The Tone of Teaching

This popular book for parents and teachers is now republished in a second edition, revised and updated. The author defines sound pedagogy as the ability to distinguish effectively between what is appropriate, and what is less appropriate, in our communications and dealings with children and young people. He shows how tactful educators develop a caring attentiveness to the unique; to the uniqueness of children and to their uniqueness of individual lives. He describes how this “tone” of teaching can be sustained by the cultivation of a certain kind of seeing, listening, and responding to each child in each particular situation.

Also available in: English (First Edition) and Japanese.

Pedagogical Thoughtfulness and Tact
Understanding the Child’s World of Possibility
The Child’s Experience of Curiosity and Wonder
Seeing Children Pedagogically
Every Child Needs to Be Seen
The Importance Of Recognition
The Pedagogical Dimension of Teaching
The Pedagogical Significance of Discipline
How Do Children Experience Our Presence?
The Power of Atmosphere
Children Teach Us Hope and Openness
Children are Natural Forgivers

Competence is a way of being with children

Every adult responsible for a child needs to cultivate thoughtfulness and tact. But tact is a competence that few books in education (if any) talk about. Why not? I think because it cannot be described in a direct and straightforward manner. However, we can describe pedagogic tact indirectly, by way of examples and anecdotes. This is what I have attempted to do. I have described it as a particular sensitivity and attunement to situations. No theoretical knowledge, no rules or general principles of how to behave tactfully can be found. And yet it is possible for parents and teachers to cultivate both thoughtfulness and tact.

How can we do it? First we need to understand the physical nature of knowledge. How intimately the human body is connected to the human spirit! It is often said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. That means that human beings mirror themselves from the inside, and the world mirrors itself from the outside. Through the senses we are connected as seeing, hearing, and touching beings with our children.

Think, for example, how we experience a glance. In a glance we see and are seen. In a glance the soul mirrors or expresses itself. And so we meet the soul of the other in a glance of love or hate, trust or fear, in a warm or cold glance, in an admiring or despising glance, in a glance of severity or leniency, confidence or unease, in a glance of caring or indifference, hope or despair, in an open glance or a deceiving one.

Through a glance we know the other and the other knows us. But, for a truly discerning knowledge of the soul of the other we need to refine our ability to see and interpret a glance. We need to know the importance of small things in our dealings with children. The big things are always in the small! We need to know how a meaningful wink can be more consequential sometimes than a barrel full of words. A perceptive teacher realizes when to be silent, when a small gesture is appropriate, when to pass over something with an understanding smile. Silence speaks. Sometimes the finest moments with a child, as with any friend, are spent in the comfortable company of silence.

And then there is the glance of passion for knowledge. No fanaticism or faked enthusiasm, but a glance which betrays how knowledge is absorbed in the teacher’s personal forms of thinking, feeling, and acting. The example of a glance is important for illustrating that methods or techniques of teaching cannot be adequately described by external knowledge.

Imagine that we have just observed a rowdy classroom. Here is a classic example of a beginning teacher who does not know how to effect discipline in a classroom, helplessly facing taunting students, defiant looks in their eyes. Now observe another teacher. One admonishing glance in response to a smart remark from a student is enough for this teacher to settle the same class down to work. How can one teacher be so ineffective while another has only to look at the class to establish authority? Could one learn how to control a class with a glance? Could one write a “how to” book to help others learn? Not likely. To treat the glance as a mere teaching technique is to treat the knowledge of the glance as external. An effective teacher can be effective with a glance because the teacher is the glance. The glance is already the teacher’s way of living and understanding the classroom situation.

Of course it is entirely possible that the glance of an “effective” teacher is effective only in silencing a class into intimidation, fear, or oppression. Such authority is not true pedagogic authority. Such discipline is not true pedagogic discipline. So we need to be aware how we, as teachers, are known by our children as we are captured in turn by their glance.

We may want to be encouraging to an unsympathetic child who needs encouragement. We may say the “right” words, but our glance betrays our true feelings. Through a glance we are immediately known to each other. A sobering realization. A glance cannot be manipulated in the same way as words can be shaped to suit our purposes.

