The initial bell has rung for all of Planet Improv’s partner schools as of last week.
We are and will be in classrooms every single day of the 2023-24 school year.
An educator’s perfect world is only being responsible for teaching the lessons of their specific subject matter.
However, very few of us live in that perfect world.
Beyond our responsibility to educate our students we have the responsibility to keep them verbally, physically and emotionally safe. And most of all, no matter how challenging any of them may be, we also must respect them.
Especially, if we have any hopes of them respecting us.
(Below) is a post from Larry Ferlazzo at www.edweek.com that discusses student/teacher mutual respect.
‘Students Respect Teachers Who They Feel Respect Them’
Classroom management can be a struggle for teachers. Not just for new teachers, but veteran teachers may also face challenges with managing their classrooms as well. One major portion of managing a classroom is student discipline. When I talk to teachers about their classroom management, the conversation of dealing with student behavior typically comes up.
The reality is students respect teachers who they feel respect them. The more students respect you and believe that you have their best interest at heart, the easier it is to facilitate a culturally sustaining learning environment.
I have had conversations with teachers who are frustrated that their students do not respect them. They start with blaming students with comments like, “Kids these days are so disrespectful” or “My students come to class just to play and need to learn how to listen to instructions.” My question is always, “What have you done to earn your students’ trust and respect?”
If we haven’t done the work to build relationships with our students, we might find it difficult to manage our class.
Building relationships with students takes time. One way to develop relationships with students is by finding time within the classroom to make personal connections with them. I know that this is easier said than done in many cases as the minutes in a class period are so crucial in the learning process. I’m going to provide you with four ways you can use five minutes of class time to help you get to know your students.
- Incorporate circles in your classroom—This activity may be a little hard to do within five minutes; however, it is a great way to develop a community within your classroom. It is something that I do at my school, and it has really helped with community building in our resource room.
- Schedule time for one-on-one engagement—As you begin to get to know your students, you will learn their normal behavior, and if something seems a little off, use those five minutes to see if they will open up to you by letting them know that you care. Then you can offer things like, “Let’s talk more during lunch or after school.” Gestures like these help to develop relationships.
- Find out what makes your students unique—You will quickly learn that your classroom is filled with various personalities all meshed into one class. Learning about the different personalities represented in your room will help you gain a better understanding of how students will interact with each other. Understanding personalities will help you when planning group assignments, de-escalating conflicts, and helping students with personal challenges.
- Make time to show students that you care about what is happening in their lives—I really want to highlight that this doesn’t pertain to just students who appear to be having a bad day. I am also talking about students who appear to be having a good day and those in between.
Don’t give up on any of your students. Get to know them as human beings, as individuals and not just another student. You might find yourself intrigued with all the amazing thoughts and talents that your students have. You may also notice a change in your classroom atmosphere as less instances of student behavior occurs.
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I understand and agree that respect is earned, not just given because someone is in a position of authority, or a wide age/experience gap is in play.
Perhaps we educators should play the Aretha Franklin song quietly in the background of each of our classrooms every day.
In its absence, R-E-S-P-E-CT should be first and foremost in our minds at all times.