the room. Then throughout the month of July, residents teach for a few hours each day in a no excuses charter school summer academy. Throughout student teaching and summer academy, residents receive regular coaching from NETR trained coaches. In these placements, residents’ instruction is fast-paced, efficient, and teacher-centered.

Both spring and summer student teaching is highly structured, with a set curriculum that must be covered, and residents only have a few weeks with a particular group of students. Thus, residents suggest that NETR’s version of student teaching does not allow them much space to form relationships with students. Alina describes it as “kind of disruptive. It wasn’t consistent.” She contrasts this with Tutorial: “Whereas Tutorial, you were working with a kid for months and months.” In Tutorial, there is a curriculum for each day, but this is somewhat minimal, and there is very little oversight, which means the residents and students have time and space for unstructured interactions. As a result, a few of the residents insisted that they had to form relationships with their Tutorial students or they were not going to be able to make it as a tutor.

When asked about the aspect of the program that best prepares them to connect with students, most of the residents cite Tutorial over the relationships coursework or student teaching. A resident named Julie acknowledges that although NETR coursework briefly touched upon forming relationships, it felt to her the course mostly dealt with “lesson planning and classroom management.” As such, she felt she learned more about how to connect with students just by “working with kids” in Tutorial. In Tutorial, Julie connects with her students in informal ways, allowing for a few personal digressions in which the students share about themselves before softly redirecting students to complete their work.

Tutorial also seems to teach residents important lessons about their students. Julie suggests that learning by connecting is important because “empathy or understanding” for students from diverse backgrounds seems hard to teach in coursework. Kevin, another resident, explains that conversations with his students “showed me a world that I have very little experience with . . . I’ve gotta be careful not to assume and to remember that these kids have had a different life than I have.” Less-structured and monitored than student teaching, Tutorial offers residents opportunities to dialogue with students and learn from them, too. But even here, residents are still doggedly focused on the end goal of student achievement, with Stephanie (who criticized many elements of NETR) explaining how she “leverage[d]” her relationships with students to improve their work.

While Tutorial seems integral to residents’ preparation in forming relationships with students, it is not well connected to the Relationships coursework. Joe, the director of curriculum, states that while NETR knows Tutorial is “a huge driver of their [residents’] success” with students “across cultural lines,” he feels the connection between coursework and Tutorial must be better “coordinated.” Tutorial came before NETR and was originally designed as a gap-year program for college graduates who could provide inexpensive labor to help tutor students at no excuses schools. NETR was constructed around this experience, but coursework was established in parallel. Given the intimate and informal nature of Tutorial, residents suggest that the relationships they form with their students here are likely different from those they will be able to form as classroom teachers.

Progressive Teacher Residency

Progressive Teacher Residency grew out of a need at Xanadu Community School for more teachers who adapted well to the “Xanadu way.” Because Xanadu was founded on the principles of progressive education, teachers here were expected to not only to help students advance academically, but to reach the “whole human” before them, to work in communion with their students, and to elicit recognition of the beauty in life and humanity. These ideas about teaching informed the construction of PTR and continue to permeate the program’s philosophy. Taylor, the Program’s director, explains,

We continue to value collaboration, questioning, empathy, the importance of strong communication skills, the ability to think outside the box. We are deep thinkers and doers . . . The learning that happens between children and adults is a reciprocal and symbiotic process.

When it comes to the substance and methods of learning, PTR remains devoted to humanistic ideals.

However, the scope of PTR’s mission has shifted. Although the program was initially designed to provide a pool of quality progressive educators for Xanadu, PTR now aims to prepare teachers for a range of independent and public schools. While PTR indeed serves Xanadu because the residents “keep things fresh and alive at the school,” some of the school leaders seem to hold a vision of PTR as a form of service, preparing teachers in humanizing and constructivist pedagogy and then sending them out to the wider world.

Taylor, who identifies as African American, suggests that that low-income students of color are often taught “to walk in a line,” while the predominantly white and affluent students at Xanadu are taught critical thinking and self-advocacy. She feels that all children should have access to the kind of progressive education promoted by Xanadu and that by training teachers in this model, she is expanding opportunities for many students. Taylor also believes that progressive education can counteract racism by “develop[ing] children who are empathic, culturally competent, ethical, humane, and kind.” Toward this end, Taylor calls PTR residents “change agents,” but does not make her acknowledged “social justice” ideas explicit in program documents; while these documents focus on relationships, even Taylor’s syllabus for the equity course does not directly reference race except in the titles of assigned texts.

