Classroom Relationships

As we reach the end of the year, I've been doing a lot of reflection on the practice of teaching. This is part of that series. Today's topic is classroom relationships and their importance in teaching and learning. "Do you believe you should build rapport with students? If yes, how?" For me, this is an important part of the overall orchestration of how I run my classes, and is the key weapon in my classroom management arsenal. The reason, of course, is that when you have established a positive relationship with someone, you can ask them almost any "favor" and have a reasonable expectation of getting it--the favors in this case being cooperate with your teacher, do your work, and so forth. Relationships are important. Humans are social animals, and barring a serious psychological disorder, most of us find relationships inherently motivating. We want to do things for people we like and respect. So as a teacher, I use this basic knowledge about the innate power of relationships as the basis for almost everything that happens in the classroom. Students show up because they have to, but they learn because they want to. If the intrinsic motivation to learn is missing, you have to create a reason for the student to "want to". And sometimes that reason ends up being, "I'm going to put forth some effort in this class because I have a positive relationship with my teacher". Of course no student on earth, much less an adolescent student, will ever tell you something like that. But it's pretty apparent when it happens. This basic idea is demonstrated every time I get new students. Working at an open-entry open-exit program like Job Corps, I get new students all the time--almost every week! It may be just a handful, or it may be that 15 people at once drop out of the clear blue sky (should such a miraculous thing occur on the Oregon Coast where it rains most of the time) and land right on my roster. New students are people who are in need of training on the most basic aspects of classroom life. New students could be from anywhere, and may have an unimaginable array of fascinating life circumstances that have been known to include drug/alcohol withdrawal symptoms, recently homeless, extended time out of school, time in prison, or strategic retreat from gang involvement. Even when less extreme than the above examples, most of the kinds of students that I get were not the honor roll kids. They were probably not kids who had illustrious high school careers, and their relationship with school is often sketchy at best. They've already experienced school and found it not to their liking. So they show up with all of these prior experiences, and it's my job to sell them "school" again... When you get the kinds of students who don't like "school", your job isn't to sell them more "school" but rather more of the kinds of experiences they didn't get before coming to you. In my case, I am selling them a place to feel comfortable, accepted, and respected. In other words, I am selling them a relationship based in a particular setting, within certain parameters presented by the subject matter. This particular relationship is a mentoring relationship built within a group context, but it begins at the individual level and gradually expands outward as the student integrates and finds his or her place within the learning community. The two pieces I have the most control over are my relationship with the student, and the tone of the learning community itself. Establishing a relationship with a student, even when you're working with the "tough cases" is actually pretty easy, and involves some very basic moves any salesperson would recognize. You greet the customer right away, you strike up a conversation to get your foot in the door, and you move in for the sale. With students, you greet them early and often, you notice little things about them and comment on them (e.g. I like your shirt), and you ask them about their lives (how was your weekend?). Once you've had a few of these basic conversations, you have planted the seeds for a relationship. This works with even the most difficult students because it ensures that you have interactions with the student that are non-disciplinary in nature (which nukes the feeling of "the only time my teacher ever talks to me is when I'm in trouble). The follow up is trickier, but at its heart, the building of a relationship involves demonstrating respect and empathy in all of your interactions with students. This is something that is a long-term project, and is driven by processes that building loyalty and trust. One could write an entire book about how this works, but in short, I find that if you are consistently fair, empathetic, and respectful towards students, they will almost always cooperate with you and do the things you need them to do. The trickier part, in my opinion is managing the group dynamics of the overall learning community. This is where negativity can cause the most damage. This is your most public forum for creating and cultivating the kind of climate you want to have in your room. To use another analogy, the relationships with the students are the seeds, but the climate of the learning community is the entire field, and that field must be carefully tended to prevents pests like negativity, drama, etc from taking over. Creating a good learning community means you have to do a lot of weeding--you have to deal with things that have the potential to ruin your environment right away before they have a chance to take root. In my class, I do this by ruthlessly prohibiting things like the use of profanity, talking about others behind their back, insulting anyone, using racist/sexist language, inappropriate conversation that creates discomfort, and general complaining/whining. When these things occur, I crack down on them immediately, and with the kind of inevitability that makes it clear that such things do not have a place in my environment. The students are so familiar with the "weeds" that they often will correct each other (you can't say that in here!), basically doing my job for me. This helps keep the environment safe for everyone. If the problem is based on a demonstrated lack of awareness or knowledge, it becomes fodder for learning opportunities. The main thing is to create the kind of learning environment where things are as comfortable as possible, people feel safe being together and working together, and students are relaxed enough to learn. Building positive relationships in the classroom makes it much easier for me to do my primary job: teaching a specific content area. Time invested in relationships pays dividends because the students tend to be more receptive to learning, and spend a lot less time resisting, causing disruptions, and arguing with me. Taking the time to build positive relationships means that I get to spend way less time on discipline, and way more time actually working with students. Aside from making my job easier, it's also more pleasant to be in a room with cooperative adolescents who don't have to be compelled with force. Because, lets face it, as teachers, we are definitely in the business of getting people to do things they don't want to do. For most adolescents, sitting in an uncomfortable desk, doing lengthy assignments all day long, is about the last way they'd spend to choose their time. The fact that we can get them to do it at all is borderline miraculous. What's amazing, is that it often feels quite effortless, and the reason for that is you have created an environment where it feels quite natural to be doing just that, and because it feels natural to be doing what everyone else is doing, you don't have to spend nearly as much time "making" anyone do anything (you can save that energy for the one student who needs a lot more in terms of behavior management), and the rest of the class takes care of itself, based on the power of group dynamics, and respect for you. Because that's absolutely what you get when you invest in positive relationships with your students: respect. You don't have to demand it at all...it will be given to you freely, but only after you've successfully modeled it day in and day out for everyone to observe and learn from. Respect is the heart of the student/teacher relationship.