What is Respect?
Friday, February 27, 2009 at 2:05PM At The Soulard School we talk often and at length about “respect.” Several years ago, a pre-k student who enrolled mid-year reminded me of the significant abstract nature of this word. While tossing it around during a morning meeting conversation about how to show respect, she raised her hand and asked, “What is respect?”
To verify the abstract nature of this word, I looked it up. The definition has words including esteem, regard, and value. The definition of regard includes the words esteem, respect, and value. Esteem is defined with the words value, regard, and appreciate. To be valued (adj.) is to be highly regarded and esteemed. The circular nature of the definition is concrete proof of the abstract nature of respect.
I was given a few gifts that, whether the givers knew it or not, have helped me to further develop my thinking on the abstract concept of respect that is the foundation of our school. Some were articles, some quotes, a book and a conversation. I would like to share some of my initial reflections on each.
In The False Promise of Classical Education, Lisa VanDamme states that, “Education must be properly reformed with a proper understanding of abstractions that give new meaning to the very notion of facts, logic and abstract thought. It must treat concepts... as items of real knowledge, grasped rationally, based in perceptual reality, and developed inductively...” Inductive analysis is our primary process for curriculum development because it offers “practical power” to guide our students in their life-long learning. Education has always suffered from severe pendulum swings of educational philosophy. For instance progressive vs. classical and whole language vs. phonics have pitted one against the other. As no two children are identical, there is not one singular approach for all at all times. Respect creates the opportunity for balance.
In Setting the Table, Danny Meyer, innovative restaurateur (and St. Louis native), identifies “hospitality” as the foundation, and most critical factor, in his business philosophy. Arguably, hospitality is closely linked to respect. When the word “respect” is substituted for “hospitality” as he defines it – it becomes the most concise definition for respect I have ever heard or read. “Respect exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Respect is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple preposition – for and to – express it all.” Routines are a good example, For instance, our pre-k nap time, elementary rest and read time, and a consistent and reasonable bedtime at home are all done for children. In a recent New York Times article by Po Bronson, the significant and sizable consequences of this generation’s decreased time allotment for sleep are frightening. While we all share commonalities as humans, those actions that help us feel respected as adults are not necessarily the same actions that will make a child feel respected. As adults, we do not need (and probably wouldn’t tolerate) someone giving us a bedtime and holding us to it. Children, despite protests, feel respected when someone cares enough to help them set the stage (with a good night’s sleep) for a successful and happy tomorrow.
Early last year, S. (Thrive) was telling a new teacher about our school. “We don’t have ‘popular’ at our school,” she said. Cliques and popularity are primarily exclusionary and concerned with image to the detriment of others. They exist in the absence of respect. It is disheartening to hear flippant comments (from those outside our community) such as, “That’s just how it is in middle school.” “We all went through it, I survived.” Respect does not exist in survival mode.
The book, articles and other gifts I received came from various members in our community. As we continue the collaborative process of building, teaching and exploring this abstract concept of respect, we do it for each other.
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We are busy and overscheduled. Multi-tasking is the norm. Few people get enough sleep each night and it is easy to slide into the habit of operating on auto-pilot. Today’s children get one hour less sleep than they did 30 years ago. In the New York Times article, Snooze or Lose, Po Bronson tells the story of a 10-year-old whose ability to sleep began to suffer during a year in the classroom with a very demanding teacher. Her emotional wellness during the day highly correlated with her night’s sleep, or lack thereof. Concerned for her well-being, the girl’s father sought help from the family pediatrician. The pediatrician dismissed the father’s concerns commenting, “She’ll grow out of it.” Bronson says, “The pediatrician’s opinion is typical.” Research has shown that the effect of sleep deprivation on the brain is significant and complex. The pre-frontal cortex, responsible for “executive functioning”, is denied adequate glucose (energy); the hippocampus, responsible for processing neutral or positive memories, is more affected than the amygdala, which process negative memories; and genes responsible for strengthening neural connections can’t be activated in the absence of R.E.M. sleep. According to Bronson’s research, this translates into measurable and exponentially devastating results on the developing brain of a child thus impacting his or her academic performance and emotional stability.
According to research by Dr. Avi Sadeh, “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to the loss of two years of cognitive maturation and development.” MRI scans show that the neurons in a tired child’s brain lose their plasticity, “becoming incapable of forming the synaptic connections necessary to encode a memory. Dr. Matthew Walker had sleep-deprived college students try to memorize a list of words. They could recall 81% of negative words (ie. cancer) but only 41% of positive words. Dr Paul Suratt discovered a strong correlation between sleep problems and test scores of elementary students. He concluded that, “Sleep disorders can impair children’s I.Q. as much as lead exposure.”
Bronson writes, “...tired people have difficulty with impulse control, and their abstract goals like studying take a back seat to more interesting diversions. A tired brain perseverates - it gets stuck on a wrong answer and can’t come up with a more creative solution, repeatedly returning to the same answer it already knows is erroneous.” We see this in tired students all the time. However, we see it in adults all the time, too. The family pediatrician sentiment is typical and that is unfortunate. Have you ever found yourself saying those things you heard as a child that you swore you would never say to your children? It’s common, typical, understandable, human, forgivable, and a real injustice to our children if we don’t learn from it and grow from it. The father in Bronson’s story, and schools across the country, are presented with (what the scientists all) irrefutable, mountains of evidence and yet, remain hesitant to alter behavior instead choosing the “I survived, they can, too” mentality. It’s a sentiment I hear often in many forms: it’s the “real world”; “that’s life”; that’s “reality.” What exactly are we saying when we say those things?
Webster’s defines reality as the state or quality of being real; and real as “being practical and/or useful.” (Those are the first, or primarily used, definitions.) The definition of abstract includes “apart from practical or actual conditions.” If respect is... abstract by nature, then how is it manifested in reality? The definition of abstract is “to consider the essential qualities of a larger thing or several things.” Essential is that from which everything else is built upon; indispensable; fundamental; intrinsic. Certainly these must be considered in reality. Fortunately, the last, (and therefore, least used) definition of real is “intrinsic and of the essence.” In any situation where respect is absent and reality is the excuse, a cognizable shift must occur. “That’s just how it is,” triggers alarm bells at The Soulard School. A foundation of respect requires the ability to think, hear, and see abstractly.
Bronson concludes his article contemplating, “We’ve coped on too-little sleep for years and managed to get by. But when it comes to a child’s brain, is just getting by enough?” Our homework policy, in line with our philosophy, was created to protect and respect a child’s need for sleep, unburdened family time, and healthy bedtime rituals. The Soulard School is not a utopia where students are only temporarily protected from the “real world.” It is a vision and model for a difference. It is unfair to tell children that they are the future and then also to say “That’s just the way it is.” The most common question a child asks is, “Why?” I have observed an inverse relationship between age and the number of times per day that question is asked.
Why is that?
- Kelly Bock, Head of School
