Here’s a simple truth that I’m certain no one in Radical Nation would disagree with: When you invest time and energy into developing strong relationships with your students, you are far more likely to have a positive impact on who they are as learners AND as people.
That’s a no brainer, right?
And here’s another simple truth: Every teacher — from the energy filled superstar to the indifferent curmudgeon — has strong relationships with some of the kids in their classes each school year.
But lemme ask you an uncomfortable question: Is it good enough to have strong relationships with SOME of the kids in your classes each year?
If we really believe that “kids don’t care what you know until they know how much you care”, shouldn’t we be working to develop meaningful relationships with EVERY student?
Those are questions rolling through my mind this morning after learning from Rodney Trice — the Assistant Superintendent for Equity Affairs here in the Wake County Public School System — during a professional development session yesterday.
During the session, Rodney presented us with this Zaretta Hammond graphic outlining four main types of teachers and asked us what quadrant we thought that we would fit into:
(click to enlarge. Original graphic retrieved from this website.)
Then Rodney reminded us that it’s not OUR perceptions that matter. It’s the perceptions of our students that matter.
You might THINK that you are a “warm demander” — and that’s certainly what your students NEED you to be — but your choices and actions speak a lot louder than your words do to your students. Just as importantly, you might be filling the “warm demander” role for SOME of your students, but your goal should be to play that same role for ALL of your students — including those who look differently than you do or who come to your classroom with different social, cultural and economic experiences than yours.
Now I know what you are thinking — particularly if you work in a middle or high school.
It’s IMPOSSIBLE to have a strong relationship with every kid. There are too many students and too little time. Besides, the beauty of school is that students interact with lots of different adults, so every kid has a “warm demander” relationship with SOMEONE on our staff — and as long as every kid has at least one “warm demander” in our building, we are doing the best that we can.
I’ve made all those same excuses during my career, y’all. But now, they feel like nothing more than a cop-out to me. Plain and simple.
It’s pushing off my responsibility for relationship building with my students. It’s picking and choosing which kids I am going to invest in and which kids I am going to overlook. It’s finding an excuse for ignoring the kids on my team that I find the most difficult to understand or to appreciate.
And if the thoughts and opinions of the eighth and ninth grade students in our school district look anything like the thoughts and opinions of the kids in my classroom, it’s just plain not true.
Need proof?
Check out the results from the Teacher-Student Relationships questions on our district’s annual student survey:
(click to enlarge)
Did you see the result that matters most?
Here it is:
Stew in that for a minute, would you?
If our assumption that EVERY kid had SOMEONE in their schools who was filling the “warm demander” role for them was true, wouldn’t the results to this question be drastically different? Can we really argue that we are meeting the needs of our students when just barely over half feel like we are interested in them as people?
So what do we do to fix this?
I don’t know about you, but my plan is to start conducting regular surveys of my students to figure out whether or not they are feeling recognized and valued and appreciated by me.
I started yesterday by taking the same student survey questions asked of eighth graders in our district and turning them into a Google Form. That’s going to give me some initial data that I can use to reflect on the relationships that I have with my students.
I also took the traits listed on Lisa Delpit’s “Warm Demander” chart and turned them into a Google Form, too. My goal is to see if I can identify the students sitting in my professional blind spot — kids who I may not be filling the “warm demander” role for.
Here’s why that’s important: Up until now, I’ve always just relied on hunches and my own self-perception when trying to rate my effectiveness at building relationships with kids. By collecting specific data from my students, I can use data to confirm or challenge those hunches. More importantly, I can gather the kind of feedback necessary to drive positive change in my practice.
If you dig any of this, feel free to steal my surveys. Here they are:
Student Survey – Teacher Student Relationships
Student Survey – Warm Demander
#doubledogdare
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Related Radical Reads:
Writing Positive Notes to My Students is the BEST Way to Start My Day.
When Was the Last Time YOU Wrote a Positive Note Home to Parents?
