How Relationships drive Student Achievement

 Why become an educator if you are not focused on developing strong positive relationships with students?  Students thrive in classes where they feel cared for and heard.  If a teacher is only teaching content and not taking an interest in the students in their room, they are not going to take an interest in the content being presented to them. If they don’t feel safe, they are going to be less likely to participate in class and engage with the lesson.  Content is an important aspect of teaching, as we are educators who want to teach and challenge our students.  However, there needs to be a balance of positive relationships and content to motivate students, which will lead to high levels of student achievement. 

Being in education for over a decade, I have challenged myself to build relationships with students in my classes who are perceived by others as “hard” or “ a lost cause”  because it is my passion to help support every student that I come across.  In my experience, many of these students have never felt liked by their teachers or they feel like they are strong students, so they use poor behavior choices as a protective tactic.  There are students I connect with that I have never had in my classroom, but it is because I took a genuine interest in them.  Attending after school events is a way to build relationships, and doesn’t cost any instructional time.  I have taught most of my career in low income communities, with a large diversity of students.  Research from Fredericks (2014) has shown that “ having close and caring relationships with teachers has been found to be especially important to the engagement of low income and African American and Hispanic youths” (p.125)  I spend time with my students during lunch, before and after school, at sporting events, and facilitate after school activities to create authentic opportunities to build strong relationships.  I have former students who are now in their mid twenties who still communicate with me about what they are doing and often thank me for taking the time to get to know them.  Relationships are the starting point for students to learn from their teachers.  If they feel cared about, liked, and heard, it will motivate them to be more engaged and more successful in their courses.

References

Jennifer A. Fredricks. (2014). Eight Myths of Student Disengagement : Creating Classrooms of Deep Learning. Corwin.

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