In all the PTR courses, faculty emphasize the importance of student-centered teaching and learning. This is consonant with progressive education more generally, as John Dewey (1900) similarly characterized students as “the sun about which the appliances of learning revolve” (p. 51). To adequately serve each individual student’s academic, social, and emotional needs, PTR believes that teachers must be able to form reciprocal relationships with them, relationships that more closely resemble Buber’s “I–Thou” relation.

PTR faculty work to help residents develop knowledge about themselves and their students to facilitate relationships that enable more meaningful learning experiences for both parties. Mary—the white assistant director—explains this as “a focus on knowing self and kids in order to develop curriculum that is authentic, meaningful and relevant to teachers and to kids.” Throughout coursework, the program proposes that this core relationship between teachers and students not only supports students, but also enables teachers to establish safe and inclusive classroom communities and (co-)construct meaningful and responsive curricula and instruction for/with the students. At PTR, a reciprocal teacher–student relationship is viewed as fundamental to the entire educational enterprise. As Taylor insists, “Teaching starts with relationship.”

Curriculum and pedagogy in PTR

For 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school throughout the year, residents attend PTR courses. In the fall, they all complete a course in child and adolescent development, plus a course that helps them design and differentiate social studies curricula and instruction for different age groups and learning styles. In the spring, they take a PTR course on teaching literature and writing and a course on equity in education, which addresses the historical, cultural, and political factors that continue to structure society and education. In all this coursework, faculty focus on the knowledge and dispositions teachers will need to develop to connect with students.

Faculty employ various forms of constructivist pedagogy in coursework for the residents. Instead of presenting residents with top-down objectives and specific takeaways for each session, faculty facilitate educational experiences that allow residents to construct their own meaning and learn from their peers. Taylor explains that she intentionally models “pedagogical approaches we would want them to try in their own classrooms . . . with very little lecture either from myself or other facilitators.” Residents engage in quiet gallery walks, participate in free-flowing discussions, use objects to tell stories about their lives, and write haikus. Residents also present on particular strategies or activities they have personally found useful in their student teaching and share about issues that they feel are important to their experiences in the classroom.

The content of the coursework revolves around the program’s central through-lines. These include, “Who am I as a teacher?” “Whom do I teach?” “Why do I teach?” “What will I teach?” “How will I know what my students know?” The first three through-lines manifest in a focus on individual students and self-reflection. Mary explains, “We encourage them [residents] to look at files, we encourage them to talk to former teachers of their students to learn about who those kids are and what they enjoy and also what scares them about school, about life.” She emphasizes the importance of residents acquiring meaningful knowledge about all of their students. Mary adds that she believes residents should “really listen” to their students to find out what “interests them, what is it that compels them, who are their friends, what are their families like, what is their life like outside of school, not just in school.” Taylor takes this a step further, suggesting that teachers not only need to get to know students, but also need to develop empathy for those similar to and “different from them.”

One of the ways that PTR aims to help residents foster deeper knowledge and empathy for students is through two shadowing assignments, one each semester, in which they follow a student who seems to be struggling in their class for a full day or over the course of multiple days. Residents report that this assignment influences the way they look at students. For example, Sam explains, “I can’t overstate the value of following . . . the kids around for a day and shadowing. That kid, still to this day, I feel like I know her better than I know some of the other kids.” Meredith admits that this assignment caused her “to realize that it’s not about you, it’s about student learning. And as long as you always focus on the student . . . 99.9% of the time you’re gonna make the right decision.” For residents, engaging in this shadowing assignment twice throughout the year helps them to develop a deeper sense of their students, a more empathetic eye, and the impetus to utilize this understanding to make meaningful learning decisions for each student.

Similarly, PTR places great value on self- and social-knowledge and reflection. Taylor explains, “I think, too, it is important for teachers to understand and know themselves—to be honest with themselves about why they are coming into this work.” PTR repeatedly emphasizes reflection, as an individual and a member of society. For example, on the first day of coursework, Taylor asks residents to draw a Cultural Identity Wheel in which they write down aspects of their identity (like race or socioeconomic status) that feel most salient to who they are and that inform their “calling” to teach.

Overall, residents express appreciation for the coursework. Ashley states,

One thing that I really like are seminars because they’re so discussion-based, and we have our norms. You’re really . . . able to listen and . . . understand where someone’s coming from and their views . . . in a safe space.

Jackie suggests that she “love[s]” the “whole whirlwind of self-analysis” in PTR. Although most residents find PTR’s relational coursework to be “extremely helpful,” a couple residents express a desire for more coursework on classroom management strategies and others wish for more time to discuss racism and privilege.

