Scrolling through lists of
education blogs, looking for one from which to draw a particular inspiration,
Teachers at Risk caught my eye. The author, Elona Hartjes, writes about
insights and strategies she has come to hold dear in her years of teaching
through all sorts of situations including a great deal of work with students on
the cusp, students who may not make it.
One subject close to my heart that
she often speaks of is building relationships between teachers and students. For
me, a feeling that the teacher cares about the students and cares to know about
them not only makes the classroom an enjoyable place to be, but also makes
students care more about what they are learning, want to work harder, and makes
learning easier. “I have come to the conclusion that while excellent management
techniques are necessary for classroom success, they are not sufficient for
classroom success. I found that developing an authentic relationship with
my students helped my classroom management more than any of the latest classroom
management techniques,” Elona writes.
It has often been mentioned
important hitting the ground running on the first day in September is. The
first day of class is the day when students are most open to you and most
willing and able to see value in your class. As Elona puts it, “I need my
students’ first impression of me and my classroom to be a positive one because
I know that if for some reason things don’t get off to a good start it’s going
to be an uphill battle for a long time.”
Some vital strategies she offers
for making a good first impression are earning respect through demonstrating
competence and organization and getting to know your students. She accomplishes
this by asking nine questions. The questions are things like, “When have you
felt particularly successful in school?” and, “What three things can I as the
teacher do to help you become more successful as a student in this class?” She
uses these questions to understand where her students are coming from, decide
the course the class will take, build lesson plans, support teamwork between
teacher and students, and make it clear to the students that they are the focus
of the class.
Elona offers a lot of insight into
what relationships are like with students and this blog is a great resource for
learning to build them. It is so important to me because I know nothing else
made a bigger difference in my classroom success than my relationship with the
teacher and the kind of environment they created. I am very keen on learning to
provide that for my students. I got love for you.
I saw this blog, too and saved it for later. I'm glad I did now because it sounds like something I would both enjoy and be able to use as a good resource. I love that there are so many seasoned teachers blogging and allowing us access to their ideas and experiences. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this one!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the link for this blog? This sounds incredibly helpful to any teacher but especially us new teaching interns. I think that one thing that hasn't been addressed yet is the fact that the first day for us might be a little scary? Im scared. I dunno about everybody else. I think thats something we should address in one of our 345678 classes.
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot the links. I've added them in now. Thanks for catching that, Destiney!
DeleteThe very idea of the first day is petrifying. One of the readings we had in... one of our classes was from a book called The First Days of School by Harry Wong. I checked it out from the library. It's quite an easy read and I plan to absorb it over break. (You know, those two weeks when we don't have classes.) Hopefully, after we get this first day with our mentor under our belt, we'll be feeling slightly less unprepared for the next one.
Sounds like SEL is more important to you than the actual content you're teaching. No judgment there - I feel the same way. Do you think states like Michigan that require extensive content knowledge are shortchanging their students by not requiring the same sort of "content knowledge" in SEL? I wonder what would happen in classrooms if prospective teachers had to now just prove their proficiency with the subject, but also their proficiency at forming and sustaining meaningful relationships. Although, I don't really know how that would be done.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the focus on content is ignoring the ability to transfer content to students. How can students learn when they're so distracted by other issues of which the teacher isn't even aware? Won't they be more able to learn in an environment in which they are comfortable and feel safe? And yes, SEL is incredibly important to me. I'm glad I'm not alone in that mindset.
DeleteDo you think it's asking too much to have a teacher's relationship with their students be a consideration during those observations we're fighting over?
Elona has some awesome ideas. I'll have to read some more of what she has to say. I think we all agree that student-teacher relationships are of vital importance for student success. The readings on social emotional learning have been a great help in helping me begin to develop an understanding of what I want my own future classroom to look like, feel like, and sound like. The last few readings in Anne's class, Lewis, Polleck, and Wallace have also been very insightful as far as the student teacher relationship goes. I'm getting the idea that everyone is telling us the same thing..Hmmm... What are they trying to say??? :)
ReplyDeleteBetween you and Mr. Pepper up there, I feel like we're in our Noddings study circle all over again! We're kind of obsessed with making connections and caring about our kids. I guess we're going to be talking about that quite a bit in a certain paper soon. I'm thrilled to see how many teachers see such value in SEL, it really reinforces my own completely inexperienced views on what good teaching should look like. I'm excited to see it work.
DeleteI don't know if I can add anything to the dialogue above, so I suppose I'll be that "last guy to the party". It's always good to keep the perspective of the student relationships. So much emphasis is going into just getting through all of these papers that I fear we're losing sight of what the actual goal is.
ReplyDelete