It wasn’t long into my teaching career before I became aware of the fact student-teacher relationships are important. These student-teacher relationships are the beginning and end of classroom community.
My first year of teaching I had a student I couldn’t seem to reach. I thought I was doing everything right. Engaging lessons were planned. I encouraged students to work together through cooperative learning strategies. Extra time was spent with my students by having lunch together in the classroom once a week.
What I didn’t do was take the time to get to know my students as people, instead of students. This was my critical mistake.
Once I realized I needed to get to know my students as people, not students, the tide turned. Our classroom became more of a family and less of a group of people randomly thrown together. Some strategies for getting to know my students were no-brainers I needed to stop thinking about and just do. While others required a bit more effort, but they were ALL worth it.
Build Student-Teacher Relationships by Start the Day Off Right
I know it is tempting to use the time while your students arrive to get a little something done. However, this time is essential to student-teacher relationship building. Instead of hanging out at your desk, greet each student at the door. I am a big fan of the hug, handshake, or high-five choice for students to greet you.
I know things come up. There are days when I was busy when my students arrived. It happens, but I always made the effort to greet each of them by name as they walked in the door. This made all the difference.
Similar to our greeting in the morning, I also made sure to say a personal goodbye. Most of my students were bus riders, so I was able to walk them to their bus. Here I would give a high-five or fist bump as they boarded along with some all important eye contact.
While both of these tasks seem so simple, they give each student a moment of individualized attention made it worth it.
Implement a Classroom Meeting to Encourage Student-Teacher Relationships
Classrooms meetings are something I learned about in grad school but didn’t fully implement for a few years. Sure, we sat in a circle and shared a fact or two about ourselves, but we didn’t truly dig deep.
When we did start digging deep to problem solve issues which came up among our classroom community is when the magic happened and those student-teacher relationships grew stronger. Students saw we were truly in it together. When a problem came up in our classroom, or sometimes in their home lives, we worked together to find a solution.
Dedicating a set amount of time each and every day to a classroom meeting was a turning point for our class which was definitely worth it.
Build Student-Teacher Relationships with the 2×10 Strategy
The 2×10 strategy is invaluable when it comes to our toughest students, but is valuable for each and every one.
To begin this strategy you select a student and dedicate two minutes each day for ten days to talking to them exclusively. The power of this strategy is the chosen student gets your undivided attention for the full two minutes to talk about anything they want to. If the two minutes gets interrupted you start it over again.
When your ten days is up with one student you are ready to move onto the next one. I generally had more than one student going at the same time. I would talk with one student early in the morning, another during lunch, and a final student at the end of the day, usually during after-school care. This way I was able to make it through my whole class list much faster, so I could start over again.
This undivided attention allows students to see personal, individualized attention is important. This strategy is definitely worth it!
Front-Load Your Feedback to Form Positive Student-Teacher Relationships
It is easy to fall into the trap of providing too much negative feedback, especially with our most challenging students. It is vital we front-load positive feedback when our students are having a great day and giving their best effort.
Ideally, you want to provide three positive pieces of feedback for every negative piece of feedback. There are a few ways to make sure this happens. You can read more here.
Along these lines, it is important to remember praise should be public while corrections should be received in a more private atmosphere.
Taking the extra time to provide extra positive feedback will always be worth it.
Follow Their Personal Passions to Grow Student-Teacher Relationships
Our students, no matter how young, have their own passions. Chances are they are ready and willing to talk about their passions to no end. Why not embrace these passions and use them in the classroom?
If you have a student who is incredibly knowledgeable about sharks bring in a bunch of shark books and use them to learn about non-fiction text features.
Do you have a student who is passionate about football? Have them teach the other students how to throw the perfect spiral. Then have a contest measuring how far each student can throw the ball and then graph the results.
Does one of your students play a musical instrument? They can bring in their instrument during science when you study sound waves and energy.All of these ideas are win-win because students get to use their passions and share them with others. Seeing their faces light up will make it worth it!
Share About Yourself to Improve Student-Teacher Relationships
I still remember the first time I saw one of my teachers outside of school. I was horrified to run into her at the grocery store, and my mom looked at me and asked, “Did you think she lived at the school?” Honestly, as a seven-year-old, I did.
Students inherently want to know about you. They want to know each and every detail about you. You are like a reality show they watch every day, and they want all the behind the scenes footage, even the B-roll.
I am not advocating for sharing every little thing with your students, because privacy is important, but choose a few areas of your life you share freely with them.
For me, I shared my hobbies of reading and racing cars with my students. I made a point of always telling them what I was reading and how late I had stayed up because I had to read one more chapter. Often students checked out the books I had mentioned, and it built up our bond. Additionally, sharing my hobby of racing cars with my students gave me major extra credit cool points and an instant conversation starter.
While it sometimes feels a little cringy to share details of your life with nine-year-olds, it bolsters your student-teacher relationship which makes it worth it!
Wrapping Up
In the end, student-teacher relationships count for a lot. They can get you out of a hole and build your students’ confidence in you. No matter if they are easy or hard, they are worth it!
Want more ideas for creating a positive classroom with a classroom management makeover? Check out this course from Teacher Trap!
