Reflection on the Students’ Holidays

In the week prior to Thanksgiving, in my daily check-in, a student shared she was not looking forward to Thanksgiving. 

This prompted me to have a conversation with her. She opened up a little, sharing she didn’t appreciate her father’s

girlfriend. This was putting a damper on her holiday and time off from school.

So, as I enjoyed my time with family over Christmas, I recalled this interaction with my student. 

The holidays can be hard for many and for many different reasons. As teachers, we don’t know what our students are

experiencing over these breaks. We don’t know what weighs them down as they come into our classes each day either.

But we can get to know them a bit, offer support, and give them respect as fellow human beings. I hope that each day, I do better and better doing this for my students. 

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If this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing from you.

Encouraging Students to Know One Another

Throughout the school year, much time is invested to develop relationships with students. Clearly, the better you know them, the more comfortable students feel in class and the better you’re able to meet their needs.

The very start of the year includes more specific activities to accelerate the process of developing those relationships. At my school, there is a period at the start of the day that’s called Connections, giving the students a place where they can develop relationships with peers and a teacher so that they feel more connected to the school. It is our school's take on an advisory program.

The foundation of this period is relationships. Over the course of the first month, we have done many sharing and team building activities to get to know one another and build trust.

The other day, however, I noticed that it wasn’t quite working (or maybe I expected too much too soon?): students could not say much about others in the group (not including those who were already friends).

Obviously, sharing about themselves is not enough.

I’m going to try more direct sharing from which they will then have to share about another in some format. I hope this will help accelerate the group’s familiarity with one another.

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If you have good stategies for students to get more comfortable with one another or, if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing from you.