Although PTR faculty facilitate coursework on social structures like racism, sexism, and homophobia in which residents read and reflect on sociopolitical scholarship, the discussions of race in particular often remain limited. For example, while Taylor assigns the book White Like Me for summer reading, there is no designated class time to discuss it; residents prompt two brief discussions about it with another facilitator, but leave these feeling like “there is never enough time.” In addition, two residents suggest that the equity course feels “disorganized” because Taylor does not closely adhere to the syllabus when she teaches it (partially because snow days force her to cancel multiple sessions). Taylor herself expresses disappointment with what she calls “superficial” discussions of race and privilege in this course, but hesitates “to push [residents] too hard” and acknowledges that “who is around the table” does shape these discussions. The white homogeneity of the resident cohort and the program’s lack of explicit structures around developing racial competence limit the depth of coursework on serving students of color.

Clinical placements in PTR

To equip residents with the tools of progressive education, the program requires residents be immersed at Xanadu in the fall. Residents spend 8 to 10 hr a day on campus, participating in every aspect of teaching life, including faculty meetings, field trips, and daily teacher lunches. Depending on the school schedule, residents spend 4 or 5 days a week assisting and coteaching in a Xanadu classroom under the supervision of a guiding teacher. In this first placement, residents serve mostly white and affluent students. Then in the spring, all residents spend Monday–Friday in a classroom with a new guiding teacher (GT); some residents choose to remain at Xanadu, but many opt for a public school placement.

Most residents characterize their fall student teaching placement at Xanadu as incredibly influential in their development as a teacher who can connect with students. Here, GTs model community and relationship building for the first 2 weeks of class, which conveys to the residents how critical relationships are for learning. As the year progresses, residents work in groups or one-on-one with the students in class as they co-teach or assist their GTs. GTs provide constructive feedback on these experiences, focusing on topics like classroom management, student interactions, and “philosophical questions.” Then residents’ responsibility for teaching ramps up as the GT begins to step out of the room and residents have “solo” moments, days, and a whole week to teach alone. Residents find this supports their ability to connect with students in ways that feel authentic to them; as a resident named Elisabeth notes, “there’s not one way to be a teacher” in PTR.

This fieldwork affords residents the opportunity to listen to and learn from students. Donna tells me,

I think, for me, the biggest thing is just listening to kids . . . In the morning, and at snack, but often, kids want to talk about something “off-topic,” and I think there’s value in listening to those . . . that’s how I learned one of my students is an avid swimmer . . .

Similarly, Anna tells me that by asking questions of students, she “found out that a lot of them are in really, really tough situations.” She concludes, “The most important thing is, did they leave school safe and fully okay?” In these comments, residents describe connecting with students in ways that privilege what they have learned in PTR: listening to students, asking questions, valuing students as human beings in and out of class, and working to make their classroom community “safe.” Because PTR and Xanadu are intertwined, Xanadu classes only have 16 students, GTs here are well-prepared and carefully selected, and clinical placements at Xanadu naturally extend and deepen the reciprocal teacher–student relationships residents develop in coursework.

In spring of 2015, 10 of the 16 PTR residents elect to student teach in nearby public schools. Eight of these residents are placed at Belmoor School, a mostly white K-8 public school in an affluent suburb. Meanwhile, two residents are placed at City Middle School (CMS), which serves a more racially and socioeconomically diverse population of students. Most of these residents find their second clinical placement disappointing, partially because they have fewer opportunities to interact with both students and colleagues in these spaces. Jackie explains that she is struggling to “navigate a less cozy situation” at Belmoor, where other residents similarly express feeling less “integrated,” “acknowledged,” or “valued.” In public schools, they receive less support from GTs who have additional drains on their time and are largely left to their own devices when it comes to mentoring PTR residents. Residents also encounter “very different teaching philosophies” and structural constraints not present at Xanadu, including large class sizes, burdensome teaching loads, and standardized test pressures. Elisabeth, who feels especially “isolated” as one of two residents at CMS, explains, “When you are so ensconced in one method, it is hard to code switch to another place.” Having been apprenticed into the importance of forming reciprocal relationships, residents struggle when school structures and classroom culture are not as conducive to such connections with students and colleagues.

After this second placement, few of the residents remain dedicated to teaching in public schools. For example, Donna tells me,

One thing that’s been frustrating for me is I feel like while I’ve learned a lot about being in a public school . . . I feel like what I’ve learned is that I don’t really want to be in a public school.

