#68 Kids and Teachers Need Connections to Be Successful

Reaching Struggling Learners

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Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine who teaches high school and she is one of the most caring teachers I have ever met. The amount of time that this woman spends worrying about her students and finding ways to meet them where they are is, well it’s almost obsessive. She is an extrovert like I have never known before and she really is one of those teachers that somehow always finds a way to make a real connection or relationship with all of her students. Except, when I was talking to her last week, she was so down on herself and when she finally got down to why it was because she just can’t seem to find a way to connect with her students this year. It has been harder since the pandemic closed schools, but this year has been especially difficult for her. She and I talked about how she tries to engage her students in conversations and the best she gets is 1 word answers, and usually it’s grunts. She is losing that spark for teaching because she wants those connections with her students to really enjoy the teaching process, but with how hard she’s working, she just isn’t seeing any results….

We know that students are most disconnected with school and teachers. We also know that this has a negative impact on classroom community, reduces teacher motivation, makes it harder to motivate kids, and obviously impacts academics.

The fact is teaching is the art of connection, but how do we do this when the to do lists pile up, we have too many kids, and too little time?

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Links Mentioned in the Show:

https://teachingstrugglinglearners.com

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