Building Student Relationships

The process of building a relationship with each individual student as well as with the class is one of the most important and underrated aspects to successful teaching. As more and more research shows that adverse childhood experiences have a lasting impact on health and cognitive learning, it is more critical than ever that students have a caring adult that provides a safe environment.

Mr. Williams, a ninth grade math teacher, stands at the door each morning and greets students by name as they enter. He asks them about their lives and different extracurricular events they attend. At the beginning of the year he has each student fill out an information sheet, labeled as a time capsule, which gathers information about their interests, learning style, feelings about math, and more. He takes a picture of the class and saves it along with the time capsules.

This simple activity gives him a tremendous amount of information about the students that allows him to build an appropriate relationship based on personal and academic knowledge of the student. On the day of their high school graduation, he leaves their “time capsule” in their seats along with a copy of the class picture and a sweet note wishing them well for the future.

Mr. Williams sponsors the math team and attends lots of different sports games and other school events to show his support of the students and his school. During class time, Mr. Williams spends two to three minutes discussing current events and commenting on student participation in various events or honors that they have received, and then he begins class. Once he begins class he does not allow students to steer the direction of the class back into irrelevant topics after the initial “warm up.”

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