The following blog was written by Marilyn Monteith, Assistant Principal at Jesse C. Carson High School.
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| Sydney, Taylor, Ryan, Kristen, and Mr. DelliSanti |
Which characteristics of teaching have the greatest impact on student learning? Why are some teachers more effective than others? Why does Johnny work harder for one teacher than for another? Why do some teachers have lower attendance and discipline issues than others? These questions have been asked repeatedly over the history of education. I believe the answer has always been the teacher’s ability to build relationships with students, parents and their colleagues.
Relationships, in my opinion, have the greatest impact on student learning. Look back at your own educational experience and I’ll bet the teachers that you learned the most from are also the teachers you had positive, appropriate relationships with. It may be a coach who pushed you beyond the limits you set for yourself or a teacher who cared enough to ask questions when you weren’t acting like yourself. Once you have identified that special teacher, you can recall the content you learned in their class. You cannot effectively teach people you do not have a relationship with.
As educators we must also form relationships with parents. Teachers must work together with parents to further student learning and commitment. The most effective teachers involve parents in their classroom. Parent relationships can be effectively cultivated through parent phone calls, emails, open house, and teacher webpages. The more we keep parents informed the more they will support our efforts in the classroom. Communication between school and home creates an atmosphere of trust and collaboration. More importantly a lack of communication creates mistrust, separation, and misunderstanding. A division between the parent and teacher can be detrimental to achievement in the classroom.
Educators must form strong teaming relationships with their colleagues. Collaboration and team planning is imperative in increasing student achievement. When teachers work together to align curriculum, create lessons and assessments, discuss data and implement corrective measures the product is much higher quality. Individually teachers may or may not succeed but together everyone has the potential to succeed and all students are reaping the benefits of sound quality instruction. Each individual teacher brings something (content knowledge, creativity, organization, literacy strategies, their own learning style, etc.) to the planning table that no one else possesses and their contributions are important and worthwhile. We, as educators, must embrace each other’s strengths and weaknesses and fight for student achievement as a team. We cannot create a teaming atmosphere without building relationships. We must grow to care about, celebrate with and forgive each other like a family.
The ability to build relationships is the characteristic that separates teachers. We can teach people to provide instruction and lesson plan, but they will be limited by their ability and willingness to form relationships with others. The impact of the relationships teachers build may be life changing. This became clear to me during my first year of teaching. On my first day of teaching, I met a young eighth grade male student who would not look me in the eye. As I greeted him he said, “teachers don’t like me.” Being lateral entry I replied, “you’re in luck because I am not a teacher.” He had spent most of his middle school years in an alternative program and had not been successful in the classroom. During the year that followed, we faced many challenges together. With a lot of help from my team teacher, we formed a very strong relationship with the student and his parents. At the end of that year, the student scored a level three on both the reading and math End of Grade test for the first time in his educational career.
Several years later, I received a phone call from the student telling me about all of his successes in high school. At the end of the conversation he said, “I just called to say thank you and tell you how much you mean to me.” That relationship forged between two teachers, his parents, and himself had changed his educational path, but had also deeply formed my outlook on the importance of building relationships in the classroom. This young man had as much an impact on me, as an educator, as I had on him, as a student.
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