Building Positive Relationships with Your students
Imagine
that it is your first time teaching students in a classroom setting. Many of
you will feel apprehensive about how you will teach each lesson, but the true
challenge you must overcome is building positive relationships with your
students. Having a positive relationship with your students is beneficial for
both, yourself and your students. Both, Mark and Christine Boynton, claim in
their book The Educators Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems
“that demonstrating care for your students is one of the most powerful ways to
build positive relationships with your students. When your actions and words
communicate that you sincerely care for your students, they are more likely to
want to perform well for you and enjoy coming to school”. So, the big question is how do we build a
positive relationship with your students? The answer to this question is not an
easy answer because each classroom is faced with different issues. I
interviewed a third grade teacher in hopes to find how she built positive relationships
with her students.
Literature
Review –FINDINGS FROM BOOK
Whenever we are trying to solve
issues within our classrooms it is difficult to find the correct answers, the
reason for that is because every classroom situation is different. By different
I mean that each classroom is made up of different personalities, and the way
you may handle a situation depends on the kind of student you are dealing with. In this book “The Educators Guide to
Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems,” Mark and Christine Boynton give
tips on how to solve discipline problems in a classroom along with other topics
such as building positive relationships with your students. The information
provided in this book will advise teachers what to do when facing a challenge
within the classroom. The methods they show in this book cover many areas and have
directions which are easy for any teacher to follow. As Mark and Christine
Boynton said “When you treat your students with respect, they tend to
appreciate and like you.” When students
like their teacher they are most likely going to want to improve and show the
teacher that they can do well.
Another helpful tip they have shared with us
is that praising a student in a certain way can be beneficial for the
student/Teacher RELATIONSHIP. We all like to hear someone commend us for our
good work. Praise is something that lifts our spirits and allows us to feel
good about what we are doing. THE MORE
we are praised, the more we will want to achieve. The same thing is applicable
for young children. Personal praising is the most effective kind of praise
because it allows the student to know what behavior is being recognized. Researchers Mark and Christine Boynton said
that “to increase the power and impact of praise is to make it personal by
simply stating the students’ name. Being specific when you give praise to your
students helps create a positive learning situation because it clearly lets
your students know the type of behaviors and performances you are looking for.”
With
this study and my findings from the interview i will talk about how a teacher
distingushes issues in her classroom and what she does to solve these issues
and how her methods also build positive relationships with her students. the
proof that she has built positive relationships with her students will show in
the result of their learningand wanting to do better.
Methods-
talk about participant
the participant is a first
year teacher in a public school teaching the 3rd grade. SHe has a
teaching degree and a masters in writing. She was chosen to teach the third
grade specifically because of her strong background in writing. The 3rd
grade is when students will first take the state tests and they are expected to
go into the fourth grade with a strong writing ability.
the PARTICIPANT,
who will be referred to as Michele from this point on, chose to be interviewed
in her classroom after school. This was a quiet room with no interuptions. She
chose to do the interview in her classroom because she stays at school until 7:00
PM every evening to catch up with paperwook and grade her students work. The
interview was voice recorded and lasted for about 23 minutes.
data and analysis
The
third grade is when students first learn how to write a five paragraph essay.
Many students find this to be challenging because they are expected to do
something they have never done before. The teacher has to teach them how to write in
detail, and the basic structure of an essay.
During her writing lessons, she notices that “It takes a long time and I
have kids that cry they don’t want to do it and they shut down, absolutely
nothing is done. It takes a lot of
energy just to make sure that I don’t spend it all on just one kid who is
screaming hysterically every single day because of writing.” For these students who shut down and don’t
attempt writing, the teacher then asks them to write about something they are
interested in. She saw that many
students wrote about the video game called Mine Craft. Consequently, she uses their interest in this
game to shape her writing lessons. She asked them to write a “how to survive”
essay. By relating to her students and
allowing them to write about something they were interested in, it built a
positive connection between her and her students and motivated them to continue
writing.
This
teacher also had a non-English speaking student in her classroom and teaching
her to write was another challenge she was faced with. She encourages her
student to “just write, I don’t care if its spelled wrong, just get your ideas out.
I don’t care if your sentence structure is off, like if you’re missing a
common.” She says she does this because
“I just want to see if she understands the question being asked “This makes the
student confident to attempt something. And advising a student that it doesn’t
need to be perfect will give her the confidence she needs to strive.” As Mark and Christine Boynton said in their
book “When you treat your students with respect, they tend to appreciate and
like you.” Respecting that this student
did not know a word of English when she entered this class and reassuring her
that it is okay to make a mistake while writing is one way the teacher builds a
positive relationship with this student.
Increase the Power of Praise
We all like to
hear someone commend us for our good work. Praise is something that lifts our
spirits and allows us to feel good about what we are doing. The more we are praised, the more we will
want to achieve. The same thing is applicable for young children. Personal
praising is the most effective kind of praise because it allows the student to
know what behavior is being recognized. Researchers Mark and Christine Boynton said
that “to increase the power and impact of praise is to make it personal by
simply stating the students’ name. Being specific when you give praise to your
students helps create a positive learning situation because it clearly lets
your students know the type of behaviors and performances you are looking for.”
While interviewing the third grade teacher, I asked her about a wall in the
back of her room that had stars and a name printed on each. She responded, “I go over math
multiplication, facts. I give them maybe about a 3 min quiz just to see what
they know. If they do well they get a big star and it goes on my Wall of Fame. If
they don’t, they have to keep taking the test until they do well and then they
go up on the wall. If you ace 3 of them,
you are exempt from the test.”
Here she is using the power of
praise to recognize her student’s achievements. What’s also great about her
method here is that she allows her students multiple opportunities to receive a
“big star” on her Wall of Fame. This
also builds a positive relationship for her and her students because they have
someone that believes in them and distinguishes their accomplishments.
