I ran into a student and his parents at Ikea, one day.

The student teacher relationship is in a constant state of flux. But it is a slow flux. The bumps and vagaries of daily in and outs are not nearly as important as the overall meta-curriculum that over arches the years of student teacher interaction. It is this long handed view that I have in mind when I think of the relationship, certainly not the constant flux of the in and out.

Thee relationship is based on structure. That this is so is easily demonstrated by the response of a student the first time she sees her teacher outside of the four walls of the classroom. For some students, the initial sighting of the teacher of one’s youth in a non-school setting is worse than meeting a real werewolf.

I remember vividly the reaction of one student when he saw me at Ikea one Saturday morning. Very rarely have I seen a person actually speechless. This one came close. “My TEACHER!” He exclaimed, half gasping, eyes more open than they’d ever been in any of my classes previous or since. “WHAT, are YOU doing here??!?!?!?!” I sheepishly admitted that, I too, had come to Ikea in search of treasure. I might as well have been the Loch Ness monster, there among the Billy bookcases. Why this reaction?

The young student has no understanding of the teacher apart from their role as that of teacher. In that role, the interactions between the two are tightly prescribed and don't often deviate too far from prescribed or predictable ingteractions. Taken out of the setting, the furtive student is confronted, not with the Teacher, the (hopefully) esteemed one, but the Human, who eats, shops, fumbles and waits in line, just like them. Where they had expected a role, they are presented with an actual person, unscripted, shooting (possibly) from all angles. And what to do?

Depending on the student, and the teacher, and their interactions, any number of things can happen. This one was amazed and stood in shock. I have seen others laugh and yet others immediately revert to their in school persona students –usually the wrong move: the parents then sometimes follow suit, morphing ‘parents-of-student-X”, and the teacher is forced to conduct a kind of sad, impromptu parent-teacher interview.

Even with teachers who have, for me, some ten years been colleagues, that Posture remains. I can scarcely call my High School band teacher by his first name. I hate it in fact, and would rather call him that than anything else. One wants it. Hence the hilarity, on our year-end graduating class school trips, of inviting the students, if they dare, to use our first names. The hilarity ensues. Only one or two can handle this, and most find they must soften, endear or make a joke of it. Those that do, half force themselves to do so consciously and end up unconvincing. The fundamental relationship remains.

And it’s better that way, isnt it? As, after all, we all need teachers, all need to be taught, and how can this happen if we are always looking eye to eye, and never up?