As teachers, we know that connecting learning to the context of students’ lives helps make learning more motivating and personally meaningful, and engaging students in activities relevant to their daily lives cultivates critical thinking. This approach is especially valuable in creating a positive learning environment. When teachers affirm their students’ goals, backgrounds, and aspirations, students feel more comfortable and connected and can establish strong teacher-to-student and student-to-student connections.
Localize learning to build healthy relationships in diverse classrooms
Several years ago, a seven-year-old girl who had recently emigrated from Guatemala to the United States joined my third-grade class. The girl spoke only Spanish and didn’t want to talk, make friends, or play with others. I used my curriculum to examine aspects of Guatemala’s culture and discuss recent historical events.
In no time, the girl became increasingly engaged and built friendships, sharing her own perspectives. She became fluent in English and entered middle school with a long-term goal of teaching English in Guatemala. The other children learned about another culture and to accept someone with different life experiences.
I try to use what I know about students to help them build their self-concept as learners, gain pride in their heritage, explore their interests, and understand different perspectives. While many teachers may have their own tools and strategies for this, here are a few approaches I use.
Build collaboration and peer relations
Excellent tools are available from the non-profit organization Teaching Tolerance, which teaches us to look closely at ourselves, discuss our families, and build allyship with students. I use practices and routines from Harmony Academy to create regular classroom opportunities for students to develop positive relationships with one another. Harmony Academy is a program focused on building relationships and lifelong learning skills that is available for grades pre-K through six, with complete lessons and implementation training at no cost to schools. The program uses peer support exercises like “Buddy Up” to help students make connections with each other and “Meet Up” to work together as a class to raise concerns and solve problems. The program also uses games in grades 3-6 to build significant, positive change, acknowledging older children’s conceptual and relationship-building capabilities. The program creates useful opportunities to work together as a class, in pairs, or as individuals and reinforces the messages of celebrating differences, finding common ground, and working together.
Build relationships with students
Being closely connected to students was so important to me and my principal that I was allowed to teach the same students from grades two through five. I also led the summer school program in our section of the city and could keep a close eye on my students and ensure that the program met their needs. I regularly look for outlets to advance my students’ interests in class. For example, I knew that one student was interested in meteorology, and I worked with the principal to have the student present the weather on the school’s daily announcements.
Just as teachers need to know students, students need to know their teachers. Teachers can share their interests, life stories, and philosophy of education.
Just as teachers need to know students, students need to know their teachers. Teachers can share their interests, life stories, and philosophy of education. We can also ask students what they would like from us and how they would like to learn. As a teacher with an African American and Latino background, I purposefully share as much of my own experiences as possible. I want students to have someone in the building that they can relate to, who knows their families and lives in their community. I want to be someone who they can talk to about how to brush their hair and the challenges they faced growing up. I can be a resource for my students and advise them on navigating across cultures in a complex world.
Bring families and location into the equation
I use family background, family involvement, and the local community as assets in student learning. I want students to know and be part of the history of the city where they live. I review the curriculum at the beginning of each year and add new pieces of local Washington, D.C. history. I then meet with students, their parents, and grandparents to understand their experiences and their knowledge of issues I might address. When we talk about the president, I will have students who are too young to remember President Obama go home and ask their parents and grandparents where they were and how they responded to the Obama Inauguration. I’ll do the same about the March on Washington and September 11, 2001.
Our school is five miles from the Capitol. During the social upheaval in 2020, I brought my students to the Black Lives Matter protest so that they could take part in history themselves. After the attack on the Capitol in January 2021, I had political leaders talk to my class. Students shared their dismay that what the rest of the world saw was not the city they knew. They discussed how they felt and asked policymakers what they could do to support peaceful protests and stem violence, relating the discussions to the tools they use to resolve conflicts in class.
Wherever you live and whoever you teach, the classroom, family, and community can provide learning moments—opportunities for students to address social and emotional issues that might help them understand themselves and others and build relationships with adults and their peers.
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