mary van milligen

Creating an honest culture that allows students to be heard and seen as well as fostering an environment encouraging teachers to know their students as people with different needs.   Let’s have all students return to the buildings this year with an even stronger renewed sense of connection. 

Here’s some tips from a veteran high school teacher (that’s me by the way).

Be a person right from the beginning and ignore most content the first few days

I love the line from Mean Girls when Janis says “Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.” It’s so true. Students don’t think teachers have real lives or other friends than the people they work with on the daily. Bridge the gap for them and consider waiting a few days to deep dive into your curriculum.  Get to know your students and let them get to know you and do activities that allow them to share who they are with others.  

Example: First day with students:– getting to know you.  I often do partner interviews that get presented to the class.

Second day- getting to know you continued-intro and review syllabus.  

Third day–getting to know you continued and review course calendar. 

 The getting to know you activities can be original and somewhat tied to your content but the general intent of it is for you to get to know the students and to begin building a community in your classroom.  You should also share about yourself during this time (not too much…your students don’t need to share their diary entries and neither do you).  I like to ask my students to share a couple things most people wouldn’t necessarily know about them. I start the conversation and say “I really like polka dots. They just make me happy.” I also share I have double-jointed elbows and then show them how goofy my arms look when I bend them. When I did this two years ago, one student quickly stood up and showed how his knee does the same and another student showed how a broken finger surgery went wrong and continues to be a little bent. We all laughed about this, and quickly, a bond was formed in a silly way. This part is crucial.  You are modeling your humanness for them to reflect.  You are demonstrating that you are here for them as a human first, there to support them.  You are establishing trust for them to be their real and vulnerable selves in your classroom. Again, it doesn’t have to be soul searching. In time, when connections continue to build, those conversations easily arrive.

After observing interactions and abilities with students for a day or two, begin to build your seating chart and balance important peer to peer behaviors that may work well with others.  Be aware of students that appear already connected before entering your room.  You can keep them near one another if they aren’t too social and place another student next to them that you feel could benefit from them.

During these first few days, I tell my students that they must know every single person’s name in the room by the end of the first week.  I place the same expectation on myself, and I also make sure I know two things about each student that has nothing to do with my content.

Revere the quiet kid

This is personal for me:).  I was the quiet kid.  In my quietness, I made keen observations and consciously listened—this was evident with all of my head nods to the teacher.  Find a way for that kid to find his/her/their voice and make it bloom.

Create a Soundtrack for your Classroom

Consider using music as often as possible during the class period.  Invest in a bluetooth speaker that connects to your phone and create playlists for each period.  Choose your own songs that can relate thematically to what you are teaching or songs that just make you smile or feel good and then invite students to add requests.  Always listen to student songs for appropriateness before playing.

Play music—

1. When students enter the room…
2. When students transition to different parts of the room…
3. When students are asked to discuss in small groups…
4. When students are setting up for presentations…

Music creates more sense of community and adds vital energy to the space.

Use quotes or videos

Consider beginning your class with an inspirational quote every single day.  Once students believe in this routine, have students begin to select them and share them.  (It doesn’t have to be every day.  You can make it one special day in the week.)  When I select the quotes, I often share why the quote spoke to me with a personal anecdote and invite students to do the same.  (Again, a simple activity that doesn’t take much time and builds a sense of humanity, vulnerability, and community in your classroom.)

If you aren’t crazy about quotes, share an inspirational video once a week and talk about it.

Community Service Projects

It doesn’t matter which class you teach, create a community service project the class can invest their humanness in as their own class community.  (I’ve done this with small groups and with the whole class.)  This makes the class bond, and it doesn’t have to take too much time from the class period.  Plan it as an ongoing venture that you introduce early in the semester or year and then block out a few minutes each week to plan the course of action and fulfill the final desired result.

Recognize Birthdays

Most of us have that information at our fingertips. Another simple way to give positive attention and remind students you’re glad they are here.

Make Your Own Observations

We want to help others and communicate how students behaved in our classroom if we were the previous teacher, and that is wonderful!  However, many students can have different experiences in different classroom settings.  So, apply the information if it’s useful but mindfully allow the child to begin his/her/their new journey in a fresh way with you.

Awareness in word choice with communication to students and parents throughout the year

1. Consider tone and lowering the volume of the urgency and drama in a concern or assessment when appropriate.
2. Add phrases and reminders of your support. Perhaps avoid using the phrase “friendly reminder.”  Let’s face it.  It never gets received as all that friendly.
3. Consider FaceTime or Zoom calls to parents instead of emails when necessary to have a more human conversation.
4. Email at least once every other week highlighting a positive from a student in your classroom and copy the parent on the message.  Preferably, find students that don’t necessarily receive much praise.

Final Thoughts

We all just want to be noticed for the right reasons. That’s really the heart of most relationships.  I became an educator because someone saw the real me. Her name is Christine Stiel. She helped me find my voice. Pushed me out of my comfort zone and just simply believed in me.  We have the power to have all of our students feel that on some level, yet there are so many other worthwhile humans in the same room that can also encourage one another.  If you build the room with humanity, vulnerability, and community- empathy and compassion flourish.  Hopefully, it transcends to all other aspects of their lives.

We all deserve a great school year. Our hearts and minds can heal together. We need to serve even more doses of hope, clarity, promise, and understanding.