Building a Relationship with Your Students

In our professional lives, we all want to feel cared for and valued by the significant people in our world. Students are no different. This knowledge is a powerful tool in the arsenal available to you as you form your classroom discipline plan. As a classroom teacher, you wield a great deal of power over your students simply due to the fact that you control their destiny for up to six and a half hours each day, five days a week. When students feel that you value and care for them as individuals, they are more willing to comply with your wishes.

Building a relationship with your students is the most important action you can take to ensure a good year that will help your students learn. There are three specific ways to build a relationship with your students.

Be Open about Yourself- Students need to know that you are willing to share who you are. That doesn’t mean you tell them everything about yourself in one big chunk, but it does mean you connect with them personally by allowing them to see parts of who you are. For example, one activity I used at the beginning of the school year was to ask students to describe their perfect teacher. I also described my perfect teacher, based on my past experiences. I shared mine first, explaining why I wrote what I did. For example, my perfect teacher smiles, just like Mrs. Oleshin did when I was in the fifth grade. She  also expects me to live up to my potential, like my high school English teacher, Mrs. Adewale. My perfect teacher isn’t a grouch, like one of my teachers (who will remain anonymous) was.

After I shared my example, students shared with each other, then with the whole group. We all laughed, and develop a shared list of characteristics of the perfect teacher. Typical characteristics included being nice, asking me how I’m doing, not yelling at me, helping me if I need help, not giving too much homework, and saying something positive if I did something right. I ended by telling them that, although I would never be perfect, I would try to meet their needs. (TO BE COTND)