There is more to teaching than the commitment to the material and the curriculum. As teachers, we will see our students 5 days a week for almost a full year. In that time, building a relationship with the students is productive for classroom management (Marzano et al., 2003). In my experience, if a student does not like their teacher, they may not remain permissible to their teaching. In this essay, I will detail how I plan to build that trust with my students so everyone in the classroom can have a better learning experience. Teachers who show their students they care about them as people and learners leave an impression that could linger with them for a long time.
A concept introduced by Marzano et al. (2003) called “personal regard” (p. 48) is one of three key behaviors of respected and well-liked teachers that involves the simple—yet oftentimes indirect—act of showing you care about your student. To embody this particular behavior and reach out to students as a way to begin the lesson, I would like to give students a short survey where they answer 1 serious question that invites them to express their feelings and a few silly/random questions that keep them interested. This could be implemented as a warm-up or an exit slip that must be completed, even if a student writes one-word answers. The point is to give students the opportunity to think about their day without the barrier of a grade and would only be seen by me as their teacher.
Another relationship-building activity I am excited to bring to the classroom is a personal artifact game where students can bring in an item of their choice to share with the class. For this to be interesting for everyone, students would have to feel comfortable explaining their reason for bringing that item and what it means to them. This type of activity could be useful in a lesson
on writing, as I am a future teacher of English, but its format allows teachers and students to learn something new about someone they see almost every day.
Learning For Justice (n.d.) provided a scope of the benefit of teachers involving their students in the creation of the classroom rules and everyday environment. This is another activity I would like to assign to students at the beginning of the year. I would scaffold ideas for how students should treat their classmates and how they should behave during class instruction, but the nature of this activity allows for students to suggest new ideas that are more reasonable for them. Not only would these set of rules for the class pertain to the students they would also involve the teacher and how they promise to treat their students. This shows that students are not the only ones who have to make commitments in the classroom that affect other students, teachers need to be held accountable for their actions.
Marzano et al. (2003) suggested that teachers need to find the balance between dominance and cooperation in the classroom. Based on what current teachers and principals have shared in my classroom management course, finding this balance can be challenging. They all seem to agree that exhibiting those behaviors of assertiveness can be hard to establish in the middle of the school year after students have gotten used to the easygoing nature of the classroom. I want to be the type of teacher who is assertive but not in a way that loses the students’ trust and respect for me, which means I need to begin the year as that type of teacher.
In conclusion, relationship-building activities at the beginning of the year are meaningful and beneficial, but why not continue to build a relationship with the students all throughout the school year? My goal in choosing these 3 particular activities is that they can be done either every day or every few weeks. The activities give me the opportunity to develop how I respond to students that shows them that I am listening and interested in what they have to say.
References
Learning for Justice. (n.d.). A new set of rules. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.learningforjustice.org/professional-development/a-new-set-of-rules
Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.