GREET YOUR STUDENTS AT THE DOOR BY NAME AND WITH A HIGH 5
I get it. You move to three different classrooms during the day, you don't have time to use the restroom, you don't have enough plan time, and you have to send one more email before class begins. None of this should get in the way of you greeting your students at the door and giving them a high 5 or a fist pound. Let them see you smile. Let them know that you are excited that they are in class today. Let them know that they are the center of the universe for that brief moment. Doing so will show them you care enough about them that you will give up a few short minutes of YOUR day to address them by their name. Better yet, use this time to give them an entrance ticket formative assessment in to the class and congratulate them when they get it right.
GO TO AN EVENT THAT THEY PARTICIPATE IN AND ACKNOWLEDGE THEM
Have you ever noticed that when you are out in public with your family, students come up to you and say hello? They are acknowledging that you exist and want you to know that they saw you. It works the other way also. Go see your students in action in something they are passionate about even if you don't necessarily find joy in the activity. Instead, find joy in the fact that your students have varied interests outside of school and take the time to watch them. Better yet, take your significant other and your own children to these events and share it with them. Your students need to know that you see them as individuals and that you support them both inside and outside the classroom. Something as simple as saying hello to a student when you see them working at their part-time job pays huge dividends. Don't underestimate the power of being noticed.
LET STUDENTS SEE YOUR IDIOSYNCRASIES AND YOUR CRAZY SIDE
We all have quirks. Students need to know that you are more than just a teacher. They need to know that you are human. They need to know that the person in the front of the classroom is not a robot. It's amazing how students respond to you when you let them know that you attended a concert of a band they really like, when you tell them that you have to turn lights on and off three times before you go to bed, or that you wrestled pigs in a competition when you were in college. They begin to see you as more than a teacher. Be willing to open up a little.
It is no surprise that students learn best from stories. I'm not talking about the ones they read in textbooks. I'm talking about the ones you tell that make content relevant to them. A lot of students won't remember something if they just read it out of a textbook, but they will remember if you tie it to a story involving you. The crazier the story, the better. Most schools do a lot of talking about making content more rigorous and relevant, but that is just talk. Relevancy comes from students making associations between what they are learning in class and what their interests are outside of school. Teach your students to tell stories by modeling it yourself.
EAT LUNCH WITH YOUR STUDENTS IN THE CAFETERIA
I realize that lunch time may be the only time you get to connect with your colleagues and enjoy a couple of moments of silence in a normally chaotic day, but this works. Students need to see that you actually eat cafeteria food and that you don't mind sitting at a lunch table in the same place they eat. You don't actually have to sit at the same table as students, although that would make for a great story (see above). Instead, designate a table or two in the cafeteria as a faculty table and eat lunch with them. Show them that you care so much about them that you are willing to give up your one time during the day for adult conversation to eat among the chaos that is lunch time.
#OwnYourEpic #Embrace
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