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In what ways do you make your students feel valued?
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Ways that I’m able to make my students feel valued are listening, eye contact and discussing ALL opinions in course.
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Listening to your students, without judgement, is one of the best ways to make students feel valued. Working with high schoolers, they are craving relationships with adults who will listen to their thoughts, questions, and concerns and give them advice, without judgement. Students feel valued when you take the time to listen to who they are, what they are concerned with, and then lovingly offer encouragement to help them grow.
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I am consistently helping my students understand they are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made them because He wanted a relationship with them. We are made to praise the Lord. Knowing that I am fearfully and wonderfully made shows I have value. I want my students to understand they were not just an accident or made from chaos. God knew all of us before we were even born. He knew all about us. We are all made in HIS image!
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I encourage them, pray for and with them. I allow them to have a voice in the classroom. We celebrate, I want them to know it isn’t all about academics and churning through a textbook and taking tests and quizzes, but celebrating our course and our time together as well. I find it is actually ok to schedule a course party for Christmas or have a video day after a big test… not all the time but it helps us not just look down at our notebooks… but also around at our fellow classmates.
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There are many ways I show my students that I value them. First, I smile at them when I greet them. We chat about how we’re feeling or what’s been happening. We pray together for God’s strength and blessing. I remind them that God gave them a brain, made them smart and expects them to use it. We look for ways to have fun while we are learning a topic. I teach them how to apologize, how to forgive, by modeling how not to hold a grudge. I tell them I love them and that I am happy they are my students.
