As per post,
"Focus Area 1 - Healthy Relationships
Read:
How to Build Effortless Rapport
https://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/06/15/how-to-build-effortless-rapport/
Integrating Aboriginal Teaching and Values into the Classroom
Watch:
Rita Pierson – Relationships
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU2gRR7MBIw
Teachers support health relationships in a variety of ways. Creating that relationship of back and forth respect and care will help everyone develop a good learning environment where students want to learn and feel encouraged to participate in class.
Healthy relationships are very important between teachers and students because students need to be able to trust their teachers in order to feel comfortable learning. If the teacher is not eager to learn about what their students are interested in, the students will not feel like they are a part of the learning community. Rita Pierson states that all learning is understanding relationships. We should seek first to understand before being understood and to apologize. It is so easy to forget that as educators, we are human and make mistakes so when we do make one, we should apologize to our students since we expect them to do the same. It is also important to try to understand the students' point of views as they should be able to tell their reasoning before you jump to conclusions.
Post:
What is a healthy relationship? How can you support healthy relationships? How does understanding about healthy relationships support your understanding of the relationships you must have with other teachers, parents, administrators and others within the school community? List some key areas to consider when building healthy relationships.
Review and comment on two other postings by your colleagues."
As per discussion,
"I mentioned in a previous post about "challenges of a leader", I must say a lot about what I wrote was not in regards to this video-having never seen this video, I feel reassured in my comments made. Rita's mother seems to be a very strong teacher and amazing person. I hope I can influence 1 student in the way that her mother had. That's the thing about these students though. Sometimes there are obvious students we know and can see how we impact and how much we have impacted them-but then there are others.
Reflecting on healthy relationships and teaching takes me back to a deeply personal and shameful part of my student career back in high school. As well as one from elementary school that didn't really help my situation moving forward at that time.
In grade 12 I was struggling with a lot of things and suffering from being "too lucky"-sounds dumb right? It was, I just basically had so many opportunities and options that I need to make next to no important decisions in my life at that time. I think the most important decisions I felt I needed to make at that time were in regards to social circles and relationships. You might think University vs. College, no? No, that was already decided; might think breaking the law doing dumb kid stuff versus being an upstanding citizen? No, decision was already made that if I messed up that bad-my life was over-I liked my life-the thought of it being "over" was actually too overwhelming to understand and too stressful to imagine. I mean, I'm describing more of grade 9-10, by grade 11 I had already done enough in regards to silliness that I couldn't really push the boundaries much more without being put in front of a judge. I still maintained a healthy relationship with my teachers and peers-but in regards to my parents-yikes, even by grade 12-I was thinking about going to college in spite of them but still-there was a block, mentally-couldn't imagine life outside of the safe little bubble of tolerance to my actions and the comfortableness of being decision free. That was until I met a renowned teacher in their Grade 12 English Ethics and Literature course. That was when I saw it all change, the pointless rebellion stopped because I was so wrapped up in understanding how ridiculously unimportant everything was. I was wrapped up in philosophy class, Ethics, and thus more in literature, etc. I was lost and found at the same time.
My Ethics teacher was struggling to get me to where I needed to be in order to pass, I was burning away brain cells like they were on sale at Costco on a Black Friday. Not literally, figuratively speaking, just processing my new found understanding of life in my own way. Part of me getting to the place I needed to in order to reach the goal I finally decided on meant I needed to buy into my parent's ideals. I treated everything like pawns on a chess board at that time, just trying to get through-saying and doing whatever I needed to in order to get what I needed-being manipulative would be a good way to put it. I was ashamed of one thing in particular (mostly because I was caught, but still) parents teacher interviews had come along and my marks were not what they should have been. My parents asked and I gave an explanation that they would go up (they weren't going to go up, it was pretty late in the year), and it was based on late work that I was submitting (I wasn't, and that wasn't what was agreed upon with the teacher at all, as far as the teacher knew, I didn't have an academic goal). I was just struggling. I was delusion I guess-not to a point of mental disorders or anything (wasn't even 18), but just through stress and confusion I guess I imagined in my mind I might make that situation a reality granted time and plea as needed-meh. When my mother brought up the bump in my grade the teacher was confused and basically asked where I came up with this-he knew how much I feared my parents and kinda suggested I maybe use the room to have a serious and private conversation then and there with my mother as he stood outside waiting for us to finish the conversation. I had been slowly revealing the relatively gruesome relationship (that was not lied about), through class journals-it wasn't anything to write to a superior about, but certainly something out of psychiatrist's notebook (much like a lot of my posts-confessionals-if you will). Long and short, being caught in a lie in front of that teacher-I honestly didn't think I'd be able to look at them the same way again, yet we were able to move forward. Not doing as well as I needed to but I just had to adjust my goals and the teacher was human enough to do that with me-even though it certainly wasn't his position to need to do so.
Former to this, a lot of the relationship with my parents started when my grades began slipping in Grade 7. Our family was under a lot of financial pressure, kid's grades slipping and "falling into the wrong crowd" led to situations that my parents by no means "overreacted" to, but could have handled with a bit more of sound practice. Topping off a series of disobedient actions came chronic allergy to dust, pollen, that sorta thing which led to the use of medication that basically knocked me out at the same time everyday. Basically drowsy allergy pills, prescription stuff. Didn't work the way it should have, ended up with allergy shots well into high school which have actually done wonders-would still be taking things like Claritin or whatever if I hadn't had the shots.
Teacher called me out in Science class one day asking why I was sleeping in class-always during science class, guess he was a bit self-conscious about it. Well, he phoned home for a parent interview and suggested that my parents pay more attention to me and try to figure out what is wrong with me before sending me to school and that if it was medication, how come it took so long for them to notice-then socioeconomic status indirectly got brought up, my mom and the overly reactive personality she is, did a every good job at scaring every teacher in the school to steer clear of getting too involved with my brother, sister or I. Not to mention, she got me stuck into the IEP stereotype for a year before high school which got difficult to explain with guidance when I signed up for all academic classes.
On one hand I had a teacher who saw this shameful and manipulative side of me yet ventured further to help me out and one who just didn't take the time to consider what was going on with me, rather than inquiring with me personally first, he called my parents directly. Both situations are experiences that stuck with me for a long time on a number of different levels. A bit more of a personal side to posting than the classic jargon and practice. But just in case you sometimes find yourself wondering, "what does a student think?", sometimes you need to revisit what you thought-a lot of us forget."
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