Misunderstanding Love

Sep 23, 2024

5 min read

“Love is a form of death. Love is about lifting every voice..to be a person of integrity in a world that seems to be overwhelmed with greed. Justice is what love looks like in public. Anytime you give fully of yourself, there are elements of your old self that are dying because a new self is in the process of emerging.”

I found the above quotes in one of my class notebooks from my doctoral studies. The class was taught by Professor Cornel West. I looked forward to this class each week because the topics stayed with you for days. There was one class in which Professor West began by posing a question to us: “Have you died in the process of being at Harvard?”

The death he was referring to was not literal death, but transformation…had I been transformed by an expereince(s)? This was the question that years later ran through my mind after cancer treatment as I was trying to make sense of it all.

One time, I had the opportunity to ask Professor West what we, as educators, needed to do to transform outcomes for children, and he responded, “Love the children, always speak the truth and never lose hope.”

As I began to write this blog entry, the news headlines were about P. Diddy getting arrested for running a sex trafficking operation and the unveiling of other celebrities who may be involved. All of these individuals have been admired by many and they have professed love for their fans…Diddy even renamed himself “Love” because he claimed to be a different person who chose love over evil.

Love can be used in manipulative and abusive ways. In this headline case, people were hurt because love was used as a form of abuse and domination.

As children, we learn that unconditional love is the love for those we put at the highest levels: our parents, our caregivers, and our teachers. As an educator, I had unconditional and deep love for my students and their families. I went into education because I saw education as a vehicle for uplifting student voices. When I began my own schooling, I saw how my immigrant parents were marginalized by our school community for not speaking English, and therefore marginalized me as well. It took a new principal who knew the importance of giving my parents and others a voice. He used his own voice to speak the truth and questioned why non-English speakers were treated less than in our school community. That was an expression of love.

As an adult, I was introduced to the philosophy of Maria Montessori who saw love as being able to fill a child’s consciousness and affect their self-realization. Maria Montessori believed that, “When young children feel love from parents and caregivers and witness love between others that are close to them, they develop kindness, respect, and dignity.” Which makes me wonder how children are affected when they hear that musicians they idolize or other adults around them engage in acts of harassment and abuse? In schools we often remind students to treat others nicely, but as adults, are we modeling love, kindness, respect and dignity towards each other?

In Professor West’s class we learned about the difference between deep love and sentimental love. Deep love is a connection between people that involves respect, trust, and empathy. Sentimental love is the type of love that is cultivated for the spectacle. It is never followed through, it is a gesture. It usually leads to cynicism where there is no concern for integrity, standards, and ideals. Recalling my experience in schools and districts, I would always hear a good amount of sentimental love in our school lounges and team meetings. How many times have you heard educators speak negatively about families and complain about students? Now, I am not saying you can never complain about students. We are human after all and perhaps we complain out of frustration of seeing a student underperform or we want to share some of our difficulties with colleagues whom we feel may be sympathetic to our experience. However, imagine how much more powerful it would be if we sought our colleagues to help us brainstorm ideas for how we could help our students and families out of respect, trust, and empathy?

Professor West would say that we engage in sentimental love because we just want to talk about good things. In reality, we may have no intention to follow through because it means that we need to bear some of the burden for what is wrong. It would make us realize and come to terms with how we are implicated in the problem. For some, speaking up against what is wrong is a risk. Instead, we sometimes prefer to put on a “mask” and proclaim we love and care for our students. We will hear comments such as, “In order to solve this problem we need to continue to focus on our work.” This is an avoidance of true love. By not being willing to engage and follow through on the issues affecting the community, we will instead create an environment in which there is no concern with integrity, standards, or ideals.

I have always had the great fortune to work with mentors that always centered our conversations around students. They reminded me that transforming education can be very messy before positive results are visible. They provided and encouraged constructive feedback to carry me through the messiness. They always reminded me that I had the responsibility to use my voice and experience to speak up for what was best for students. From them, I learned that my primary goal was to create joyous and rigorous learning environments in which only the best was provided to students. During my cancer treatment I found that all of the lessons my mentors taught me were also applicable in a hospital system by replacing students with patients.

I still have deep hope that public education is still the best means of transforming trajectories for students and their families. I realize that the type of hope I have will require that I wrestle with messy situations and may sometimes lead me to feel despair. Regardless, I have to continue to work towards my quest for creating beautiful and joyful learning communities in which students know that they are loved. Love gives you fortitude, even in the face of catastrophe. Love makes you stronger and is a source of gratitude.

So I will end this blog with five ideas for you to consider in order to create a loving learning community:

Conduct empathy interviews with different groups of stakeholders and ask them, “How is love expressed in our learning community?” Follow up this question by asking, "What should we start, stop, and continue doing in regard to how love is upheld in our school/district?"
Interview a student panel and ask for their input on how to develop and express kindness, respect, and dignity on your campus? It is important to not just include the typical student leaders. Make sure your student panel includes a multiple of student voices that truly represent your entire student body.
Dedicate a staff meeting to share the results of the above student panel and invite them to also develop ways in which kindness, respect, and dignity is practiced on campus by the adults. How can the adults help to bring the student ideas to fruition?
Bring your leadership team together and ask your leaders what fortifies them? What is a source of gratitude (both professional and personal) for them?
Hold a district leadership conversation around how do you ensure that love is not just a district slogan, but an on-going practice that becomes part of the district culture?