Parker Palmer is well-known and respected for his insight that “we teach who we are.” One of the most important dispositions we can cultivate as educators is a stance of appreciation. Teachers who appreciate their students become dependable, showing through their very presence that they want their students to do well. When I enter a classroom and teach who I am, my students experience being in the presence of someone who enjoys expanding the limits of his appreciation. They see me as someone who appreciates being held accountable and actively risks not knowing in the hopes of forging connections to new ideas, new people, and new values. In all these ways, appreciation has become central to how I see my vocation as an educator.
My thinking on appreciation has been enriched by philosopher Ted Cohen. In Thinking of Others, Cohen explores the distances that separate people, and how acts of appreciation can—with imaginative effort—bridge some of these distances. As educators, we are called to connect with every student who enters our classroom, but as humans, we admittedly find it easier to connect with certain students over others. Appreciation can expand our capacity for connection, and (as William Cronon argues) in expanding that capacity, discover new aspects of our calling as educators within the context of liberal education.
Cohen is a great appreciator. In his collected essays, he expresses his admiration for everything from Beethoven and the Blues to the Simpsons and the Hebrew Bible—even the Chicago White Sox. Cohen is fascinated by the kinds of conversations that we can—and can’t—have when we try to teach someone about something we love, and they respond, “Well, I don’t like it,” or “I just don’t get it.”
Though aesthetic disagreements—or aesthetic failures of appreciation—may not seem significant, Cohen considers them important. For example, if we disagree with someone but then learn of our shared passion for a movie or piece of music, we can become more willing to see the best in the other person. Conversely, if we are moved to tears by a film, and a friend or romantic partner is not, don’t we think there is something wrong with them and perhaps think less of them?
Cohen does, and he insists that we take an interest in learning more. Aesthetic disagreement can be a catalyst that promotes self-reflection and learning how to take an interest in what someone else values and why they do so.
For me, one of the great joys of teaching is challenging myself to take such an interest and learn to care about what my students care about. Rather than dismiss their love for a piece of writing or a piece of music that I just don’t get, I ask myself, why don’t I “get” it? Am I not trying hard enough? Am I being insensitive or unimaginative? Asking these questions seriously, I have grown in my pedagogical care and concern for what my students appreciate. I’ve come to like what my students like, or at least be mindful about what might keep me from such appreciation.
When we strengthen our capacities for appreciation, Cohen believes we expand our world and further develop our ethical approach to living in it. As Michael Fisher argues in “Ted Cohen on Sharing the World,” Cohen encourages us to take an interest when we find ourselves in ethical disagreements. In a polarized world, we often dismiss people with whom we disagree. Someone who, for example, wants to make abortion a criminal offense may feel that anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but deeply immoral. The same holds true for someone who believes that denying access to abortion robs women and doctors of a fundamental right.
Even though ethical or political conflicts are different from aesthetic disagreements, Cohen believes appreciation can still play a role in responding to these conflicts. Even though we might not ever agree about some matters of fundamental importance—like the recent presidential election—Cohen encourages us to ask: Is there any harm in trying to understand why someone you disagree with appreciates or supports the person or causes that they do? Can this effort to appreciate soften hatred? Need we fear that such appreciation will undermine our deeply held convictions? Or, by forming communities of appreciation and understanding with people we view as opponents, might we be better positioned to teach—and learn from—those with whom we would otherwise be at odds?
Cohen traces his interest in appreciation to Judaism. Fond of retelling the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9), he views it as an important reminder. If we are all made in God’s image, and if each of us was also made different from one another, isn’t it our unique vocation as a human to disagree with and learn to appreciate one another?
As I’ve grown as an educator, I’ve come to see appreciation as one of the most important dispositions I can cultivate. To be effective and ethical, I must appreciate fully the cares and interests of all my students and what they bring to the classroom. I cannot just praise or appreciate those students who conform to my vision of what it means to be a good student or live a good life. Even as it can be easier to connect with students who already love and are good at what I teach, this may not be where the true teaching takes place. On the other hand, working with students with whom I have little in common or who do not appreciate my course content—whether because the class is required for graduation or they aren’t good at the subject—often calls forth my best effort and most creative thinking in the classroom.
I enjoy the challenge of inviting resistant or uninterested students into what my courses might teach them. Making the effort to appreciate my students lays the foundation for them to make the effort to appreciate what I teach. Part of being called to teach is learning how to develop this capacity for appreciation. What would it mean for us all to become the kind of educator who appreciates what we resist, ignore, or even find problematic? To feel confident in the possibility that the effort to appreciate doesn’t have to undermine our convictions? Could it not allow us to be a more dependable presence for students? When our students know that we take an interest in expanding our capacity for appreciation, they come to trust that we are creating a space in which they can be appreciated. When this happens, students become willing to take risks and grow into who they desire and are meant to become, rather than who they think we want them to be.
This dependable presence and appreciative interest is what teaching is about. It is about empowering students to discern their purpose. When they can feel, through our very presence, that we take their interests and passions seriously—when we make the effort to appreciate them—they feel invited to deepen those interests and passions and see them as portals to a life’s work, rather than something to be ashamed of or hidden away. Though appreciation may feel like a small thing in a world that we often feel is calling us to take bigger stands, it is and ought to be central to our vocation as educators.
Jeff Frank is professor of education and chair at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. He has published two books as a philosopher of education: one on John Dewey and engaging students in the present, and one on what it means to be a liberal educator. To read more posts by Jeff, click here.
