There is a sculpture in a museum near my home that I keep rediscovering. The sculpture, “I Need You” by Rose B. Simpson, depicts a mother and a young child embracing. It is placed in the middle of the room, allowing visitors to observe it from all sides and build their journey of discovery as they circle it.
At first glance, it is a commonplace sight: a mother and her child embracing in a bond we easily recognize and many of us relate to. The mother is holding her child, guarding and supporting her, fully, without hesitation or restraint. Her commitment to holding and safeguarding her child — making sure that she knows she is being held and protected — is unmistakable. Nothing could disrupt her commitment and embrace.
As we walk over to the other side of the sculpture, we see a matching certainty. The child clearly fully abandons herself to her mother’s embrace, knowing that she is safe and cared for, no matter what. The mutuality of this unquestioning, reliable, caring-for and being-cared-for is unmistakable in this stunningly beautiful sculpture.
Caring and cared for
I connect to this work of art both as a parent and as a teacher educator. It makes me think of a truth I often discuss with preservice teachers: A fundamental aspect of a teacher’s job involves being a consistent, reliable presence that any student, regardless of their personal circumstances or school situation, can count on. A student may like us or not and learn our content or not, but they must always know, without any doubt, that we will be there and have their back.
Conversely, as truly inclusive teachers, we may have prepared good lessons or not, appreciate a student or not, but we must be there and unmistakably have their back. This mutuality must be clear and unwavering, just like the relationship of the mother and the child in Rose B. Simpson’s sculpture. The positions of the teacher and the student as carer and being-cared-for must be seen as a matter of fact.
A student may like us or not and learn our content or not, but they must always know, without any doubt, that we will be there and have their back.
However, we must also acknowledge that the teacher taking care of students is doing a job with a wage, a contract, the right to resign, and contracted working hours. The teacher has a life beyond this job and caring relationship. The unbounded nature of unconditional caring is in tension with the very need for boundaries to make any professional activity sustainable, teaching included. In fact, teaching that is truly caring requires substantial self-care and boundary-setting to make the work feasible. It follows that teacher preparation and professional development programs need to explore self-care practices for teachers as part of their curricula if we want students to be included and cared for reliably.
An ethic of care
Nell Noddings (1988) positions the teacher within an ethic of care that is explicitly modeled after the caring typically associated with a parent figure. Following this view, the overriding priority of the carer — the teacher — is the welfare and growth of the cared-for — the student. For Noddings, the student’s growth is contingent on both the student and the teacher playing their part in this caring relation. The teacher must actively provide care, and the student must actively accept and receive the care — just like Simpson’s mother and child.
Similarly, Alex Venet (2023) proposes that a teacher’s fundamental role is to value their student no matter what: “The message of unconditional positive regard is ‘I care about you. You have value. You don’t have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing’s going to change my mind’” (p. 98). But unlike Simpson’s mother and child, the teacher has a professional role that is separate from the rest of their life. They may feel unconditional positive regard, but their professional responsibility — and therefore their responsibility to demonstrate unconditional and reliable care — has a beginning and an end.
The necessity of boundaries
Teachers are among the professional groups most prone to job-related burnout (Cipriano & Brackett, 2020; Howard & Johnson, 2004; Ransford et al., 2009). For this reason, universities, districts, and schools should promote social-emotional learning (SEL) for educators with a focus on wellness (Palmer, de Klerk, & Modise et al., 2019; Schonert-Reichl, 2017). Teachers must learn to care for themselves so they can care for their students. To do this, they need support in disconnecting from their caring job at the end of the workday to give them time to attend to their own health and the people in their personal life.
At the same time, the solution cannot be to care less or only care conditionally for students. The tension cannot be resolved by simply doing one of the two less or less reliably. Instead, we must consider that self-care could make it possible for teachers to care more effectively for students.
Teachers can only be expected to unconditionally care for each of their students if they are prepared and supported in approaching teaching as a caring profession rather than an all-encompassing existence.
Think of a mountain climber: A climber without protective gear has to prioritize safety above everything else, including the climb itself. They will be more fully committed to the challenge of climbing a cliff if they wear strong protective gear. One might argue that a teacher who feels their well-being is at risk is likely to be on their guard and less ready to commit themselves to focusing on the student.
In other words, teachers can only be expected to unconditionally care for each of their students if they are prepared and supported in approaching teaching as a caring profession rather than an all-encompassing existence. Preparatory coursework and professional development have to focus on teachers’ needs as well as students. Teachers need practical approaches and strategies to promote their self-care and work life balance so that immediate concerns with their own well-being do not keep them from caring for their students.
References
Cipriano, C. & Brackett, M. (2020). Teachers are anxious and overwhelmed. They need SEL now more than ever. EdSurge.
Howard, S. & Johnson, B. (2004). Resilient teachers: Resisting stress and burnout. Social Psychology of Education, 7, 399-420.
Noddings, N. (1988). An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional arrangements. American Journal of Education, 96 (2), 215-230.
Palmer, J.M., de Klerk, E.D., & Modise, M.A. (2021). Re-prioritizing teachers’ social emotional learning in rural schools beyond Covid-19. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 8 (2), 68-88.
Ransford, C.R., Greenberg, M.T., Domitrovich, C.E., Small, M., & Jacobson, L. (2009). The role of teachers’ psychological experiences and perceptions of curriculum supports on the implementation of a social and emotional learning curriculum. School Psychology Review, 38 (4), 510-532.
Schonert-Reichl, K. (2017). Social and emotional learning and teachers. Future of Children. 27, 137-155.
Venet, A.S. (2023). Equity-centered trauma-informed education (1st ed.). Routledge.
This article appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 3-4.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Clyde Martin
Peter Clyde Martin is a professor in the Department of Education at Ithaca College, New York.
