There is nothing I do as a tutor/teacher more important than creating strong and trusting relationships with my students.
3 Top Reasons Trusting Relationships are Vital for Teachers and Students
It is paramount to know your students for several crucial reasons. My top three are:
- Students work harder for teachers who appreciate them.
- Students are more likely to take academic risks.
- Students are more engaged, and less likely to need disciplinary action.
In my twenty years of teaching, I found students who felt connected were more motivated to satisfy the requirements of class because they didn’t want to let me down. If they didn’t know I cared for them, it wouldn’t matter to them as much if they failed to complete the assignment or master a concept.
A second reason it’s important to maintain a close relationship is to earn trust. If you do, they are willing to take academic risks. When I’m working with a student on a difficult assignment or concept, the trust I’ve diligently developed helps students take academic risks. They’re willing to try work or to think in a different way.
Thirdly, relationships reduce the amount of discipline problems. Students want to please tutors they like and respect. They’re unlikely to act out because they fear damaging the relationship. Teachers need to foster respect with students to nurture those relationships.
Therefore, there is no question, at least in my mind, about the importance of creating deep and strong relationships with your students. As Sarah D. Sparks put it in a recent Education Week article, “A lot of teachers … have really strong abilities to engage socially with the students, but then it’s not enough,” she said.
“You have to go much deeper than that and actually start to engage with students around their curiosity, their interests, their habits of mind through understanding and approaching material to really be an effective teacher.”
A Personal Reflection on a Favorite Teacher of Mine
Recently, Lee Sharkey, my middle and high school English teacher, passed away. As a teacher, Mrs. Sharkey would be on my Mount Rushmore of teachers because she was a master of relationships, and her students would do anything for her. I would arrive to class early just so I could talk to her.
Every chance she got, she made a connection with her students. She would also ask questions of personal importance to me. Her feedback was always kind, and she once told me that she could hear my voice in my writing. It was one of the kindest things a teacher has ever said to me.
She never gave me false praise, but she found the good in my writing and encouraged and helped me to bring those skills out into the open. When I look back, I can see how hard she worked to connect with people, and those connections helped me to become a better English student.
Challenges to Creating Relationships
It’s a tough balancing act creating these relationships because there is a line you can’t cross. You can’t be friends with your students. Not only is it inappropriate, but it easily sabotages a relationship.
Friends don’t ask friends to do hard math problems, but teachers do.
Plus, if you become friends with a student, at least from their perspective, it negates your authority when you give them constructive feedback. There needs to be a clear line between teacher and student, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t put effort into building an appropriate working relationship.
One challenge teachers and tutors have with devoting time to relationships is the breadth of curriculum to cover. It’s often a lot and limits the time to build relationships with your students. Yet, if you cover the entire scope of the course and have not created relationships, some of those concepts will fall on deaf ears.
As Stacy Goodman writes in Edutopia, “relationships help facilitate the possible connections you make. It alerts each student that he or she is seen as another being and, in response, makes them all more attentive. By slowing down and maybe not getting through the entire scope of your curriculum, you create opportunities to go deeper.”
How to Combine Relationship-Building with Learning
Just the other day, after I had finished an assignment with a student, the student mentioned he was excited about playing Minecraft that afternoon. I had a choice to make. I could review the student’s work. Or, I could hear about what he was going to do in Minecraft later in the day. Because he had answered all of his problems correctly, it was a simple decision. I let him spend the rest of the time we had allotted for the activity telling me about his Minecraft game.
Doing so allowed him to share a passion with me, and I could see that talking about something that he loved re-energized him. Also, I learned about his plans for Minecraft so I can use that when I need an example to help him better understand a concept.
Finally, I made a note to check back in with him later in the week to see how it’s going. Following up sends a clear message to my student I care about him because I care about things that are important to him.
How to Foster Strong Student Relationships
Engage their Passions
Get to know your student’s passions and use them in your instruction. I once tutored a girl who loved horses, and I would try a couple of times a week to talk about horses. Not only could I ask her about how her riding went, but I could also use riding as an example in a math problem.
This made the material more relevant to her. Making connections about a student’s passions will ignite interest and help students master the material more quickly because you are tying the information to a schema that the students already possess.
Ask Questions
One teacher I know starts off each class with five minutes of sharing. Each day, she asks a different question. For example, on Mondays she always asks about what they did during the weekend.
Empower them with Choices
When the time is right, let students make some of the decisions. For example, if you have two activities and it doesn’t matter the order, let them choose which activity to do first. Giving them choice empowers them to do their best work.
Disrupt – in a Good Way
Be willing to play a game with them. It changes the dynamic and is like a brain reboot. For one of my students, I love playing basketball outside and critical thinking card games inside. Games are a great way to make connections because students have more time to converse with their teacher.
Bond with Music
Music is a great way to connect with your students. One of the students whom I tutor adores Willie Nelson, so I asked her to play me a few of her favorite songs. I even went so far as to listen to an album that she recommended for me. The next day we were able to talk about the songs that we both liked, and those connections created a stronger relationship.
Conclusion
What activities work for you? Please leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you’d like to talk about tutoring help, either in-person or online, please email me or call (508) 667-5104 for a free consultation.
TLC Tutoring 