Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 155: Building Classroom Community Through Meaningful Student Connections

Transcript

Ep 155: Building Classroom Community Through Meaningful Student Connections · New Teacher Talk

Hi there, my name is Keon Ruiter,
and I am a second grade teacher at Maria Sanchez
Elementary School.
Today,
I'm going to talk to you about building relationships in
the classroom and how that will directly support your
classroom management.
Building and maintaining relationships with students and
families is one of the most powerful ways to support
classroom management throughout the school year.
Knowing your students, their interests, home lives,
friendships, strengths,
and areas for growth helps you plan meaningful instruction
and support them when they need something extra.
In my 18 years of teaching,
I've learned that positive relationships with students and
families are the foundation of everything I do in my
classroom, and that all starts on day one.
Every school day should start with a greeting at the
classroom door.
I'm fortunate to have breakfast yard duty,
which gives me extra time to connect with students,
to ask about their evenings or weekends,
and even to check in with former students.
It's important to me that my former students know that I'm
still there for them even after they've moved on from my
classroom.
Then at my classroom door,
students line up and we greet one another one on one before
they enter.
This sets a positive tone for the day and gives me an
instant read on how they're feeling.
Are they tired?
Are they upset?
Are they excited?
And I get this just from that brief interaction.
One way to make greetings interactive is to post a sign
with options like a handshake, a high five, a hug, a wave,
or a fist bump.
A quick wave with little eye contact might tell me that a
student's having a rough morning,
while a big hug might mean that they're celebrating
something special,
like a birthday where they had a great weekend.
If your school allows for morning meetings,
take advantage of them.
Morning meetings are essential for building relationships
and creating a sense of classroom community.
A simple structure for a morning meeting would include
first gathering the group.
So you can do this with a signal, a call, or a chant.
I just say, okay, everyone circle up.
Then when everyone's circled up,
you take some time for the students to greet one another.
And then the bulk of the morning meeting is a quick
activity or a team building game of some sort.
And then finally close it off with a short reflection or a
discussion.
These meetings are great for social emotional learning,
team building, and just having a good time together.
Establishing classroom expectations early is key to healthy
relationships and effective classroom management.
So I use the first few morning meetings of the school year
to create something called a respect agreement with my
students.
A traditional respect agreement has four quadrants.
The first is student to student.
The second is student to teacher.
The third is teacher to student.
And then the fourth is everybody to the environment.
But I over the years have added a fifth quadrant,
which would be everyone to technology.
Like how are we taking care of the technology that we use
every day?
We work on one quadrant per day,
brainstorming how we will treat one another, our space,
and our devices.
All agreements should be framed positively.
We will have safe bodies rather than saying no pushing.
Or we will use walking feet rather than saying no running
in the hall.
When the respect agreement is complete and all five
quadrants have been filled out, we review, sign,
and post the agreement in a visible spot in the classroom.
This is a living document that we revisit throughout the
school year, especially after long breaks.
If expectations slip,
we refer back to the respect agreement.
For example,
I noticed there was a lot of arguing on the playground
today.
Remember, according to the respect agreement,
we said that we would use common respectful voices.
This can also lead to problem solving activities that you
could plan for a future morning meeting.
There are plenty of guides online about creating respect
agreements.
You can Google it.
There's lots of visual examples as well.
Remember that the key is collaboration.
Students need a voice in shaping the expectations they'll
be held to throughout the year.
Another great relationship building activity that I do.
I learned this my second year teaching from a veteran
teacher.
It's called the all about me bag.
I know that a lot of teachers will do all about me posters
in the beginning of the year,
but I do all about me bags instead.
So what you do is you send students home with a paper bag
with instructions stapled right to the bag to fill the bag
with three to five items that represent them.
I also make sure that they know that nothing fragile or
valuable can come to school and the items have to fit into
the bag.
So some of these items might include a family photo or a
crayon of the student's favorite color or a stuffed animal,
a small stuffed animal that might represent their favorite
animal or a pet that they have at home.
Then they bring the bags back in and over the course of the
next few days,
students take turns sharing what's in their bags.
They take it out, they pass the items around,
they get a chance to answer their classmates questions that
they might have.
And while they're doing this,
I take notes to help me get to know my students better.
This activity is interactive.
It involves the families helping the kid to find the items
for their bags and it makes for an excellent first homework
assignment.
Relationships with families are just as important as those
with students.
At my school, many students are picked up in person,
which gives me daily opportunities to connect with the
families of my students.
I always make sure that at the end of the day,
I end with something positive with my families.
I might say something just like,
your student worked so hard on her writing today or wow,
he was such a helpful friend today.
Or maybe I'll just say, I hope you have a great night.
Dismissal is not the time for behavior conversations.
I know some teachers that do use dismissal time is a time
to address negative behaviors and nobody likes being called
out like that in front of other people.
Those kinds of conversations are best handled privately.
If your students takes the bus,
you could do something like use a communication app like
Parent Square and you can send home quick positive notes to
a few students a day instead.
Something that one of my colleagues does is she leaves
notes on her students' desks at the end of the day,
celebrating something kind or impressive that they did that
day.
So then they come in the next day and the students find the
notes on their desks waiting for them in the morning and
they can sit there and read it and reflect on what they did
and then take the note home to share with their families.
Small positive interactions like these build trust with
families and make difficult conversations when they do
arise easier to navigate because you've already built that
positive foundation with the families.
Another important relationship building strategy is
avoiding public callouts for negative behaviors.
Embarrassing students rarely helps and it often worsens the
issue.
Instead,
I tend to address behavior concerns privately and calmly
with my students.
But I also make it a point to reinforce positive behaviors.
One strategy that I have used for years that I actually
learned from a beginning teacher like me at the time is to
use chance slips.
And all chance slips are raffle tickets that students can
earn for following the respect agreement.
I keep a bundle of these in my pocket and as the day
progresses,
I hand them out to students and I explicitly state why
they're getting one.
For example, I might walk up to someone and say,
I noticed you picked up the paper scraps on the floor
without being asked and that's being respectful to our
classroom environment.
Thank you and I'll give them a chance slip.
Then they just write their name on the back and put it into
a raffle bucket.
Then on Friday,
I draw a few tickets for non-material rewards like student
gets to choose a special seatmate for a day or they get to
use the teacher's rolling chair for the day or they get to
bring a stuffed animal to school or they get to use the
special colored dry erase markers for the day.
Students know that the more they follow our respect
agreement,
the more chances they have to be recognized because they've
got all those chance slips in the bucket.
There are many ways to build positive relationships,
but these are just some of the strategies that I use in my
own classroom.
Talk to veteran and mentor teachers for additional ideas
and start building those relationships with your kids and
their parents from day one.
Students who feel safe, cared for,
and supported are more likely to come to school,
try their best,
and to follow the expectations on the respect agreement.
And that's where I'll wrap up this episode,
building positive relationships with students and families
takes time,
but it's one of the most rewarding parts of teaching and it
pays off all year long in how your classroom feels and
functions.
Thank you for the work that you're doing to create
classrooms where students feel safe, supported,
and excited to learn.
Take care of yourself and have a great school year.
Thanks for listening to today's New Teacher Talk episode.
Stay connected with us on Instagram and Blue Sky at New
Teacher Talk,
where we share our Tuesday teacher resource and Thursday
thought each week.
Tap that follow button and spread the word.
Whether you're in your first classroom or finding your
footing, we're here to support your teaching journey.