Residents’ progressive relational ideals are challenged by the realities of working in a lower resourced and less-progressive school, partially because they are less supported here. At the end of the year, only three of 16 residents elect to work in public schools, all of which are in affluent suburbs; the remaining residents get jobs at independent schools,⁴ and most seek out schools that are pedagogically similar to Xanadu.

Discussion

In the above cases, I describe two teacher residency programs with an explicit focus on the relational side of teaching. Each program’s vision for relationships, however, was quite distinct. NETR conceived of teacher–student relationships as instrumental, a process of acquiring “relationship capital” that teachers could “leverage” to improve student effort and desired behavior. Wary of too much “thinking and feeling,” coursework to support such relationship development focused on actions, like connecting with families, classroom management, and displays of aesthetic care (Valenzuela, 1999) about students, like “the sneeze.” The instrumental, action-based, outcomes-focused nature of NETR’s relationships is consistent with Buber’s (1958) concept of an “I–It” relationship; the program focused on performing relational motions, rather than connecting on an emotional level. This approach may perpetuate superficial gains in compliance and achievement, but obviates deep human connections. It also echoes a broader trend in teacher education that Philip et al. (2019) critique: moving toward core practices and away from fundamental issues like humanism, equity, and justice.

Conversely, PTR viewed relationships as reciprocal—a dialogical process that shapes both teachers and students as co-constructors of the learning process; this is more consistent with how Buber (1958) describes the meeting of both parties in an “I–Thou” relation. Toward this end, PTR focused on the development of relational knowledge and dispositions: residents developed deep self-knowledge through extensive reflection, cultivated knowledge of students as “whole people” primarily through dialogue with them, and read about and discussed racism, sexism, and homophobia. Fieldwork and activities supported the development of relational dispositions like their authenticity as teachers and their empathy and care for students. However, PTR did not prescribe relational actions, believing “there’s not one way to be a teacher.” Instead, they allowed residents to learn relational actions in their fieldwork. This approach supported deeper student connections at Xanadu, but residents struggled to foster similarly meaningful connections with students in public schools, perhaps partially because they lacked support to connect with students in a more traditional setting.

The way residents learned to form relationships was deeply intertwined with the pedagogy promoted by each program. NETR’s directive and largely teacher-centered lessons established the teacher as the sole authority and dispenser of knowledge. This model is antagonistic to a pedagogical relationship of dialogue, for instead of reciprocity in the learning process, it represents a “violent hierarchy” (Derrida, 1981) where students are “govern[ed]” by teachers and treated like receptacles to be filled with a predetermined set of knowledge and skills (Freire, 1970). Conversely, PTR emphasized the role of critical thinking, self-advocacy, and dialogue in learning, positioning residents and P-8 students as co-constructors of their educational experiences in much more “horizontal” relations (Freire, 1987). Because instruction is the primary medium through which teachers and students interact (Hawkins, 1974), the pedagogy espoused and modeled by these programs largely set the stage for the type of teacher–student relationships each program envisioned.

While residents expressed appreciation for their coursework on relationships in both programs, they cited their clinical placements as most influential in their learning to connect with students. This is not surprising, given that meaningful clinical or field experiences, especially with racially diverse students, seem to result in profound learning for novice teachers (Hollins & Torres Guzman, 2005; McDonald et al., 2013). In each program, however, residents characterized only one of their field experiences as most helpful in advancing their relational expertise. In PTR, this was the fall student teaching placement at Xanadu, where residents worked in one class with 16 students and spent a great deal of time interacting with individuals. This served as a highly coherent extension of PTR coursework. However, PTR residents struggled with their public school placements, in which they had less support and their interactions with students were more structured. This second placement had the opposite of its intended effect, dissuading most of the residents from teaching in public schools. In NETR, residents said they learned the most about forming relationships with students in Tutorial: the least “coordinated” and coherent field experience. In Tutorial, residents still aimed to advance student learning, but they also had time and space for unstructured interactions with a small group of students over the course of a year, which was not the case in their highly structured student teaching. Ultimately, residents in both programs said they learned the most about relationships when “situational factors” (McDonald et al., 2013) enabled them to connect with students in less-structured contexts where more dialogue was possible. This suggests that teachers, too, may find relationships closer to the “I–Thou” ideal to be more rewarding and educative.

