Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own. But you might also consider pairing with another colleague or forming a group of people who have read (or are reading) Connecting with Students. You might consider modifying the questions for use in professional development courses or workshops on various topics, including classroom management, discipline, harassment, school climate, social-emotional learning, student alienation, or violence prevention.

Introduction

1. In theory, educators seem to agree that students need to feel connected. Most understand that potentially dangerous students are usually quietly disconnected, often escaping detection on the radar screens of school personnel. Why are we finding that today's teens tend to be an extremely alienated generation?
2. Although it is easy to point to large, cavernous, increasingly overcrowded buildings as an important source of student alienation, there are many other factors. What do you think the leading factors are? Do schools contribute to student alienation? If so, how do our schools contribute to this sense of alienation reported by increasing numbers of students?
3. Schneider and Stevenson (1999) conducted interviews with students in an effort to discover their preferred activities. Which activity would you predict that the students identified as their number one favorite? What preferred activities do you expect your students would identify as their favorites? When you were in school, what kinds of things did your favorite teachers do that made you feel connected to them?
4. Students who have experienced rejection, teasing, harassment, or bullying have perpetrated virtually all high-profile incidents of school violence. Do you think it is possible to reduce or eliminate these hurtful kinds of behavior in school? Why do you think kids pick on each other? If all hurtful behavior were eliminated, would students be deprived of any life learning experiences? How can we teach students to cope effectively with people whose behavior reflects intolerance?
5. In schools today, we see an emphasis on high standards and high-stakes testing. With so much time needed to cover curriculum, how can we properly challenge our students while taking the time to nurture and care for them? Some educators believe that it is the job of the family, not them, to care about their students. Are there some people you know or have learned about who were unlikely to have achieved unless one of their teachers showed a personal interest?
6. A wise philosophical maxim suggests that people will only care what we think when they think that we care. How does this relate to curriculum in the classroom? A survey at a comprehensive high school conducted by the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers found that only 30 percent of the kids agreed with the statement, "My teacher would miss me if I stopped coming to school" (Rose, 2000, p. 11). What do we know about the relationship between the need to belong and success at school?

Necessary Attitudes and Feelings

1. According to the author, what key attitudes, beliefs, and feelings do educators need to effectively connect with students?
2. Educators are people, too. We all have our preferences for certain kinds of people. Make a list of those students that you have the easiest time being around. What are they like? How do they come across? How do they usually behave in your class?
3. Which students are difficult for you to be around? What gets in the way of liking them? What kinds of things do they say or do that makes them less appealing than the kids you like? The author suggests that connecting with students means that we must sometimes separate our personal beliefs and preferences from our responsibility to feel concern and compassion for those we might find personally unacceptable. How can we separate our personal feelings from our professional responsibilities?
4. What positive benefits or "lessons" does the author suggest that challenging students provide educators?
5. Some people have suggested that "zero tolerance" policies in schools can actually lead to a deepening of hatred that may make angry students even more dangerous. How can this happen? What are some viable alternatives to blanket zero-tolerance policies that provide safety for all without always excluding an offending student?
6. The author indicates that an attitude of optimism is critically important in developing effective connections with students. Further, he indicates that people who are living healthy lives and taking good emotional care of themselves fuel optimism. Is there enough support at your school for your own emotional well-being? What practices exist at your school to help you take good emotional care of yourself? Are there other possibilities that you might suggest?
7. Which of your students give you a hard time? Think about some of the characteristics shown by these students that you especially find distasteful. What kinds of labels might usually be used to describe these students? What does the author say about changing labels that can shift our reactions toward difficult students and ultimately our strategies in working with them?
8. Students who are intrinsically motivated to learn may or may not need a relationship with us to benefit from our instruction. What are some noticeable differences between students who are intrinsically motivated and those who are not? Did you ever have a mean or uncaring teacher from whom you learned lots of good stuff? What was there about yourself, the class, or the teacher that kept you learning? Can you identify any teachers that got in your way of learning? If you could give them some advice from your perspective right now, what would you say?
9. What is the relationship between classroom discipline and the way we connect with our students? Students often cite "fear of embarrassment" as an important factor in keeping them from participating more in class. What classroom policies or rules do students need to feel emotionally safe?

