It's All About Relationships

Mrs. Brant-Terry

 

Building trusting relationships takes time and focused intention.  This includes building student, staff, parents, peer and community relationships. Coming into a new school or a new school year, it is important to remember your actions are far more important than your words.  Once you have trusting relationships established it makes having those difficult and courageous conversations easier.  Some ways I try to build relationships include:

 

1)      I greet our junior students at the door every morning and say goodnight at the front door at the end of every day.  This allows me to see and respond to those who may have had a difficult start or end to their day. It lets me hear the things the children are excited about at home and at school.  It helps them to feel valued and important.
2)      Holding regular meetings with our school team and parents of special needs students helps to address concerns or questions in a timely manner and keep the lines of communication open.  Each meeting ends with setting our next meeting date and time.   
3)      When a school concern arises, the first thing I ask myself is where did the communication breakdown? How can I/we clear up the miscommunication?  I then gather information, ask a lot of questions, gain clarification and take steps to keep everyone informed.
4)      When I make a mistake and/or have over looked something in the busyness of my day I apologize to those involved and I fix it.  
5)      When a child has had a difficult day, I make sure we touch base the next morning to let him/her know I am so glad to see them and that today is a brand new day.
6)      When a child is struggling I let him/her know I am ready to listen when he/she is ready. I give them time in a safe place (my office) to gain composure and get ready to problem solve. When they are ready, we talk. Sometimes it may take until the next morning before they are ready to process, calm down and make things right and that is okay.
7)      I make phone calls to parents to celebrate as well as to keep them informed of difficulties.  I ask parents to discuss difficulties with their child and to NOT give additional consequences.  If a child has had consequences at school and fixed the concern, it is over.  It is our job as the adults to support our children to fix their mistakes, learn from their mistakes and move on.
8)      I reach out to the local community to invite them to come into our school and share their expertise but I also want to make sure it is enjoyable for them as well.  I want their experience to be a positive one and to know how much our school appreciates their time and talents. 
9)      I try to make sure I never ask anyone to do something I am not prepared to do myself. I remember I am a role model at all times.  Children are watching and learning from us.
10)   I also keep in the back of my mind May Angelou’s quote:

 People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

 I challenge my students to be the reason someone  goes home and says “I had a great day!”

Miss Brant

The month of November was my first practicum placement - and it was phenomenal! I was surrounded by energetic Grade 2 babies, in an amazing school, with the most supportive and innovative Associate Teacher I could have asked for. The reason for our most recent blog post delay was because I simply didn't know how to articulate my experience. But when mom suggested a post about the significance of relationships in the classroom, I realized that this is embodies our educational philosophy, and captures what I strove to accomplish in my four-week placement.

So how did I attempt to establish relationships and make the learning meaningful to my Grade 2s during my placement?

1) Created authentic and relevant learning experiences for the students.
While I many taught "on the fly" lessons, I also taught a Social Studies unit, focusing on celebrations and traditions. To make it meaningful and relevant to the students, however, I focused on the countries and traditions my students and their families connect with. I was so fortunate to have students from Somalia, Laos, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines - the list goes on!

One of Scott's many videos!

 

We started with our friend "Scott" who was travelling around the world learning about traditions, and he needed the kids' help. Each day our classroom received a package from Scott, containing information about the countries he was visiting and the traditions he was learning about. This "package" included an activity and letter back to Scott - which we had to complete within the time frame, in order to get our package the next day!

Each day we learned about a new tradition - and each student got to hear their own name heard their own name when Scott "visited" their country over the course of the two weeks! My students were SO thrilled when it was "their" day, and were so excited when their heard their peers names too. They took a lot of pride in sharing their knowledge about the traditions as well!

As our culminating activity, my kids created a classroom "Traditions Quilt". Here they got to decorate their own "quilt piece" out of cardstock paper, with represented those traditions (cultural, family, school, etc.) which they valued. This allowed my students to take ownership of their traditions - whether we learned about them as a class, or not.

Our "Traditions Quilt" - highlighting those traditions we value most.

 

You can view my Unit Plan here!

2) To Stop Saying "Okay, but..." and To Start Saying "Yes, and..."
I think it is an innate human quality to love the crazy things kids say - if we let them feel safe enough to speak, they will teach us much more than we teach them. But the key is listening to what they have to say, and allowing the conversation and the learning opportunity to be determined by what they offer. In other words, I challenged myself to stop dismissing misconceptions or tangents students provided during discussion time, and to instead validate and explore their ideas. I spend a lot of time on my lesson plans; they're detailed, I have crafts, and I have a strict timeline to "learn" as much as possible within the time block. But, by giving myself permission to explore a student-initiated tangent, or to take the time to have a student to answer their own question, I quickly realized how much more engaged my students were. Student-driven lessons encourage our students to feel connected to the material we are covering in class, and to make them feel that their interests and ideas are truly valued.


3) Take an Interest in their Interests
Children are naturally curious and passionate, and while our interests aren't necessarily compatible, that doesn't mean I can't attempt to understand their interests.  

Do I really care why R2D2 is better than C-3PO? No, because I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during every Star Wars movie I've ever had to sit through.

19 letters for 19 students.

But - Do I really care that my boy who never reads found a Star Wars book in the library and is following me around with his book? Of course - there is no greater feeling than watching a kid's face light up about a book.

On the last day of my practicum, I wrote each student a letter, explaining one thing they taught me, and one thing I will miss the most. This was a wonderful culmination for both the students and myself - because they took so much pride in teaching the teacher something, and they saw that I truly did listen when they told me all about Star Wars and pine cones and the soccer game at recess.







4) Listening to When They've Had Enough
I loved that my Associate Teacher had such a loving and trusting relationship with her students. She was confident enough to ask them "Can you handle this? Or do you need a break?" and her students would give her a really honest answer. Initially, it concerned me that I would get into the heart of a lesson and one of my students would say "I need a break." So, when is it time to put away the math, and bring out Go Noodle?  Whenever my students told me so - I never saw them abuse the right to have a body break (or sometimes just a mental break). It was a beautifully reciprocal relationship; they told me how they were honestly feeling, and they felt safe enough to trust me because they knew I would listen.

How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.  Alfie Kohn