Seeing and Being When the mother of the child featured in my Helping Kids Be Brave post sent along this new picture, I couldn't help being struck by something about it.
Learn about your own culture and be ready to talk about it. Know why you're who you are because of where you came from.
Know about the community in which you live PDF. How does it connect to and reflect the cultures that lived there in the past and today? Talk about stereotypes in the media and in the world around us. PBS and MediaSmarts both have great tip sheets on how to do this. Think through the instructional materials that you use, with a specific eye toward the kids in your class and the community where you live.
Are there positive examples of different races, roles, and levels of affluence? Do you include the full spectrum of gender , or only the binary? Take a look around your classroom. Does the decor reflect the languages and cultures of the students who sit in the seats? If not, ask them to help you create something to kick off the new year. Student work makes for great decoration -- and it's free!
I have a bit of an attitude, and I have asthma. I may be late in the morning. I am an outgoing person and I like to listen to music when working. I am a teenage mother. I am lactose intolerant. I dislike English because of essays and poems.
English is my best and favorite subject. I love to read. I respect all my teachers and I try to do my work. I am very outgoing and am a non-violent person. Once you get to know me I can be nice and kind. I have read all of your books for this semester. I love dogs, hate cats.
I can do the work but just do not like doing it. I love ice cream. I play basketball and soccer well. I am a very friendly person. The most important thing I should know about you is your background.
English is not my favorite subject. I am a shy person. I really like English. My favorite color is green. I do not like a lot of homework. English is my best subject. I like to read and I am very cooperative. I find it hard to stay focused if the topic is uninteresting.
I like to listen to music while doing my work. I like to have fun while doing my work, but I always get it done on time. I want to do really well in school. I have mood swings. We can build rapport with our students by mirroring their body posture and using similar gestures. We can use some of the words they use, and we can adapt our voice to match their tone of voice as much as possible. We can learn about their interests and ask them about them.
If they play baseball, we can ask about their last game. If they enjoy track, we can ask them about that. The more we get to know them on a personal level, the better we will be able to relate with them. We can visualize success for them, both short-term and long-term. What do you believe your students will be doing, both now and in the future?
In addition to making our own observations about our students, we can tell them what others have said about them. Jones, who had you in class last year, said you loved to read. Smith, who works in the cafeteria, said she appreciated how you helped clear the tables at lunchtime yesterday. We can also use words to imply that students are already doing a good job.
Finally, we can paraphrase what our students say to let them know we have heard them. Babad, E. Bernieri, F. American Educational Research Journal, 28 1 , Costa, A. Revised by J. Cognitive Coaching foundation seminar learning guide 11 th ed. Edwards, J. Inviting students to learn: tips for talking effectively with your students. She is a Rotary Peace Fellow who has taught nationally and internationally:. Building relationships with students starts before they ever enter the classroom.
Is the classroom inviting and reflective of student interest, culture and need? In my first years of teaching, I made sure my room reflected things I liked. As teachers. What about students with disabilities: would they see someone like them in a poster or art?
Next, we need to check our class library and reading assignments to be sure they consist of authors and protagonists of various races, cultures and genders. Other simple ways to build relationships are to pronounce names correctly, do interest surveys and take time for individual conversations with students.
Attending school events when your students are playing, performing or presenting also lets students know you care. But I would say some of the strongest ways to build relationships are to have shared experiences. Create classroom traditions or even a class cheer.
They can be as simple as getting to sit in a special chair on your birthday or a class photo on your special day. In my class we often sing, do movements or dance together to learn a concept. No one cares how good we are; we just have a good time doing it together. Actually, the worse you are, and the students see you are willing to vulnerable, the more they are willing to participate. Our songs and dances are pretty goofy. Kids often joke about them, but they are OUR routines and traditions.
We proudly refer back to them all year. In addition, create lessons that allow students to reflect on and share their experiences. Teachers need to participate in these activities too. When the students are asked to write something personal, share your story first. Play the game with the students. Laughing and sharing experiences together builds community. As you build a class community through sharing stories and experiences, the trust deepens.
Unfortunately, many struggle to see or believe it. I make it a point to find something each student is good at and either publicly or privately praise them for the quality. I take it one step further and tell them how a boss, a friend or spouse would appreciate that quality. I continually call out that quality each time I see them display it. You are so conscientious and organized. This year, when I had a student take over a game when the assigned leaders were letting it fall apart, I praised her for her leadership skills.
I made a comment that her teachers from her last school must have really liked that about her. She went on to tell me how she had been bullied most of her life. By the end of the year, I had given her many more tasks to lead. As the year progressed, she and her classmates began to see her as a leader and called her one. Through that process, the relationships will grow. Kara Pranikoff is a elementary school teacher at a public school in New York City.
Her book, Teaching Talk: A Practical Guide to Fostering Student Thinking and Conversation Heinemann, shares many ways to keep the balance of classroom discussion in the hands of the students:.
I had a dedicated room in my building, but most of my hours were spent in the classrooms of my colleagues as we planned and taught and learned together. One of my favorite things about being a literacy coach was the ability to watch students grow up. This spring, while in conversation with a mother whose eldest son was graduating from fifth grade, I remembered a story about a favorite toy falling down the stairs, which he wrote during his first weeks of kindergarten.
As a young writer he perfectly conveyed his story through an illustration of a stairway stretched diagonally across his paper, a toy hovering above each step, connected by arrows to show the downward motion. Really, they are looking to connect. Something happened during my time in their classrooms, when we got to know each other not as teacher and student, but just as interested and interesting equals.
I have loved my time out of the classroom and the insights it has provided, but for the past few years I have also longed for a tighter community of my own. This coming school year I will be heading up a second grade classroom, which I have been planning and dreaming about all summer. Our pull toward narrative is strong at every age. The stories we tell draw us together and help us get to know each other intimately. Building relationships requires individuals to share parts of themselves, to reveal themselves, to find connections.
Your students want to know about you as much as you want to know about them. So, think about some good parts of your past to share. What were you like when you were their age? What were your favorite games to play during recess? I guarantee the stories will make their way home and soon the parents in the class will feel a little closer to you, too.
In the course of a day a teacher needs to work like a camera lens, continually zooming out to catch the class as a whole and then zooming in tight to see each individual student. This ability to shift focus helps a teacher gain clarity about the students who she is teaching.
We need to teach the group as a whole, of course, but the real learning happens during independent work time. Kneel down next to individuals, watch their process and confer about their thinking. This focused time makes your learners feel attended to and will help target your lessons in response to individual needs. When your students come to school and want to tell you about their soccer practice or the lego creation they made last night, they are really asking to be seen as individuals.
They let you into their lives because they want you to know their whole-selves in a more well-rounded perspective, not just their school-selves. These details build connection and memory. They allow each student to take an independent shape in your head. Hold on to what your students share with you in these off-moments, write them down somewhere to help you remember.
The delight is in the details.
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