Getting to your know students: How to REALLY impact their lives

Sport Kid likes his music teacher above all of his teachers, because his music teacher chats to him and asks him questions about his life. Sport Kid feels like his music teacher cares about him. 

Sport Kid likes his music teacher above all of his teachers, and not because he loves learning a musical instrument, in fact, it has nothing to do with the subject that this particular teacher teaches. It is because the music teacher chats to Sport Kid and asks him about his life, he puts in effort to kid to know sport kid and sport kid feels like his teacher cares about him. Sport Kid says that he knows all about his teacher too and they talk about what they do on their weekends and the sport that they play. 

Sport Kid, who has had a lot of behaviour issues in the classroom, got an award last week in Music for the effort that he has been putting into his lessons. Sport Kid isn’t named Music Kid, because he doesn’t have much interest in music, but he is prepared to show his music teacher that he is a well behaved kid who tries his best, because he feels like his teacher cares about him.

When students are asked about their motivation to succeed in a subject, their motivation can often be traced back to whether they felt that their teacher cared about them personally. If a student felt that their teacher showed positive behaviours of good will and good intentions towards the student, the students were motivated to succeed in that teachers subject.

The hashtag #kidsdeserve is becoming increasingly popular on Twitter and it would seem that while we can all agree that kids do in fact deserve “it”, reflecting on Sport Kid and his classroom behaviour, we could also say that getting to know your students is worth it. It’s worth it for them because it makes them feel like they are a valuable member of the classroom community, and it’s worth it for the teacher because it can impact their classroom behaviour in a positive way.

Taking the time to talk, listen and care about your students can earn you’re their respect and with that respect can come a huge drop in behaviour problems.

Qualitative and quantitative research has shown teacher/student relationships and feedback, both concepts that have a foundation in a caring and compassionate pedagogy, have a positive and significant impact on student achievement.

Getting to know your students also gives you the opportunity to personalise your student’s learning styles and allows you to teach the students in an environment where they feel like their culture, their life experiences, learning styles and individual abilities are respected. Creating an environment based on respect makes children feel safe. When a child feels safe, they learn more effectively.

How can you implement pedagogy of care and compassion into your teaching? 

It can begin with the simple task of learning each student’s name. Greet each student as they come into the classroom by their name, you may even wish to integrate the time it takes to great each student individually into your lesson plan, and use their name when you give them back their work. At the end of the day, you are working with kids, who won’t always behave perfectly and who will all respond differently to your attentions, but don’t get discouraged, keep trying and you never know, you may have a break through, and one day, your students will be telling their children about that one teacher who took the time to knew them and really change their attitude to learning, their time at school and who had an impact in their life.

The Extra Credit Academy.

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Callender,L. (2011) Compassion and Care in Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://landersonc.weebly.com/uploads/8/2/5/9/8259406/the_role_of_caring_and_compassion_in_pedagogy.pdf

Education World, (2012).The secret weapon: getting to know your students. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/columnists/mcdonald/mcdonald013.shtml

Glenz,T. (2014.) The Importance of Learning Students’ Names. Retrieved from http://teachingonpurpose.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Glenz-T.-2014.-The-importance-of-learning-students-names.pdf

Larsen, A. (2015). Who cares? Developing a pedagogy of caring in higher education. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5325&context=etd

Western Australia Department of Education and Training. (2009). Effective Teaching. Retrieved from https://www.education.wa.edu.au/documents/2548175/2664299/Effective+Teaching.pdf/60edae76-9a7d-4e84-9e49-180ceb3f0a2b