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September 2016 | Volume 74 | Number 1
Marge Scherer
Part of a theme issue on "Relationships First"
Table of Contents
Rick Wormeli
Although teachers can build positive relationships with students throughout the school year, the first weeks are crucial, writes Wormeli. They set the tone and conditions for the year ahead, creating a more effective teaching and learning enterprise for everyone. Wormeli tells how, as a middle school teacher, he set a goal of learning the names of all 185 students in his teaching team by the end of the first four-day week. This was just the first leg of the year's journey in relationship building. Other strategies the author recommends are inviting parents to respond to the prompt, "In a million words or less, tell me about your child"; asking students to "write a letter from your parents describing you," soliciting students' input about the best ways for them to learn, and building esprit de corps through shared efforts like a full-day hike or a service project. The author also describes how teachers can make sure students feel safe (for example, by responding to students' inappropriate comments with concern instead of taking them personally) and for displaying empathy (for example, by sitting in students' desks and seeing things from their point of view). The goal of these efforts is to create a classroom ethos of respect, in which the teacher conveys to students, "I see you, I accept you, and I value time in your company."
Eric Toshalis
"We often say to one another that 'students won't care what you know until they know that you care,' and this may be true. But our students' knowledge that they are cared for depends on what we do far more than on what we say," writes Eric Toshalis. In this impassioned article, he urges educators to rethink what it means to care for students. He argues that the distance teachers put between themselves and their students in a bid to establish discipline and consistency leads to dispassionate classrooms. Toshalis also examines the importance of acknowledging the politics of the student-teacher dynamic whereby the teacher (as an official of the education system) holds all the power. Finally, the author explores why teachers shouldn't expect students to trust them—at least not right away—and why anger is a powerful tool for gauging and helping to establish relationships.
Michael C. Reichert
Long stereotyped as not being interested in building relationships with teachers, boys actually search for—and are in need of—teachers who make meaningful connections with them, writes Reichert in this article. The author examines how school practices of the past and present have contributed to the so-called gender achievement gap and stresses how relationship building can help to close that gap. He also shares anecdotes from a study he conducted with 1,000 teachers in 36 schools around the world about relational teaching approaches with boys. In speaking with these educators and their male students, Reichert's findings included the fact that boys pin-pointed the quality of a relationship as a make-or-break decision to engage in class. He also gleaned seven strategies for teachers to use with male students, such as the importance of demonstrating subject-matter mastery, maintaining high standards, and accommodating a measure of opposition.
Susan E. Craig
According to the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, about one quarter of children in the United States will witness or experience a traumatic event before the age of four. In this article, Susan E. Craig explains how these early trauma histories prime a child's brain to expect certain experiences, particularly perceptions of negativity from parental-like figures. As a result, children who have experienced trauma are likely to exhibit behavioral problems in the classroom. Craig explores how teachers can establish trusting relationships with these children. Using an example of an early childhood educator, she supplies recommendations for how teachers should respond to behavioral outbursts. Craig also provides suggestions about how to create a predictable learning environment and teach students to monitor their internal worlds and thereby control their emotions.
Michael Sadowski
Over the past three decades, much of the conversation about LGBTQ students in schools has centered on safety—anti-bullying policies, the "safe space" of gay-straight alliances, and "safe zones" marked by rainbow-colored stickers on classroom doors. In this article, Michael Sadowski argues that it's time to move beyond safety and to provide these students with an environment in which to thrive. He provides case studies of three schools that have taken their support for LGBTQ youth to the next level, including a Massachusetts high school that offers an LGBTQ literature course, a Georgia high school that provides LGBTQ counseling, and a New York middle school that has created an LGBTQ-inclusive culture. Sadowski asks, "Is safety the only thing that LGBTQ students are entitled to, or can we do better?" Through these examples, he shows that schools certainly can give these students both a safe place and a voice.
