Hooray For Monday: Building Relationships - Center for Inspired Teaching

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a new blog series we’ll be posting each week with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

A number of years ago Inspired Teaching partnered with a school here in DC that was striving to turn around its student achievement, and student and staff morale. While the work was significant and complex, we knew the place to start was with relationships. Many students were in crisis, having already experienced myriad traumas in their young lives, and we knew the research shows that having the support of a caring adult can make a big difference in how children navigate through trauma. So each student was assigned one adult in the school to check in on them a few times each week. This adult could be anyone other than their teacher, in other words anyone who was not in charge of evaluating or grading them. All adults in the school from specials teachers, to school administrators, to custodial staff and classroom teachers were assigned a handful of students with whom they did not regularly interact.

These adults had the job of engaging casually with the students on their list, greeting them in the halls, making sure the students were seen. The adults said hello in the morning, asked how family members were doing, asked students about their favorite subjects, discussed events in the community and the country, asked “How are you doing today?”

The one rule was that they could not ask questions like “Are you going to behave today?“ or “Did you do your reading last night?” In other words, the adults had the sole job of letting students know they were seen and valued.

While we invested many hours over 3 years into our partnership with the school, this one initiative played a significant role in turning the school around. Children and adults began looking forward to seeing one another, looking forward to coming to school, because they knew they’d be appreciated when they got there.

By the end of our partnership, not only had student achievement gone from among the lowest in the city to among the highest, attendance and morale – for students and staff – had increased significantly.

A friend and colleague recently asked me how we might replicate such an approach in an online setting. According to a recent article in Education Week, How to Build Relationships With Students During Covid-19, “A common feature among children who show resilience in the face of adverse childhood experiences is the presence of close and supportive relationships with adults.”

Strong relationships are essential in the growth of children, and that’s ever more important now when their circles of relationships have grown smaller.

How might we find opportunities to let our students know they are seen, to engage in low stakes conversations (“Did you watch the football game this weekend?” vs. “Did you get all your homework done last night?”), to remind them that we are interested in knowing them not only because we have to, but because we want to?

Here are 3 concrete things teachers can do this week to deepen relationships with their students:

1. Create opportunities for them to share who they are with you and classmates using google slides / flip grid / padlet / etc.
2. Try to set up small group meetings where students can share more about who they are. Consider activities like, 2 truths and a lie, a set of interesting questions that everyone answers, or an opportunity for each student to share an object that means something to them.
3. Connect with families via a questionnaire / a phone call home / a letter from you explaining who you are and an invitation for them to send you back the same.

We invite you to share your ideas, the things you’ve tried and the things you intend to try, to build relationships with your students. We’ll collect and share these ideas so everyone in our teaching community can benefit!

SHARE YOUR RELATIONSHIP BUILDING IDEAS HERE.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.