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What are one or two practices you’d like to implement that would allow you to demonstrate your care for and commitment to your students? If you already have practices in place, what are they?
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Effective parent and teacher communication relationships. Impacting my students enough so that they can take responsibility for their own learning.
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I think making notes of specific instances to encourage and instances of correction and writing a note to the family with those instances in them. Only one or two students per week to be reasonable about the amount of time. It would be nice as a parent to receive that and know my child’s teacher notices what he does and says, both positive and not. Also, allowing students limited choices. Sometimes I think children are frustrated because they have so little control. Something simple- like choosing the picture they draw that has the short i sound instead of telling them exactly what to draw or worse just coloring a printout.
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As many of us do, I have classroom expectations for my students. These rules dictate the way they should conduct themselves in my course, and what I should be able to expect from them. I also set rules for myself and they are always true. They are: 1). I love you, 2). I am proud of you, and 3). I believe in who you can be! I repeat these things a lot, and it has built a certain culture around my course and my interactions with my students. They know, no matter what, I want what is best for them. This may come through a moment of discipline or rebuke, or an encouraging word.
Not only that, but I intentionally build relationships with my students. I am constantly in the hallways during passing period. During lunch duty I walk around, sit down, and talk with my students. I am around early in the morning and after school just to be able to build into those relationships. I do a lot of listening and less talking during these times. It has proved to be incredibly valuable to my rapport and reputation among students and their families.
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A core element of my French courses is to incorporate student input and experiences to the development of course content rather than to strictly follow a textbook. I elicit student interests and events relevant to their lives, and build classroom content around that. Since we began to spend a portion of each course doing this a few years ago, student engagement, their sense of being seen and heard, and their language acquisition has grown exponentially.
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I just try to check in with my kids whenever I can on a personal level. I also try to make myself available to them if they need to talk or need help. I also try to show them grace and understanding whenever I can – this goes a long way for many of them who may not receive such things on a regular basis.