In the end, the teachers from NETR who learned to form more superficial “I–It” relationships (Buber, 1958) with students to improve their behavior and achievement, went on to serve students of color from low income backgrounds. These relationships objectified historically marginalized students by communicating that their value was dependent on the degree to which they worked hard and behaved in line with what mostly white authority figures demanded, not in their own right, which essentially conditioned students for positions of subservience (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Golann, 2015). Some studies find that no excuses schools raise test scores but do not improve life outcomes (e.g., Dobbie & Fryer, 2016), and the way students are conditioned to interact with teachers might shed some light on this phenomenon. Meanwhile, the PTR teachers who were taught to form holistic and reciprocal “I–Thou” relationships (Buber, 1958) with students as the foundation of their coconstructed learning process went on to serve mostly affluent white students, likely because PTR lacked explicit structures in coursework and fieldwork to support racially diverse students. PTR’s dialogical approach to relationships emphasized students’ inherent value as human beings and their agency over their educational (and life) experiences; such relationships prepared students to engage with authority figures, to someday hold positions of authority themselves, and in fact many of Xanadu’s graduates have gone on to become renowned leaders. Although both programs sought to advance some version of social justice, both may have instead contributed to social reproduction through teacher–student relationships, as NETR was limited by its vision of relationships, and PTR by its overwhelming whiteness.

Ultimately, meaningful education is not possible without humanizing teacher–student relationships. Freire (1998) explains,

The world of culture, which is also the world of history, is the world where freedom, choice, decision, and possibility are only possible because they can also be denied, despised, or refused. For this reason, the education of women and men can never be purely instrumental. It must also necessarily be ethical. (p. 57, emphasis mine)

Ethical education in Freire’s estimation not only requires a critical understanding of society, but also dialogical and reciprocal relationships between teachers and students—especially students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who have systematically been denied agency and reciprocity in relationships with those in power. If they are not treated as a “Thou” in relationships with their teachers, students may be objectified and further marginalized at a young age, leading to alienation—or what Buber (1965) calls “disunion . . . humiliation and rebelliousness” (p. 91)—in schools and society.

Conclusion and Implications

Little research focuses on how teacher education programs approach the relational aspects of teaching (McDonald et al., 2013). This article adds a substantive addition to the literature by profiling how two programs approach relationships with students. It also conceptualizes essential relational competencies in forms of knowledge, dispositions, and actions. Furthermore, it contributes to the growing body of work on teacher residencies, providing insight into how programs with a no excuses or progressive ideology may approach relational work. In other scholarship (Theisen-Homer, 2020), I document the powerful influence these residency programs had on new teachers’ relational behavior in the classroom. However, the residency model is by no means a panacea for teacher–student relationship development; instead, this research illustrates how a program’s vision, coursework, and fieldwork related to relationships shape the quality and implications of these connections.

This article also presents the “I–Thou” relation as a useful framework for evaluating teacher–student relationships. According to Freire (1970) and Buber (1965), dialogical relationships with educators can build community, advance critical consciousness, and promote social change; whereas objectifying relationships dehumanize, humiliate, and oppress students. The cases of NETR and PTR illuminate the different and unequal approaches some programs might employ in relationship development. In this study, historically marginalized students did not have access to teachers who learned to form meaningful transformative relationships with them. Further research should explore how teachers in a range of schools construct relationships with their students to identify whether this trend is more pervasive. The field also needs more research on how other teacher education programs approach relational work and how graduates of these programs integrate this learning into their beginning relational practice.

Because teacher–student relationships may shape how students learn to interact with others throughout their lives (Martin & Dowson, 2009)—including people of different races and authority figures—the way programs envision and prepare teachers to form relationships with students may have great consequences for society. Programs may communicate a great deal about teacher–student relationships without realizing it or addressing it explicitly. Therefore, teacher education programs should examine their practices around this, as well as their pedagogy, curriculum, disciplinary system, and fieldwork—all of which are deeply intertwined with teacher–student relationships. To improve relationship development, programs should clearly articulate a humanizing relational vision, employ coherent coursework aimed at the development of multifaceted relational competencies to support that vision, explicitly address race and equity in coursework, and require meaningful fieldwork that allows preservice teachers time to connect both formally and informally with students from diverse ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds.

Finally, while this study reaffirms that fieldwork is critical for the development of relational expertise (McDonald et al., 2013), residents’ varied experiences in fieldwork suggest that school structures play a role in teacher–student relationship development. Thus, school leaders should consider the messages their policies send in regard to relationships, too. By supporting humanizing “I–Thou” relationships with students, programs and schools can foster community now and in the future.

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Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Victoria Theisen-Homer

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available online with this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Victoria Theisen-Homer is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She is the author of the book Learning to Connect: Relationships, Race, and Teacher Education. Formerly, she taught high school English and was named one of Los Angeles Unified School District’s Teachers of the Year.

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