Benard (1995) describes the importance of caring and support in the school:
"Given the incredible stresses in urban families and communities, for many children the inner-city school is a refuge. School serves as a 'protective shield to help children withstand the multiple vicissitudes that they can expect of a stressful world' (Garmezy, 1991, p. 427). Garbarino's (1992) research on children growing up in 'war zones' in the U.S. and elsewhere found that, 'Despite the overwhelming pressures in the environment, 75-80 percent of the children can use school activities as a support for healthy adjustment and achievement when schools are sensitive to them and their burdens' (p. 121). Listen to Naomi, age 17: 'School was my church, it was my religion. It was constant, the only thing that I could count on every day....I would not be here if it was not for school' (Children's Express, 1993).Werner and Smith (1989) studied all the children born on the island of Kauai in 1955 and found that, 'Among the most frequently encountered positive role models in the lives of [these] children, outside of the family circle, was a favorite teacher. For the resilient youngster a special teacher was not just an instructor for academic skills, but also a confidante and positive model for personal identification' (p. 162). Noddings' (1992) work on caring led her to believe that for schools to be true centers of learning, they must embrace caring in all its forms--care for self, for intimate others, for associates and acquaintances, for distant others, for nonhuman animals, for plants and the physical environment, for the human-made world of objects and instruments, and for ideas. In an earlier article she writes that as traditional structures of caring deteriorate, schools must fill the void, giving teachers and students a place to talk together and share experiences. She says about the key to school success, not only for children labeled 'at risk' but for all children: 'My guess is that when schools focus on what really matters in life, the cognitive ends we now pursue so painfully and artificially will be achieved somewhat more naturally....It is obvious that children will work harder and do things--even odd things like adding fractions--for people they love and trust' (Noddings, 1988).
In longitudinal and ethnographic studies, youth of all ages, all colors, and all places tell us over and over again that what they want is a teacher who cares. Stanford University's Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching found in a study of adolescents that, 'The number of student references to wanting, caring teachers is so great that we believe it speaks to the quiet desperation and loneliness of many adolescents in today's society' (Phelan et al., 1992, p. 698). Furthermore, studies of school dropouts repeatedly identify the lack of anyone who cared about them as the main reason for these youth leaving school (Higgins, 1988; Stevenson & Ellsworth,1993).
Affiliation is a basic human need from which individuals draw support, a sense of belonging, and motivation. As personality theorist Erikson (1963) long ago pointed out, the first stage of development in any system requires the establishment of trust, the sense of safety, constancy, and predictability. Findings in brain research document that like resilience, intelligence is innate to all human beings, but--and again paralleling resilience--unfolds in the presence of a nurturing environment. Pearce (1992), a major synthesizer and translator of this research writes, 'All the infant-child (and the adult as well) wants to do is what nature intended: learn, build those structures of knowledge. And all that is needed for this is an appropriate environment--being surrounded by a mature intelligent intellect, open to mind's possibilities and tempered by heart's wisdom' (p. 14).
Caring in school is seeing possibilities in each child and using one's wisdom of the heart. This means that teachers and other personnel must muster the compassion to look beyond the hostility in some youth to the insecurities that lie underneath. As Werner and Smith (1992) write, 'The resilient youngsters in our study all had at least one person in their lives who accepted them unconditionally, regardless of temperamental idiosyncrasies, physical attractiveness, or intelligence' (p. 205). Teachers must 'reach beyond the resistance,' as educator Kohl (1994) advises, and connect with a youth's soul. Truly and carefully listening to a youth's story is a powerful signal that a teacher believes and accepts the youth and cares about him or her. In her research on resilient survivors of childhood abuse and trauma, psychologist Miller (1990) claims, 'On closer examination [of a person's childhood] it turns out in every case that a sympathetic and helpful witness confirmed the child's perceptions, thus making it possible for him to recognize that he had been wronged' (pp. 50-51).
While it is impossible to overemphasize the importance of teachers as caregivers, we must not overlook the role of caring peers and friends in the development of resiliency and school success (Kohn, 1991). Werner and Smith's (1989) study found caring friends a major factor in the developmentof resiliency among the children of Kauai. Extensive research by Johnson and Johnson (1990), as well as by Slavin (1990), on the positive social and academic outcomes of cooperative learning and group development repeatedly confirm the importance of peer social support. Other studies of prevention programs that focus on increasing social support to youth demonstrate significant positive outcomes such as reduced levels of alcohol and drug use and dropping-out of school (Felner et al., 1985; Eggert & Herting, 1991; Mehan et al.,1994). Similarly, numerous programs in which peers help peers exponentially increase the caregiving resources available to youth, attest to the power of a caring ethic in school (Benard, 1990).
Creating a schoolwide ethos or climate of caring means teachers, too, must have caring support networks. McLaughlin's (1990) work demonstrates that collegial support is not only the key to sustaining change within a school but also the critical variable leading to higher student achievement (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993). The repeated success of Levin's (1988) Accelerated Schools and James Comer's (1984) School Development Program is due, in part, to the caring, supportive relationships these schools have with the families of their students.
The caring ethic is obviously not a 'program' or a 'strategy,' per se, but a way of being in the world, a way of relating to youth, their families, and each other that conveys compassion, understanding, respect, and interest. Caring is also the source of the two other protective factors that help produce resilience in children and youth: high expectations and opportunities for active participation." (pp. 68-69)
