Relationships and Belonging
Guiding Questions
Standards/Tags: YA 1.1. Growth and Development, YA 1.2. Cultural Diversity, 3.2. Democratic Governance, 5.5 Dispositions, 4.3. Engagement
This module should take you approximately 75 minutes to complete.
Introduction
Relationships and belonging are central to the teaching of middle school. Nothing else can get accomplished if students do not have a strong relationship with at least one adult at school, and hopefully more. This module will explore why relationships and belonging are so central to middle level education and how to build them.
Learning Goal | Jump to... |
Why focus on relationships and belonging? | |
What are some ways to build relationships with students? | |
What steps will you take to build relationships? |
Image: TIIE
Why are relationships important for middle school students?
Discuss
“If I could have only one outcome, it would be that kids be optimistic about their futures.”
-Chris Stevenson
5 minutes
What would your one hope be for your students? Share with a colleague.
Read
Read this excerpt from an interview with author Chris Stevenson.
Interviewer: Why would anybody in their right mind choose to teach young adolescents?
Chris Stevenson: The great primary teachers I've known have been good at it because they've studied their kids a lot. They tried to create constructive matches between their agendas and where their children were developmentally and skill-wise. And the really great middle-level teachers I've been impressed by have the same quality. As you know from reading my stuff, I think you begin by trying to know your constituency and trying to find all the best ways you can to make complements between them and what the people who know best say everybody is supposed to know and be able to do. Some curriculum and some content and some skills are not negotiable. Kids have to learn [them]. But then it's a big world, with a wonderful array of possibilities, so we need to also effectively and successfully honor kids' preferences.
Read and reflect upon more of this interview with Chris Stevenson. He offers a sailing metaphor, a desire for students to be optimistic about their futures and a perspective on knowing your constituency. How do you respond to his ideas? Please reflect upon the Guiding Questions in relation to this article.
10 minutes
What are some ways to build relationships with students and families?
Read and Reflect
Read the Creating a School Community from Educational Leadership. Reflect on the following questions.
10 minutes
Read and Reflect
Read over the Vermont Design for Education, “...an educational philosophy should center around and focus upon the individual, his learning process, and his relationship and interaction with the teacher.” This document will give you a foundational understanding of the Vermont approach to education during the past 50 years.
Compare and contrast the 50 year old document with Act 77:
20 minutes
Watch
Be INSPIRED by the work of others to build students relationships. See questions in the right column to discuss with your colleagues.
10 minutes
Image: TIIE
Explore
10 minutes
Explore the Developmental Designs website
”Because student success relies on a blend of good relationships, social skills, and engagement with learning, Developmental Designs comprehensive practices integrate social and academic learning”
Click on “About the Approach” and review “How it Works” and “Core Practices”. Click on “Research” back on the home page and check out the efficacy of the program.
Ask yourself:
Collaborate and Plan
How will build relationships and belonging in your class or school this year? What strategies from this module will you use?
20 minutes
Image: Katy Farber
Dive
Want a deeper dive? Read and reflect upon John Dewey’s (1938) 74 page Experience and Education.
“All of us have desires...these desires are the ultimate moving springs of action...the intensity of the desire measures the strength of the efforts that will be put forth...In an educational scheme, the occurrence of a desire and impulse is not the final end. It is an occasion and a demand for the formation of a plan and a method of activity.” (pp. 70-71)
Visit the American Psychological Association’s website and apply the Guiding Questions to the information presented on the site. Visit the arrowed topics, especially the Do’s and Don’ts. Are you in agreement with their research findings?
Dive
Read and reflect upon the following quote and read pages 40 - 49 in this doctoral thesis to get an overview of Buber’s approach to education and relationships.
“Can one educate through instruction? Instruction wants to influence the thinking of the pupil, education his being and life...It is not the instruction that educates but the instructor. The good teacher educates by his speech and by his silence, in the hours of teaching and in the recesses, in casual conversation, through his mere existence, only he must be a really existing man and he must be really present to his pupils; he educates through contact. Contact is the primary word of education. It means that the teacher shall face his pupils not as developed brain before unfinished ones, but as being before beings, as mature being before developing beings. He must really face them, that means not in a direction working from above to below, from the teacher's chair to the pupils' benches, but in genuine interaction, in exchange of experiences, experiences of a fulfilled life with those of a still unfulfilled one. For what is needed...is genuine dialogue. The teacher, to be sure, conducts and governs this dialogue, but even so he must also enter it with his own person, directly and candidly. This dialogue shall continue into silent being with one another, indeed undoubtedly only here will it first properly culminate. It is this which I call the dialogical-principle in education.” (Martin Buber)
Reflect and Document
On your PLP post evidence (audio, video, or written) of your learning and briefly reflect on progress toward your individual or team goals. Be sure to tag your competencies accordingly!
10 minutes
Image: Canstock
Related Modules
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Learn more about helping students and teachers know themselves | |
Learn more about creating strong learning communities | |
Learn about helping all students feel safe and supported at school |
Congratulations! You have now completed the module
RELATIONSHIPS AND BELONGING.