Robert Jackson
Growing up in a poor, dysfunctional family in a violent inner-city neighborhood, Jackson faced daily challenges even getting to the bus stop without being attacked by gang members. When he was bused to a white suburban school in 5th grade, things got even worse. Every black student who was bused in from his neighborhood was placed in remedial classes, where they had to test their way out. Teachers made little effort to get to know these students or to understand their circumstances. Not only students and parents but also teachers often made sarcastic and racist remarks. Jackson became a success in spite of the lack of support he received from teachers, but he understands why many low-income black and Latino males don't. In this article, he draws on his experiences as a student and teacher to recommend some basic principles for educators who want to build strong relationships with these students, including active listening, fairness and consistency, transparency, and appropriate discipline.
Growing up in a poor, dysfunctional family in a violent inner-city neighborhood, Jackson faced daily challenges even getting to the bus stop without being attacked by gang members. When he was bused to a white suburban school in 5th grade, things got even worse. Every black student who was bused in from his neighborhood was placed in remedial classes, where they had to test their way out. Teachers made little effort to get to know these students or to understand their circumstances. Not only students and parents but also teachers often made sarcastic and racist remarks.
Jackson became a success in spite of the lack of support he received from teachers, but he understands why many low-income black and Latino males don't. In this article, he draws on his experiences as a student and teacher to recommend some basic principles for educators who want to build strong relationships with these students, including active listening, fairness and consistency, transparency, and appropriate discipline.
Lisa Medoff
"Baxter pushed me away every moment that we worked together, He was rude, sarcastic, and often downright mean. He got up and walked away every time I asked him to do something he didn't want to, which was … everything." That's how Lisa Medoff describes the 4th grade boy whom she tutored twice a week to help him manage his ADHD. Despite her usual ability to see the strengths in every child, Medoff found it hard to like Baxter. But instead of giving up, she persevered, working harder with him than she had with any other student—and ultimately they developed a solid partnership. Medoff offers recommendations for other teachers on how to forge the connections that students with ADHD need so much—for example, asking students to help you figure out what they need; framing new strategies as experiments, not decrees; teaching students how to question in a respectful, positive manner; and sharing stories with students about your own struggles.
Elizabeth Bondy and Elyse Hambacher
Care is in the eyes of the receiver; it doesn't exist unless those being cared for experience it. The authors describe culturally relevant critical teacher care, an approach that considers the effects of students' cultural and socioeconomic conditions and that helps teachers find ways to show care to every learner—especially those from oppressed groups. Bondy and Hambacher describe three principles of this care for students (having political clarity, embodying critical hope, and sticking to asset-based thinking). They describe four helpful practices that they observed in a long-term study of two effective 5th grade teachers. These teachers embodied a culturally relevant approach to supporting students: expanding the meaning of achievement; overhauling deficit thinking; offering high expectations and support; and teaching with urgency.
Tim Westerberg
If classrooms teachers play the lead role in establishing relationships that help students do their personal best, principals are leaders in creating good school environments for adults. Westerberg, former principal of award-winning Littleton High School in Colorado, shares six principles that help create positive schoolwide relationships. Drawing on examples from his time as principal, he describes the positive effects of (1) showing students respect; (2) being visible in school; (3) being clearly in control; (4) clarifying your non-negotiables; (5) modeling respect for civility and civil rights; and (6) showing affinity for students.
Stephanie M. Jones, Rebecca Bailey, Gretchen Brion-Meisels and Ann Partee
Schools can view challenging student behavior in one of two ways: (1) as a failure on the part of the student or teacher that distracts from the work of learning, or (2) as a normal developmental occurrence that provides an opportunity for the student to practice new or emerging skills. The authors of this article, researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, assert that research on the importance of strong teacher-student relationships supports the latter approach. The authors describe strategies to prevent discipline issues while promoting relationships and building key skills (for example, "Cool Kid," "Class Council," and "Peace Path"), which they developed and collected under the acronym SECURe (Social, Emotional and Cognitive Understanding and Regulation in Education). Pilot studies have shown that the SECURe approach improves classroom climates and improve students' social and emotional well-being.
