Love your students so they can learn

I just received an e-mail from a new and amazing colleague about this article from LaVanguardia.com. This section is great:

¿Algo más?

Sí: no olvidéis la grandeza de este oficio. Centraos en los por qué y para qué más que en los cómo. Y usad lo que hoy se sabe acerca del aprendizaje.

¿Qué se sabe?

Que somos animales emocionales, y que una simple mirada aprobatoria de un profesor... estimulará al alumno. ¡Sólo educa quien quiere a alguien! Si queréis a vuestros alumnos, educaréis. Si no, no.

 It is nearing the end of an interview with an educator, parent, and author who seems to have a great sense of what is important in learning.  The last line: "¡Sólo educa queien quiere a alguien! Si queréis a vuestros alumnos, educaréis.  Si no, no." One only educates if they love someone.  If you love your students, you will educate them. If you don't, you won't.  

This moved me so much thinking about class today when two students told me how frustrated they were that they couldn't stop speaking Spanish when they left class and I couldn't stop myself from hugging them.  Or yesterday or over the weekend when I was writing comments to all of my students who are doing amazingly well and teaching me (and all of us in the class) so much.  I'm not sure if it means I will educate them well, but at least I love them.  Or my amazing office mate who, as I was reading this article, was working to support a student who was struggling but getting to understand him and what was going on with him and getting in the way of his ability to turn in his work. 

Love is central.  Otherwise, we should just give kids computers or textbooks and they could "learn" all this "stuff" we are trying to get them to know.  As my three year old might say, "Boring!"