When it comes to school culture, RELATIONSHIPS may be the most important factor to developing and maintaining a strong school environment. It's all about relationships! Every successful teacher and principal that I have ever worked with had a knack for creating and fostering positive relationships. In Hamish Brewer's book Relentless, he places a major emphasis on building relationships. Brewer states, "The straight up truth is that my success in education is not rocket science, it's relationships!" (BTW...This is an excellent book!)
Since becoming an administrator, I have been privileged to observe some highly effective teachers, with a toolbox full of excellent teaching strategies. You see…I always thought I was a really good teacher. However, after evaluating these highly effective teachers, I quickly realized that many of them could "teach" circles around me. When starting a discussion about relationships with my faculty/staff, I was very transparent with them. I explained that I may not have been the strongest teacher of content, but my students would run through a brick wall for me! I always took time to develop professional/appropriate relationships with my students. They knew I cared about them. Therefore, they always worked hard for me! How did I do this? It's really not hard.
*Smile!
A simple smile is a powerful gesture! When you smile you release dopamine in your brain, which lifts your mood. Not only does it make you feel better, it makes those around you feel better. It is scientifically proven that smiling is contagious. When you smile at someone, you are basically "slinging dopamine"!
*Greet students at the door every day!
This starts every class off on a positive note, as well as provide an opportunity for the teacher to quickly assess how each student is doing that day. For example, the teacher smiles and greets a student, and the student smiles and speaks back. That is a pretty good indication the student is doing OK. However, if a student doesn't respond appropriately, it may be a red flag, and should tell the teacher to follow up with this student.
*Learn and incorporate student interests!
If you really want to get students interested in your content, incorporate their interests! Teachers should start out each year by having students complete a student interest survey. This will give teachers an idea of what each student's interests are. Teachers can use the feedback to relate the content to student interest, and guide relationship building conversations. When teachers take time during transitions, lunch, and recess to have these conversations, students start to trust and become more invested in the learning process.
*Share about yourself!
When teachers ask students about their interests, I feel that it's only fair for teachers to share a little about themselves. When students see their teacher as more than just a teacher (family man, dog lover, musician, sports fan, etc…) it helps them relate to the person leading and guiding them every day.
*Attend events and parties!
I know this can be tough when you have a family. However, I encourage all my teachers to try to attend a couple of student events each year (that will have the biggest impact on relationship building). For my elementary teachers, they may choose to spend a Saturday at booster ball games, where they will see many of their students playing basketball and cheer-leading. They may also attend dance recitals (a large number of our girls are part of a dance company in town). When I was teaching, the event I attended that had the biggest impact was a Saturday afternoon birthday party. One year, my teaching partner and I had a class full of rowdy 8th grade boys. We were constantly in the hall dealing with issues (disruption, disobedience, horseplay, etc…). We knew several of these boys were going to be at this party. We didn't tell any of the boys we were coming (or the parents either). I guess we were "party crashers"! We pulled in the driveway and got out of the truck wearing Nike shorts, t-shirt, and athletic shoes. The boys were in the front yard playing football, and they went nuts! Parents were on the front porch waving and smiling from ear to ear. We ended up playing QB for each football team for the next few hours. We then ate hot dogs and played video games for about an hour. After that day, I never had another discipline issue with any of those boys in my classroom! A bond was created, and relationships were built just by giving up a few hours of my time. Those boys talked about that party all year long!
My big push for any teacher is BE 3! Huh?!? What in the world does that mean! Don't you normally want to be #1? Let me break it down for you. There are three types of teachers:
Teacher #1- This teacher is a genius when it comes to content knowledge. However, this teacher does not have very good relationship building skills. This teacher will never get the most from his/her students because the students will not be invested.
Teacher #2- This teacher's content knowledge is definitely not genius level, be he/she has strong relationship building skills. This teacher's students will work hard for them , but they will only see average to a little above average results.
Teacher #3- This teacher has very good content knowledge, and has really strong relationship building skills. This teacher will get the most out of his/her students because they understand how to effectively communicate the content, create engaging learning experiences, and the students are fully invested!
So, it's really simple…teachers need to push themselves every day to Be 3! They need to dig deep into their content standards to develop an extensive understanding of how to best plan lessons and effectively communicate standards. They also need to focus on building positive relationships. Having respectful positive relationships encourages students to be more engaged and and fully invested in the learning process.
Upcoming: In the next post of this series, we will discuss the importance of clear and effective communication.