My kids along with many others are getting ready to go back to school within the next few weeks. They are wondering who their teachers might be and who will be in their class. Many are wondering what kind of a year they are going to have and based on their previous experiences they may be excited, nervous or possibly dreading the unknown. 

At the same time, it’s exciting but also a daunting time of the year for educators to go back to school and get to know the students and the families and there is always so much to cover. I remember being handed a book of policies and procedures to cover each day for the first week. Although the expectation at the beginning of the year (or semester) was always to cover the syllabus and get to the curriculum, I have never regretted making the decision to minimize the policies and maximize the time I spent building relationships. Learning names, seeing students as individuals, co-creating community guidelines, establishing jobs and greeting students daily were foundational to developing relationships and creating the classroom culture.

As I think of my own kids, and all of our kids, I love these 3 questions from a friend of mine and incredible educator, Brandon Wiley that can help us prioritize relationships in our first days and create a culture where learners feel valued:

Do you see me? Do you know me? Will you grow me?  

Do you see me?

Have you taken the time to get to know the person as an individual?  Do you know what they are interested in? What do they value or care about?

A teacher recently shared with me that he changed his beginning of the year survey from standard questions like How many siblings do you have?,  What are your favorite subjects? and so on to an open-ended list of the “Top 10 things I Need to Know About You.”  Instead of static answers such as 2 brothers and art, he got responses like: It takes me an hour and a half to get to school each day.  My parents just got divorced. It takes me longer to figure things out and so I am quiet but I really do care about school. I love drawing.

There are multiple ways to connect and get to know learners to better support them and often it begins with asking the questions and being willing to listen and connect. 

Do you know me?

Can you name the strengths of this individual? Do you know what success they have had?  What drives them?

When we know our strengths and others do too, we can be more open about how we can work together to accomplish our goals and more transparent about our needs.

My husband, a 10th-grade teacher, told me recently that he decided to start the year by having students share their strengths.  I love this idea but was shocked when he told me that half of his students didn’t feel that they had a strength to share. Just think about this for a minute–  I really think that if students have made it through school and don’t have an idea of what their strengths are, we have failed them!

Committed to getting to know his students and having them identify their own strengths, he asked them to come back the next day ready to share something with the class. He shared how students came back the next day and juggled for the class, showed videos or demonstrated their dancing, skateboarding, speaking different languages and many more.  Although these students had a variety of talents, they hadn’t thought of them as strengths or that they made them special. The relationships and community were instantly different as each student was recognized and celebrated.

People are more confident, passionate, and do better work when you focus on what’s right with them instead of what’s wrong with them. Creating authentic learning experiences that empower learners to develop the skills and talents to manage themselves and build on their assets, rather than focus on their deficits, maximizes the motivation, contribution, and impact of all learners.

Will you grow me?

Do you know their personal goals or aspirations?  How is your support connected to who they are and their goals? What resources, pathways, or experiences are the best fit for this learner?

As you are getting to know students and helping them to see that you care about them as individuals, that you recognize their strengths, it’s also critical to understand their goals. 

Here are some questions you could ask:

• What are your personal goals or aspirations?
• What are interested in learning or doing?
• How do you like to learn?
• What can I do to support you?
• What can I learn from you?

If we truly want to see different outcomes for learners in our education system and develop the whole child, we need to prioritize relationships with the individuals to allow for significant learning to occur. Although what happens in the rest of the school, district and increasingly the world impacts our classrooms, I am inspired by so many teachers who create an environment, in spite of it all, to ensure their students have a place in the world where they feel safe, valued and cared about.

Meeting the needs of diverse learners requires knowing the learners and their needs first and then finding new and better ways to support them.  I’d love to hear more examples of how you plan to get to know your students as individuals and support them based on their needs in order to grow.