Relationships are a key to success

Everyone expects our teachers to reach all students.  We want educators to differentiate their instruction practices so that all students have the opportunity to learn.  We ask them to ensure their practices best educate visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners.  If they have students that happen to have an IEP in their class, we ask that they follow the IEP as well.  All of these are important in striving to teach each and every student the best you possibly can, but in my opinion, it's secondary to building great relationships with students.  

Knowing each and every one of your students can be a tall task.  Some teachers see around 160 different students a day.  Each student has different interests and abilities.  Each student comes from a different home situation, and some students carry more on their shoulders than other students.  Each aspect of their personal life has some impact on how they learn and act in school.  

Case number 1, a teacher has a student who relies on getting his nutritional needs met at school due to financial constraints. A holiday vacation is approaching and he starts acting up as vacation days get closer and closer.  From an outsider's view point, this can be seen as just that, acting up.  In reality this student is recognizing that the meals he counts on at school will not be there for those days, and therefore becomes irritated and frustrated due to not knowing how he is going to get food while school is not in session.  As a result, he begins acting up in class and becomes a problem in the class.  Have you invested enough into him to recognize what the hidden factors for his behaviors are?  

You have another student in your class that does not have internet at home, and you are a 1 to 1 school and rely heavily on chromebooks to have students get their work done.  This particular student doesn't have means for transportation, and her parents have to pick her up at a certain time from school so they can get back to work.  This student works very hard during the day to get work done knowing that she can't work on it at home due to the lack of access to the internet.  She struggles getting things turned in for this reason.  As a teacher, do you know this is the issue, or do you view this as irresponsible and lazy?  

A third student walks into your room and is always angry.  He doesn't respond well to anything you are saying and doesn't want to participate in any group work.  He gets work done, but it is never done well and he doesn't seem to care how he does in school.  He can show aggressive behavior once in awhile and has a temper when a teacher pushes him past his limit.  Without knowing him, you feel he is an unruly student who tends to do more harm than good.  Things would be much better if he wasn't in your classroom.  The underlying facts are that he lives with his dad at home.  His mother, whom he was closest with, passed away when he was 12.  He has not visited with anyone regarding his mother's passing and his emotions have been bottled up since she passed.  

These are just 3 scenarios that can be viewed in many different ways depending on how well you know your students.  When things happen in the classroom, I would encourage you to not think about disciplining them initially.  Instead, think "what is going on to cause these behaviors".  Sometimes, it is nothing more than a student misbehaving for no reason in particular.  However, sometimes there are underlying factors in which we could provide support for and help the student turn his/her life around.  Disciplining is ok, but if you do so, make it constructive.  Use that time to build a relationship.  Use that time to talk with the student and show that you are invested into his/her life.  You will be surprised at what you may find out and how much better things become with respect to that student in your classroom.  I guarantee you this, building great relationships with students is an investment you will not regret, one that will make you into a more effective teacher who can reach just about anyone that walks into your door.          

What do kids need in a teacher

As I sit at my desk this summer, my focus has turned to what sets apart the teachers that are truly great in the classroom from those who can teach the curriculum, but students must want to learn in order to really take something from the class.  Sure, every student can learn something from every teacher, but what is it that the great teachers do that allows them to almost draw the students into such an educational hypnosis that they have no idea they are learning as much as they do? 

In today's world you will find that most teachers have very good knowledge of the content they are teaching.  In fact, I would go out on a limb and say that most teachers probably have very similar knowledge of the content they are teaching if you were to quiz them.  As we all know, it's not what they know, it's how they get their knowledge into their students' minds that counts.  

In a typical classroom Marzano would say you would want a bell ringer to start the class.  Something to possibly connect yesterday's material to today's material.  Something to get their mind working. After the bell ringer, a teacher should introduce the learning target and integrate the lesson to attack the learning target.  There should be check for understandings throughout the lesson and an exit ticket at the end of the class time in order to review the learning target and show mastery of the learning target if possible.  Everything I have stated above is what you would see in any of our classrooms if you came to my school.  Now, what sets teachers apart from one another?  It's the dynamics of the lesson.  

Great teachers develop the body of their lesson upon student self investigation.  They apply real world ideas into their lesson and allow students to discover and uncover the topic you want them to learn without being in front of the room talking to them while having the expectation that they are learning what you are talking about.  Instead great teachers develop a lesson that is student led.  They introduce the concept and then have activities built into place to allow self discover and peer teaching possibilities.  Be fearless and allow students to work together on a difficult problem geared around the learning target.  Develop different pods in which groups of students can solve different problems together or discover different things together and then rotate them after a certain period of times.  In summary, great teachers allow the students to use their minds to discover instead of standing in front of the room lecturing while they are taking notes and expecting them to learn, be captivated, and be inspired after you are done.  You want them to learn and be inspired, then you must inspire them and push them to learn.  The ideas are endless, don't get caught in the daily rut of lecture.  Find ways to allow students to discover and uncover!