And yet there is a practical implication in our understanding of the nature of a glance. On the one hand we can learn to sharpen our acuity of “seeing.” On the other, we need to realize that we cannot easily (if at all) cover over our own glance. From minute to minute children and teachers are involved in reading from the face of the other what is disquieting, moving, boring, interesting, or disrupting. Children automatically check what we say with our mouths against what we say with our eyes. If the mouth and the eyes contradict each other, they are more likely to believe the eyes (the glance) than the mouth (the words).

And so, to cultivate pedagogic thoughtfulness and tact one needs to act in such a away that the glance expresses the soul’s capacity for pedagogic relationship. In other words, pedagogic thoughtfulness and tact are not simply a set of external skills to be acquired in a workshop. A living knowledge of parenting or teaching is not just head stuff requiring intellectual work. It requires body work. True pedagogy requires an attentive attunement of one’s whole being to the child’s experience of the world.

A selection from the content:

The Importance Of Recognition

It is not surprising perhaps that many stories that students tell have to do with approval, being noticed, feeling special. Giving encouragement and positive feedback is one of the most common gestures expected from teachers in classrooms. It means that we prize, value, and esteem someone for something. Moreover, supportive commendation is supposed to build self-esteem in students. But obviously giving praise is not without danger.

It is important that teachers understand the positive as well as the possible negative consequences of praising students. A compliment should be meaningful and should not be granted indiscriminately because, if given too readily and too freely it may lose its significance. Yet, many students no doubt deserve commendation for a variety of reasons. And on occasion it is possible that only one student or only a few students stand out for their accomplishments. For this very reason compliments create dilemmas.

Teachers would like to recognize all students, especially if they make good efforts, but the practice of praising everyone equally in all instances is self-defeating. And sometimes teachers want to praise a single student, but they may not always realize that such acclaim may create difficult situations for the student. This is how a high school student describes such a situation:

Mr. Jackson made a big production of his disappointment. He went on and on exclaiming his amazement at the mistakes people had made on the science test. “My God, did I do such a poor job at explaining this stuff to you people? I know there is nothing wrong with your brains. And, you Wendy? Ken? What happened?” It was obvious that he did not really expect an answer. And nobody tried. The class was completely quiet. None dared to crack a joke. Most kids got a failing or near failing mark. Only two or three students barely made over 60 percent. Again Mr. Jackson blew his cool, uttering his disgust while he walked around the room, demonstratively placing each paper in front of its owner, as if he could not quite believe it, as if he wanted to verify each case. Most students sort of looked sheepishly. I feared my turn, feeling already ashamed. A sense of doom seemed to be hovering over the class. I tried to tell myself inwardly that this was not the end of the world. I would do better next time. When the teacher finally reached my desk, he stopped and suddenly changed his tone of voice. The shift was so dramatic that I am sure everyone in class startled. All eyes were on me. But the teacher’s face lit up and I heard him say, with an air of approval: “Oh, thank God, there is one amongst you who has caught on. It goes to show that there is still hope” He waved my test paper above his head, like a silly flag, before he placed it solemnly in my hand. “Good for you, Sarah, not a single mistake. A perfect mark!” I scarcely could maintain my composure. I had expected the worst and was awarded the best. I did not need a mirror to know that my face was blushing red. The class was still strangely silent. No one uttered a word while the teacher walked back to the front of the room. I kept my face turned down, staring at my test paper. I could not completely suppress a faint smile. Was it relief? Vanity? Embarrassment? I dared not look at my friends. I did not trust my eyes. Why did I feel so stupid when I was supposed to feel smart?

This looks like a story of humiliation (of the whole class) and praise (of a single student). The teacher singles out a student for recognition, but the student feels confused. What seems a positive gesture on the part of the teacher (to compliment a student on good work) has potentially ambivalent significance. The pedagogical question is, did the teacher act appropriately? What is the experience of recognition?

Other Editions / Translations:

First English Edition

(55 pages)

Max van Manen (1986)

Richmond Hill: Scholastic Press (in Canada)
Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heineman (USA)

Max van Manen