Relationships: How Schools and Students Thrive

Take a moment and think about a school experience that you had that was positive. I bet when you thought of a positive experience, there was a teacher's face behind that moment. If so, you are lucky. You had a person at your school that cared deeply for you: a teacher, a mentor, an advisor. Because of this relationship, you more than likely thought that school was a place where you could be you, where you could thrive, and a place where at least one person knew who you were and what you cared about at a deep level.

Far too many of our students don't have that type of relationship in their schools. In the days of curriculum pacing, testing, and urgency (which are all important), it is easy for adults at a school site to de-prioritize deep relationships with their students. It is no one's fault here, and I'm definitely not placing blame on teachers. Teaching is the most difficult job in our country and figuring out where one's priorities should be given the finite amount of time is difficult. However, school leadership doesn't always do a good job of creating structures and systems that enable deep relationships to occur within the natural bounds of a school building.

This blog will explore two different strategies schools could implement in order to build deeper relationships between students and adults at the school building. Ultimately, the goal for each strategy is for every students to have one deep and meaningful relationship with at least one adult in the school building.

First, schools, in all their data-driven glory, can use survey data to better understand who their students are and what they care about in life. Using survey data, schools could, for lack of a better word, seperate students into different advising classes given their interests. The teacher in charge of this advising group would also have a deep interest in the topic. These topics could range from writing to hunting to cars. These advising classes must be structured and outcomes need to be created. It would be my recommendation that two outcomes include 1) continuous student data monitoring. During this time, advisors would ensure students knew their grades for each class and why their grade is the way it is. The advisor would then make sure each student has an action step in order to improve their academic standing in a particular class and 2) connect student acheivement data to the students' interests. In this phase, students would get to explore their interests and deeply see, in an integrated way, why the content they are learning is important given their interests. While there is not, and will never be a silver bullet, this could go a long way in ensuring students have agency in their education and have a person who cares deeply about them, their interestes, and their academic success.

Secondly, in keeping with the theme of schools deeply knowing students' interests, schools could create an internship system that allows students to both learn academic knowledge deeply in the classroom and apply it at an internship that aligns to their future goals and aspirations. This would require teachers to be on the hook for knowing a group of students and their interests. Teachers would also have to have a structure in place to chat with students and help them reflect on their internship experience and make meaning for their future.

Both strategies above could play a role in creating schools where each students is known, loved, and cared for by an adult in the building. However, I don't want anyone to fall into the trap that thinking we can strategize our way to being relationship-oriented with our students. Building relationships start with a mindset that relationships are important. It's important for leaders at any school to model this mindset with teachers and everyone they interact with. Otherwise, these structures become a thing to do as opposed to a "way of being" where everyone is on the hook for deep relationships with each other.