Thayer-Bacon (2003) asserts that educators and all those who work in schools should promote and emphasize caring relationships because humans are social beings in relation with others. Similarly, Webb and Blond (1995) highlight the importance of caring relationships in school contexts as essential to relational knowing. In their study, Webb and Blond find that caring and knowing by being in relation is a reciprocal bond. As the teacher and student both develop a sense of knowing, namely when the teacher cares and understands his or her student by being in relation and the student understanding that the teacher cares for him or her, a response and effect takes place. Webb and Blond argues (1995) that, “When in-relation, when a teacher cares for her
intersubjective way” (p.624). Furthermore, education requires relationships for teachers to know their students, about their lives and their individual learning abilities, in order to understand “what students know already and what they need to learn” (Thayer-Bacon, 1998, p.116). Thayer- Bacon argues that by knowing their students on a more personal level, teachers can work more effectively and assist in the students’ learning process by making connections with what students know and what they need to learn. Thus, education can provide the space for students to become knowers. If teachers and schools recognize that relationships are necessary for both students and teachers in order to further student learning, caring relations should be required and expected.
Earlier in the global citizenship section, I introduced Ikeda’s concept of compassion which he defines as the ability to develop empathy for all people including distant others. In the context of schooling and teacher and student relationships, Noddings (1984) and Held (2006) have extensive scholarship on the notion of care that I believe can help define and identify further what Ikeda’s teacher and student relationship entails. The ethics of care has several qualities that both Held (2006) and Noddings (1984) address. Two of those qualities are fundamental and essential, which include: 1) attending to the particular other, and 2) valuing a caring relation fostered with the particular other. The ethic of care begins with persons having “a compelling moral salience of attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility” (Held, 2006, p. 10). In a caring relation, persons are committed to fostering, nurturing, and maintaining, the relation and are concerned with the well being of the other.
According to Noddings (1984), a caring relation takes place between one-caring and cared-for. One-caring represents a person who practices care and cared-for refers to the person who receives care. For the purpose of reading with clarity, I use Noddings’ framework and
regard one-caring as she and cared-for as he. In a caring relation, one-caring must be, foremost, attentive to the cared-for. She has a moral obligation to care; when practicing caring, she demonstrate the following attributes: engrossment and motivational displacement. Engrossment results from her commitment to attend and respond to the cared-for. She shows receptivity through qualities such as fully listening and making effort to understand the cared-for. Motivational displacement is the other attribute that follows by fully receiving the other and putting one’s own needs aside to meet the needs of the cared-for. Suspending one’s own view is the only way teachers can understand their students and ensure that is it a caring relation and not one that is a “manipulative or harmful to the student, or vice versa” (Thayer-Bacon, 2003, p. 247). As a result, caring is “other-centered” (Thayer-Bacon, 1997, p. 30). Thayer-Bacon further adds that caring is a commitment to being open and receptive and to continuously self-reflect. Thus, when the one-caring is feeling for the cared-for, not from her assumed perspective of how he feels but when she understands from his perspective, she is displaying motivational displacement.
Held’s (2006) and Noddings’ (1984) notion of caring, which Thayer-Bacon (2003) describes as caring reasoning, that attends to the other, that commits to maintaining the relation, and holds concern for the other are steps for how teachers can enact the five points I identified earlier as teachers’ role. Those roles are, faith to believe in students’ potential, the ability and creativity to stimulate interest, to encourage students with confidence, commitment for teachers to continually self-reflect on their actions, and fostering a caring relation. These actions in turn reflect Noddings’ concept of engrossment and motivational displacement.
Because the one-caring is fully engrossed in the relation, the response she receives from cared-for manifests in genuine joy and motivation to promote further care for him. Response
varies and can be from a simple nod or smile to a more complex engagement with the one- caring. Most importantly, the response represents acknowledgement that the care and effort from one-caring is recognized by the cared-for. His role and responsibility, to acknowledge and respond in reciprocation, contributes to additional care; the reciprocity completes the formation of a caring relation. In short, the caring relation takes three steps which include interacting (willingness to be attentive), acknowledging, and reciprocating. The caring relation can be between any two persons. It can be an intimate relation between mother and child or it can be a less intimate relation between two strangers that bumped into each other on a street. Therefore, from the latter relationship, it is clear that the length of time is also not limited as long as the three steps of interaction, acknowledgement, and reciprocation takes place.
The caring relation that involves the three steps, interaction, acknowledgement, and reciprocation mirrors and help describe Ikeda’s (2010b; Marinoff & Ikeda, 2012) concept of mentor and disciple relationship. The teacher attends to the student and shows the student a way of life. Then, the student acknowledges with appreciation. And, finally, the student reciprocates by repaying that gratitude. The student reciprocates by carrying out the mentor’s mission or way of life.
In this section, I introduce Noddings’ (1984), Held’s (2006), and Thayer-Bacon’s (2003) concepts of caring to describe Ikeda’s concept from a Western perspective. The concepts on caring were the closest to Western tradition in describing Ikeda’s mentor and disciple relationship and teacher and student relationships. However, Ikeda’s notion of caring is slightly different and is developed from the Buddhist perspective of compassion. This is clear and evident from the proposals he gives detailing the qualities to foster in global citizenship and human education. On the other hand, Held (2006) argues that caring is not compassion or
altruism where the carer might be interested in the benefit of the cared-for. She explains that “caring is a relation in which carer and cared-for share an interest in their mutual well-being” (pp. 34-35). Similarly, Noddings (2012) explains that caring is separate from virtue carers who might be interested in the assumed needs and not in the expressed needs of the cared-for (p. 773). Therefore, Noddings argues that caring is completed when the cared-for acknowledges and shows reciprocation. In contrast, the Japanese term for compassion (慈悲 jihi) is formed by two Chinese characters, which literally reads to give happiness and remove suffering (SGI-USA, 2016). Ikeda’s notion of caring and compassion inspired by Buddhism is in helping others to become happy by helping them realize their innate potential. Thus, although the concepts of caring shared by the Western thinkers helps explain Ikeda’s notion of caring, Ikeda’s concept offers a deeper description that also reflect his other beliefs about education.