Excerpted from the Teacher Leaders Network

Martin Haberman puts a high emphasis on the ability of teachers in hard to staff schools to establish connectedness and maintain relationships with the students there. These teachers "assume and cope with the fact that they and the children will have to operate in bureaucracies with irrational policies and insensitive people. They act as grease between the machinery of a mindless system and the needs of their children."

I love this last sentence — it articulates what I wish I could be for my students. Apparently I need more than wishing to make this happen, though. He goes on to says that teachers who are successful in high-poverty schools:

• Warmly accept inclusion students with disabilities as a reasonable expectation of their job

• Believe parents/caregivers are resources not merely homework helpers

• Work with health and human service workers involved with their children and families

• Understand student development in terms of cultural and ethnic knowledge

• Know how to prevent and de-escalate violence

• Demonstrate respect and caring for students who may commit despicable acts

• And last and probably most important: They demonstrate behaviors that are "not" part of teacher preparation programs because they cannot be transmitted as subject matter in a college class or workshop.