This week we finally got to one of my favorite initiatives at SCIS, our SIPs program. The opportunity to work with colleagues and grow as educators is an energizing and inspiring experience for me. Our SIPs plan this year has been designed to focus on our six major “look fors” as well as help to integrate technology into our classrooms. This past Wednesday I was fortunate enough to present with three of our brave colleagues. I presented my SIP on Building and Fostering Positive Student-Teacher Relationships. For those of you who were in the Google Sketchup session with Ross I’d like to share the general premise of what was happening across the hall…
As educators we are responsible for our students for more than 7 hours a day, five days a week. We are the adults that have the most regular contact with these students, in almost every case they spend more time with us than with their parents. They come to us during one of the most tumultuous periods of their lives and want nothing more than to be believed in, trusted, and cared about. Middle School students want to fit in and they want to feel that they are important. Last week when I visited classes as a student I was on the watch for “feeling like a nuisance” but I couldn’t find it…we already have a very good positive culture here at SCIS. I, however, am a big Jim Collins fan and want to see us take our school “from good to great”.
I’ve been informed by a certain High School math teacher that my two cents “have turned into more like 8 cents” so I’m going to leave it at that for today but, as promised in my SIP, I am attaching a number of great links about building and fostering positive student-teacher relationships and classroom culture:
- http://inspiringteachers.blogspot.com/2009/10/encouraging-positive-interactions.html
- http://www.jongordon.com/blog/the-power-of-positive-interactions/
- http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/motivation/motivation-challenge-6-student-lacks-positive-relationship-teach
- http://www.edutopia.org/blog/make-meaningful-connections-with-students-nick-provenzano?utm_content=bufferaf632&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
- http://www.cfchildren.org/advocacy/about-us/e-newsletter/articletype/articleview/articleid/11674/the-recipe-for-creating-positive-teacher-student-relationships.aspx
- http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~shumow/itt/StudentTchrRelationships.pdf
- http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-create-powerful-student-teacher-relationships/
Pushing Forward 
2 thoughts on “Building Positive Student-Teacher Relationships”