John Hayward
Teacher John Hayward believes no classroom can advance far academically unless the teacher has first guided the class to become a community. With a focus on the first days and weeks of school, the author shares strategies any teacher can use to help everyone in the room learn about one another and to show students that he or she will be a transparent and trustworthy instructor. Hayward suggests alternatives to publically correcting students whose behavior disrupts and ways to carefully observe students as they learn—to lay a foundation for both knowing them well and for helping them.
Sidney Brown
In the early 1990s, a coup in Haiti sent a new wave of political refugees to southern Florida. First-year teacher Sidney Brown taught ESOL classes to Haitian teens who came to Dillard High School in Ft. Lauderdale. As she got to know her students, she was surprised by the class distinctions that divided the French-speaking students, whose upper-class families had come by plane, from the Creole-speaking students, whose families had come in leaky, crowded boats. She also grew concerned about the conflicts between the Haitian refugees and the school's African American students. In this article, Brown narrates how she helped her Haitian students unify by designing their curriculum around their common concerns about injustice. She also describes how the students built bridges with the larger school community through their passion for drumming, and how they shared their personal stories in a prize-winning academic project.
Bryan Goodwin
Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey
Catlin Tucker
Thomas R. Hoerr
Carol Ann Tomlinson
Theresa Crowley
When teachers make the effort to build a solid relationship with each student, built on trust, they often engender a life-long connection, one that's life-changing for the student. But how can teachers grow such long-lasting relationships with all students, especially disenfranchised learners and those who make it hard to connect? Crowley, a veteran 1st grade teacher, describes steps she and her co-teacher take to build relationships with each child, starting with telling students on day one, "Your long-term success in life is our goal." Other strategies she shares include talking sensitively with students about their academic challenges and any serious problems you know are happening at home; forging a plan with the student to solve such problems; making each student an "expert" on something in the classroom; tackling attendance problems; holding class meetings; and arranging one-on-one time with various students.
James Fornaciari
As legendary Cubs manager Joe Maddon did with his players, seeing students as people first works for teachers who hope to build cohesive classes that achieve. Maddon's strength was his emphasis on cultivating positive relationships among his players. Taking a tip from Maddon's strategy, Fornaciari, an Advanced Placement history teacher, shares seven strategies and habits from his toolkit that help teachers cultivate bonds with each learner and build positive feeling within his classes as a whole: Propose a shared, ambitious mission; create a safe environment; get to know one another; challenge students and offer support; develop rituals; celebrate student success publically; and use humor.
Christopher Emdin
When faced with students who have learning skills, styles, and backgrounds very different from their own, teachers can promote academic rigor by engaging in reality pedagogy. This approach proposes seven strategies, or Cs: Cogenerative dialogues (in which teachers solicit feedback from a dissimilar group of students); coteaching (in which students are called on to teach); cosmopolitanism (in which students take over some of the operational activities of the classroom); context (in which teachers incorporate their knowledge of the community in everyday instruction); content (in which both teacher and students grapple with a topic); competition (in which students compete in nontraditional ways to show what they know); and curation (in which teachers and students study classroom videos to identify practices that negatively affect student learning). The author notes that the only "true path to academically rigorous classrooms" is through building strong student-teacher relationships.
Cherish R. Skinker
In this essay, veteran high school teacher Cherish R. Skinker recounts how she connected with hard-to-reach, struggling students in her 9th grade English classes. In a supportive classroom environment, Skinker's students explored the year-long theme of "a hero's journey" through texts like The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet. Students ended the year by reading Skinker's favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. She recounts how the class tackled tough themes and vocabulary—all while learning about one another. After teaching this unit for 16 years, it's no surprise that the teacher was overwhelmed with messages from former students when Harper Lee passed away in February 2016. It was then that Skinker realized that her students had learned the most important lesson she could have ever taught—that she was there for them and that they were there for her.
Kim Greene
Copyright © 2012 by ASCD
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