Here's a hint - it isn't helping them get higher scores on standardized tests.
AOL News yesterday had this piece by Keith Middleton, Associate Superintendent of Mason County Schools. The top 11 things he and a co-author of a recent book found students saying were:
* Know us personally, our interests and strengths
* Let us know who they are as individuals
* Smile at us
* Encourage us to participate in school activities
* Spend time beyond class time to help us be successful in their class
* Give us descriptive feedback on assignments
* Tell us why
* Share how what we learn is connected to real life
* Apologize when they make mistakes
* Give meaningful work
* Are energetic, enthusiastic and enjoy their job
Please keep reading.
The book from which this comes is Simply the Best: 29 Things Students Say the Best Teachers Do Around Relationships, co-authored with Elizabeth Pettit.
I will return to the complete list in a moment.
Let me offer from the AOL piece in which the list was found a couple of important snippets.
As one looks at this list of attributes identified by students, it is evident the words of Dr. James Comer capture what the best teachers know: "No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship."
For those who don't recognize the name, Comer has been one of the nation's leading child psychologists. He has specialized in educational issues during his long career at Yale Medical School (where he has served as associate dean), and is known for his pioneering efforts to improve the scholastic performance of children from low-income and minority backgrounds. His "Comer Process," developed in schools near Yale, has had an especial focus on the development of children's social skills and self-esteem. He is one of the Conveners of the Forum for Education and Democracy, about which I have periodically written.
Middleton argues that at the heart of effective teaching is relationship:
Put simply, the words and actions of teachers and how they are internalized by the student are powerful! They either impede or enhance the learning process.
(The idea of relationship in teaching is also, as I have also written, key to the focus of Parker Palmer, whose The Courage to Teach is still as important a book on teaching as I have encountered.)
Middleton poses the question of why are there not more great teachers. In part, it is because neither schools of education nor school leadership emphasize relationships and the making of personal connections.
In addition, high-stakes testing often relegates an intentional focus on relationships as fluff or something that does not truly impact achievement. However, that is an erroneous assumption because research is replete with the importance of forging positive relationships in schools.
There's also an assumption by some instructors that "I am here to teach content and students just need to do what they are told."
Anyone who thinks they can be truly successful by just teaching content without knowing or understanding the students is sadly mistaken. Just because we teach it does not mean they will learn it - that is one reason canned curricula and so-called teacher-proof lessons simply are not really effective. We have to understand where students are in order to help them connect with the material. Just because we teach it does not mean we have done our jobs. They have to learn. While we need to help them adjust to understand how to learn, we must adjust to meet them where they are. That requires knowing them.
Let me again put up the list of 11 characteristics with which I began, only this time offering some commentary on each. And let me note before I proceed that in examining this list I think back to the ceremonies the 21 of us receiving the Agnes Meyer teaching award from the Washington experienced, where we heard comments from students, peers, parents and administrators that had been part of our applications: we regularly heard statements like these, certainly from the students, but also from the others.
Know us personally, our interests and strengths I teach students, they come before the curriculum. I want them to understand that I see them as more than the person in that chair that period. For my instruction to benefit them I must understand them, especially strengths and weaknesses, as much as possible.
Let us know who they are as individuals We want students to trust us. Trust requires some degree of mutuality. They are also attempting to understand us. That means that need some sense of who we are.
Smile at us - I remember the title of a book for beginning teachers that simply horrified me - "Don't smile until Christmas." How ridiculous. If we want students to give us anything except what we can compel them to do, if we want more than sullen compliance, we have to make learning a more pleasant experience. It will be hard enough. A smile is an important part of acknowledging the humanity of another person. And remember, many of our students are fragile, still figuring out who and what they are.
Encourage us to participate in school activities Especially in High School, it is important for students to explore themselves and their relations with others. They are not just their brains. There is a balance, and there should be an understanding of priorities, although we cannot impose ours on them by force. This is a part of recognizing the students as whole person, of understanding their strengths and weaknesses.
Spend time beyond class time to help us be successful in their class At the Secondary level, this is incredibly important. If the student is willing to come for help outside of class hours, we have to find a way to offer it. It may be s/he is embarrassed at struggling. It also may be the only way to give a child the individual attention s/he needs without having a class of 35 others students who do not need that additional time on a particular topic or skill have to wait. It might be tutoring, small group instruction, or simply addressing concerns and understanding through email, messaging, or phone calls.
Give us descriptive feedback on assignments It is insufficient to simply mark something as wrong. The student often needs some guidance as to why. In a large class, it is possible that the teacher will see patterns of incorrectness, which then can be addressed in a mini-lesson reviewing the assignment. It is one reason I try to turn around regular assignments by the next class, so that I can address any misunderstandings that may extend to multiple students. I may be correcting insufficient or confusing instruction on my part, or I may realize that I did not fully understand how the students were approaching the task, or their prior knowledge.
Tell us why and Share how what we learn is connected to real life To me these are connected. Why is it important that we learn it? The answer had better be beyond "because it will be on the test" whether it is your test or some high-stakes external test. If that is our answer, then we should not be surprised if the students take a memory dump as soon as the test is completed. Students may not be able to understand why they have to learn something. Even after teachers explain, they still may not fully grasp it. But if the teacher has taken the time to explain - in the context of building a relationship - students will be somewhat more willing to trust, to make the effort. Why? Because we have a built a relationship, because we have taken the time to help them understand, however incompletely, the importance of what they are learning.
Apologize when they make mistakes Teachers are human. We make all kinds of mistakes. If we are going to expect our students to take responsibility for their mistakes, we must model it for them. And if we want them to take the risk of going beyond their intellectual comfort zones, we must recognize that they will make mistakes. Having them understand that we can learn from our mistakes but first we must acknowledge them is as important a lesson as they can learn, and we should not expect them to learn it if we do not demonstrate its importance in our dealings with them.
Give meaningful work Don't give assignments just to keep them busy, or so that you have a basis for giving them a grade. Our time is precious, but so is theirs. We do not want to waste either one. It is one way we demonstrate to them that we respect them, that the work we assign is meaningful.
Are energetic, enthusiastic and enjoy their job If teachers are bored and going through the motions, trust me, students of any age will know it. The likely response is that they will go through the motions. Enthusiasm can be contagious. It may go off the rails sometimes, but it really makes a difference. I tell my students I plan to enjoy what I am doing when I am teaching them, so they might as well go along for the ride.
Quoting again from Middleton:
One can't argue with the importance of content knowledge, but that alone is insufficient to capture the essence of great teaching. At the heart of effective teach is relationships.
Put simply, the words and actions of teachers and how they are internalized by the student are powerful! They either impede or enhance the learning process.
And also this:
Robert Marzano, a respected educational researcher and writer, suggests in some of his work that relationships are crucial to what happens in schools, not only as it relates to classroom management, but maybe to the "entirety of teaching."
Relationships are crucial. Students understand this. The better teachers have already internalized this understanding in their teaching practice.
So let me end by asking one very simply question: why is it that we do not see this as a significant part of our educational policy discussions?
It is the lack of emphasis on the importance of relationships that bothers me and so many other fine teachers I know when we look at the educational policy of the administration as expressed in Race to the Top and the Blueprint for Education. It is one reason I think the voices of teachers need to be more prominent in the discussions framing our educational policy.
According to students . . . . relationship is key in what the experience from those they consider great teachers.
Maybe, just maybe, we ought to listen to what our students say?
Peace.