Teachers, Here's Why You Have To Get Your Student-Teacher Relationships Right

It all started with a tweet to the #Edutwitter community.

All of the responses were so heartwarming & uplifting, I had to add them to this blog to prove a very important point. Read below!

Soak it in folks.

I just want to pick out a couple of critical lines:

"I felt truly respected & cared for them by them all."

"Simply - he cared."

"Cared about my interests."

"She saw & honoured my dignity."

Although there were many tweets that spoke about the teacher's subject knowledge, the lion's share spoke about how the teacher made them feel honoured, valued & loved.

That ladies & gentlemen is the core of a positive student-teacher relationship.

You Make A Difference

I know that this blog is about behaviour management & looking at tactics tips & tricks to make you the 'superhero of your classroom' - but let's park that for a second.

Your job is to change young people's lives for the better. Never forget that.

I believe that teaching is the best job on the planet. Seriously, I’m not kidding. You will never meet more interesting people than the students in your care.

For our students, our classrooms are more than places where we write the date and answer questions on Page 37 in the Big Yellow Textbook. Sometimes it can mean more than you will ever know.

Our classrooms can be places of discovery and wonder. Places where our students can discover their own unique voices and places where they can discover their passions that can change their lives forever.

Sadly for our more disadvantaged students, your classroom can be a place of escape from the terrors that wait for them outside school or at home.

A place of reckoning, where they may have a conversation with someone that could stop them walking down a dark path into drugs, death or despair. Or simply a place where they can keep warm as the central heating has broken and Grandad can’t afford to get it repaired.

All these things happen in your classroom and you have a front-row premium seat.

You have a huge opportunity to help change your students’ lives & put them on a path to a brighter future. It’s a hard gig but ultimately it’s worth it.

The reason why the student-teacher relationship is so important is because as the Former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said:

No one cares how much you know until they know how much that you care

Does that mean that you have to be a pushover & cuddle their little boo-boos away?

Well, unless you work in Reception, that is not all true. Sometimes you will need to assert your boundaries, sometimes you will have to say things that will make you unpopular once in a while. But that does not mean that you care any less.

What you will need to develop is Trust-Based-Influence.

Ultimately, the trust MUST come before the teaching.

If you can't do that, then even you offering a million pounds won't impress them.

There are many pitfalls and things that you must learn in order to build this bridge with your students & that's what this blog is all about.

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You won't regret it. Be like Nike - you know the slogan.

Karl from actionheroteacher.com