Relationships Aren't the Frosting on the Cake of Education

An infant possesses a tractor-beam gaze that finds your eyes and locks into them, compelling connection. I remember that with my first-born, hours after birth. And this summer I was reminded of it with my first born’s second born (see photo above). When the interactive smiles and cooing start, they only strengthen the attraction. Humans are hardwired for connection. 

For Christians, this comes as no surprise, knowing we are made in the image of a God whose very being is relationship among three persons: “Let us make mankind in our image” (NIV, Genesis 1:26). And after proclaiming each act of creation good and very good, that trinitarian God declares something in that beautiful paradise not good—a person alone (Genesis 2:18). When God became human and walked among us, Jesus focused his most powerful teaching on individuals in relationship (see "What Does It Mean to Teach Like a Disciple?"). 

The significance of relationship in teaching is corroborated by science. Jeff Myers summarized the findings in his book Cultivate: Forming the Emerging Generation through Life-on-Life Mentoring (30-31): 

• Students’ sense of being liked, respected and valued by a teacher predicted whether they would value the subject matter and expect success.
• Students who believed their teacher cared for them believed they learned more.
• Students’ feelings of being accepted by teachers were significantly related to emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement in class.
• Teachers who expressed greater warmth tended to develop greater confidence in students.
• Teachers’ nurturing behaviors were related to students’ adoption and internalization of teachers’ goals and values.
• Teachers’ interpersonal relationship skills were significantly associated with students’ achievement motivation and self-esteem.

If a warm relationship between students and their teacher is that significant, I can’t ignore them. I can’t just say, “Well, some teachers are gifted interpersonally, but not me. My gift is intellectual grasp of my subject.” Or “I’m an introvert—relationships aren’t my thing.” (Seriously, this gets personal. My lowest rating on student surveys tends to be in the area of students not being fully persuaded that I care about them.) What, then, can I do to meet this student need for connection?

Current pedagogy recognizes the importance of knowing students as individuals in many topics including differentiation (knowing students’ interests and skill levels in order to better connect them to the learning that happens in the classroom), restorative discipline (based on the idea that the biggest issue with behavior is not that a rule has been broken but that relationships have been damaged), and social and emotional learning (where teachers are prime models as well as explicit instructors of relationship building). (See below for recommended books on these topics.)

In addition to reading up on the topics mentioned above, here are some things I have found helpful:

(1) Beginning of the year activities. Right now the my Pinterest and Twitter feeds are awash with such activities. Alternatively, I just Googled “get to know students” and came up with 2.6 billion results in 0.5 seconds, like “Getting to Know Your Students” (TeacherVision). In case you’ve missed the first day, you still have time: see “The First Six Weeks: Getting to Know Your Students” (TeachThought). Think this is just for elementary students? Here’s advice to college professors at Carnegie Mellon University: “Get to Know Your Students as Individuals.”

(2) Questioning and listening strategies that demonstrate my own curiosity about and value for students’ thinking, including open-ended questions, wait time, and follow-up exploration “What makes you say that?” For more on positive questioning and listening, see “Weaving SEL into our Classroom Questioning” (MiddleWeb).

(3) Other good ideas? See “33 Ways to Build Better Relationships”  Here are my favorites:

• Know your children well and allow them to know you well [see the following paragraph on Brene Brown]
• Every child (and adult) needs a champion [see the final paragraph on Rita Pierson]
• Healthy relationships are built on high challenge and high support 
• Create a sense of belonging
• Catch ‘em getting it right more than you catch ‘em getting it wrong
• Magnify strengths rather weaknesses and focus on gifts rather than deficits
• If you’re not modeling what you’re teaching, you’re teaching something different
• Listening is what you do to understand, not time spent simply waiting to reply

(4) Learning how to be brave and vulnerable myself from reading Brene Brown’s books.  Now she has a free online resource to help teachers implement her principles for students. It's called Daring Classrooms. She says, “We must be guardians of spaces that allow students to breathe, be curious, and to explore the world and be who they are without suffocation. .... And what I know from the research is that we should never underestimate the benefit to a child of having a place to belong—even one—where they can take off their armor. It can and often does change the trajectory of their life.”

Educator Rita Pierson in her TED Talk “Every Kid Needs a Champion,” says, “[O]ne of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection. Relationships.” What will I do today to cultivate relationship with the kids in my life—whether students or grandkids—who I want to become the confident, competent, curious, collaborative, creative divine image bearers they were created to be?

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Resources:

1. Differentiation: How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms
2. Restorative Practices: Hacking School Discipline: 9 Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy and Responsibility Using Restorative Justice
3. SEL: All Learning Is Social and Emotional: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for the Classroom and Beyond