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Figure P1.1: Assess your understanding of how poverty affects students.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Do not confuse this mindset with me telling you that it is impossible to succeed with every student unless each likes or respects you. Some students (those from strong, intact families) come from such stability at home that they need less relationship time at school. When a student has an emotionally stable family, good friends, and positive relatives, the need for relational stability at school is less. Ask yourself, “How can I show my students I care about their home life as well as their classroom life?”
Your students will care about academics as soon as you care about them. As neuroscience tells us, we are hardwired to connect (Commission on Children at Risk, 2003; Moriceau & Sullivan, 2005), and effective teacher-student relationships contribute to student achievement. Also, this contribution varies depending on students’ socioeconomic status and grade level. The research tells us that relationships mean more to students who have instability at home than to students who have a stable, two-parent foundation (Allen, McElhaney, Kuperminc, & Jodl, 2004). Among all students, good relationships have a 0.72 effect size, which makes them an exceptionally significant and strong effect size catalyst (Hattie, 2009). Among secondary students, the effect size is an even larger 0.87 (Marzano, 2003).
The scope of the relational effect goes much further, and I explore it in depth in Poor Students, Rich Teaching, Revised Edition (Jensen, 2019). The bottom line is that relationships influence engagement in multiple ways. First, quality interactions within a relationship provide instruction, correction, modeling, and support for students, forming the basis of a teacher-student relationship (Hughes & Kwok, 2006). Second, a positive teacher-student relationship enhances students’ sense of classroom security and increases their willingness to engage in the classroom (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Third, evidence shows that quality relationships can help students achieve more through greater connected engagement (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). Another study reveals that students’ positive or negative classroom relationships are equal to IQ or school achievement test scores in predicting if a student will drop out (Jimerson, Egeland, Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000).
The next three chapters offer the following strategies to help you build relationships with your students that will get them on board emotionally and socially.
1. Personalize the learning.
2. Connect everyone for success.
3. Show empathy.
In these chapters, you’ll see how relationships offer the emotional environment through which all course content flows. There is no classroom content without some sort of context, even if the context is a digital device. Let’s dig in.
Questions for Daily Reflection
Each day, consider your own mindset for fostering connection and relationships with your students, and answer the following questions.
1. Have I recently seen other teachers successfully build quality relationships with their students? How did they do it? Could I do something similar?
2. Which students in my classroom have I not taken the time to get to know? In what ways can I connect with those students that will make a difference for them?
3. Are there students in my classroom who appear to feel unsafe, not respected, or disconnected from their peers? How can I change those things?
CHAPTER 1
PERSONALIZE THE LEARNING
Think about the faces you see in your classroom every day. How many of these students are more than faces? How many can you look at and say that you know something personal about them, about their lives and the challenges they face? Take a moment to think about how you make learning in your classroom personal. As you consider your current practices, fill out the survey in figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1: Assess how well you personalize learning in your classroom.
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As you reflect on your answers, remember that to get personal in this context means connecting in a personal way so that your teaching gets students to perk up and pay attention to that which is relevant: themselves. Even if you can say that you make an effort to make the learning in your classroom personal, there is always room to re-examine your practices and look for ways to improve. That’s why this chapter is all about fostering teacher-student relationships by creating a culture of personalization. In this chapter, you will engage with the following four strategies.
1. Learn students’ names.
2. Create a Me Bag.
3. Share an everyday problem.
4. Share progress on goals.
The strategies in this chapter lay the groundwork that makes the other mindsets in this book effective; as you engage with them, reflect on what you already do and how you can evolve your existing practices. Maybe it will also inspire you to add something new.
Learn Students’ Names
To create a culture of personalization starting on day one, learn every student’s name, and make sure students all know each other. Neither you nor your students need to be a memory champ to do this. You just need to care and take the time to set up the learning process, then practice, just like the students in your class. When you use a student’s name, be sure to smile and make eye contact. Many times, a simple handshake or other appropriate connection will show a lot to your students (you care). You may already be great at learning student names; but even if you are, many of your students have a hard time remembering the names of their peers, which is also important for the relational mindset. In this section, you’ll find strategies to help both you and your students learn each other’s names.
Name-Learning Strategies for Students
There are many smart ways to remember names and faces. One of the simplest is to first put your brain in a curious state. Say to yourself, “OK, what is this student’s name? Is it __________________?” That primes the brain to care and to listen better. Then, when you hear the name, use it! Use it under different circumstances such as standing, sitting, when giving a compliment, or standing at the door. You can also put together notecards on each student that you update as you learn about them and use those as often as necessary for you to remember details about him or her. See figure 1.2. Note you don’t necessarily have to take your own photos for these profile cards. Most schools keep student profile photos you can access.
Having tools like this to help you keep track of your students can significantly speed up the process of getting to know them, but you have many other options at your disposal. Here are some strategies for learning names.
• Introductions: At the start of the school year, have students say their first names every time they speak. Do this for the first thirty class days (if you have thirty students, or twenty days if you have twenty students).