Developing Personal Connection

1. According to the author, what is meant by "personal" connection? What is the relationship between personal connection and academic competence?
2. Does personal connection only mean being nice to students? How does honest, direct, and sometimes critical feedback relate to personal connection? On page 27, the author gives an example of how a "caring" educator might deal with inappropriate language. Imagine right now that a student said something that you find offensive. What might you say or do that could enhance your relationship to that student, as well as the class, while at the same time gaining you the respect that you deserve?
3. Many strategies listed in this section could be considered by some as gimmicks. What might be a viable rationale for the use of gimmicks in working with students who are hard to like and how might that rationale relate to the necessary attitudes, beliefs, and understandings described on pages 12 and 13?
4. What are some current strategies you use to develop a personal connection with your students? What might be meant by the "H or H" and "4-H" strategies (page 26)?
5. The author suggests one method called the "2 x 10" in which an educator commits to spending two uninterrupted, undivided minutes each day for 10 consecutive days trying to relationship-build in a morally appropriate way with a difficult student. Nothing related to discipline or motivation is allowed. Several educators protest that they simply do not have the time to do this. Do you think that a two-minute investment of your time might be worthwhile if a student is costing you and the class several minutes a day due to inappropriate behavior? What are some in-class and out-of-class instructional strategies you might use to free yourself for these two minutes without creating additional disruptions within your class?
6. How do you suppose you might paradoxically compose a positive note to the parent(s) of a student in an effort to gain support from the parent(s), as well as compliance from the student after he has done something inappropriate (see page 29 for ideas about this)?
7. You can use hand gestures, cues, letters, and acronyms to signal students when you expect improved behavior (page 30). What do you think the following acronyms might mean: ZYL; KIO; GMF? What are some other acronyms that you might develop?
8. How might busy teachers effectively use "journaling" to keep connected to their students?
9. Based on your reading of the section on developing personal connections, identify at least 10 strategies that you could comfortably incorporate within your own teaching style (pp. 21-45)?

Developing Academic Connection

1. What are the primary reasons that students become disengaged as learners? Students who are turned-off and unmotivated are unlikely to take learning risks; therefore, their accomplishments are hard to notice. What are some ways to notice small accomplishments so that greater motivation might occur? What kind of question is generally best to ask a nonparticipating student?
2. What are some nonevaluative ways of offering supportive feedback when students make an effort? After asking a question, what is an adequate time interval to wait for an answer before moving on to another student? How might you adjust your rules based on "wait time" to keep students from interrupting each other?
3. Research has found that healthy mental messages can provide the same benefits to individuals as healthy nutrition. Identify or create at least five encouraging or inspiring messages that you could post every day.
4. Poorly organized students or those who do not value academic content tend to do better in classes when they know what is expected and why it is expected. The author suggests the importance of specifying daily learning objectives in each class. How might you do this? Do students in your classes know the purpose of each lesson? Of all content that is shared daily, which details are most important for your students to either remember or focus on? Do they know how and from whom they can get help when they don't understand content? How might it help you keep track of how your students are doing by asking them to complete an "I learned" log at the end of class?
5. Most classes contain students with a broad range of backgrounds and skills. What planning and adapting methods do you think are necessary to increase the likelihood of success for even the most academically limited students (check your answers with those offered on pages 54 and 55)?
6. The author discusses homework on pages 61 and 62. What beneficial purposes of homework are noted? How might you express these purposes to students?
7. Identify at least five strategies from the section on academic connection (pp. 45-63) that you could see yourself using—strategies that might increase your effectiveness with your students.

Developing Social Connection

1. What are some instructional methods you have previously learned that also get students cooperating more fully with each other despite differences in background, learning style, or ability? What are some other strategies that the author suggests that can accomplish the same goal?
2. How might you compose an interest inventory or do a "find someone who" activity that could give you more information about your students (page 66)? How might occasional class meetings, breaking bread together, fostering "secret Santa" exchanges, or using a suggestion box add to social connectedness among your students? How does social connectedness lead to better learning and discipline?
3. Too many teachers spend too much time dealing with minor irritating behaviors that consume instructional time. Why might it be better for students to help each other compensate for problem behaviors than expecting a discipline code to handle classroom problems? What problem-solving strategies suggested in this book can help develop a sense of community and can save the teacher lots of time, especially with regard to irritating problems like excessive attention seeking and forgetfulness?
4. Pages 70 and 71 describe methods of getting students involved in establishing and even enforcing classroom rules. Why might it be better to involve students in setting classroom rules than simply telling them? If students complain about certain aspects of school policy, what should they be expected to do if they are serious about getting the policy changed?
5. What are the benefits of having students learn effective, nonviolent methods to handle put-downs and conflict? With school violence an ongoing concern, is there value to spending classroom time teaching such methods? When students say or do unacceptable or disrespectful things to teachers, should teachers use those moments to demonstrate effective conflict resolution strategies?

For the Administrator

Connecting with Students provides many practical strategies for busy educators that help them create a caring environment for their students. Yet it is the administrators who set the tone in schools. What characteristics do you suppose are required for a climate of cooperation, sharing, and support among staff to occur? If administrators expect teachers to express a caring attitude towards their students, it can help immensely for teachers to feel cared about by administrators. What practices do you believe that administrators could implement to show teachers that they are valued and cared about? How do your answers to these questions compare with those described between pages 84 and 91?

References

• Rose, M. (2000, February). High schools that soar: Discovering what works in school-to-career programs. [Online article]. American Teacher 84(5), 10–11, 19. Available: http://www.aft.org/publications/american_teacher/feb00/soar2.html
• Schneider, B., & Stevenson, D. (1999). The Ambitious Generation: America's Teenagers, Motivated but Directionless. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Connecting with Students was written by Allen N. Mendler. This 95-page, 5" x 8" book (Stock #101236; ISBN 0-87120-573-4) is available from ASCD for $11.95 (ASCD member) and $13.95 (nonmember). Copyright 2001 by Allen N. Mendler. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.