Stop Telling Teachers to 'Build Relationships' — Say This Instead
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that the generic advice to 'build relationships' is unhelpful and offers a more actionable alternative.
Key Takeaways
- 'Build relationships' is too vague - Telling teachers to build relationships without specifics is like telling someone to 'be a better person'
- Actionable guidance is needed - Instead, tell teachers what specific actions build trust: learn names, greet at the door, follow through on promises
- Relationships are a byproduct - Good teaching practices naturally build relationships; you don't need to focus on the relationship directly
Transcript
Is it fair to expect teachers to build relationships with their students?
This is something we say all the time and I think there's a grain of truth in it, but I think we should actually stop expecting teachers to actually build relationships with their students.
And I think we should take that away as just an expectation and replace it with something that will do the job but is a lot healthier.
And I've been very concerned lately about the most unhealthy aspects of the relationship between teachers and students, especially when a student has been violent or extremely inappropriate.
I got a comment earlier today from a teacher who had received a threat from a student and the student was suspended for 30 days and then came back and the teacher was told she needed to build a relationship with that student, have lunch with the student, find out what his interests are and so forth.
And that just seemed wildly inappropriate to me.
That relationship should have been over, right?
Once a student has made a threat like that against a teacher, that teacher should never have to deal with that student again.
I'm sorry, that's just not okay to me.
And asking the teacher to build a relationship with someone who threatened her life just seems kind of cruel and sick to me.
So I think in the first place we have to recognize when the teacher-student relationship should end because of the student's behavior and not expect teachers to just take anything.
I think that's just so unhealthy and so unfair to put teachers in that position.
The second aspect of this that I think is causing me to rethink the expectation of relationships is just that in our personal life, relationships should be voluntary.
And there's a certain extent to which at work, relationships aren't really chosen, but they're just kind of part of the job.
I think the authentic part of relationships, though, needs to be something that people have a choice over.
And when we say teachers need to have a relationship with their students, we don't mean that they actually need to have a genuine relationship, because if you have a genuine relationship, you say what you think and you know you're honest about everything and we don't actually mean that for teachers and students we mean that teachers should treat students as if you know treat them as if you like them and you're happy to see them every day even if that's not the case treat your students as if you have high expectations for them even if some students have given you lots of evidence that you should not have high expectations for them treat them as if you do so I want to encourage you to give this a try test this idea out think about it and let me know what comes up this idea that rather than saying we should have a relationship with students, instead say we should treat students as if, and then finish that sentence with whatever the relationship was supposed to accomplish instead.
I'm especially concerned about administrators telling teachers that a relationship is the solution to whatever problem they're facing, and especially if What actually needs to happen is the administrator needs to back the teacher and support them and reinforce their authority as a teacher.
I think we've really not got to allow relationship to be the substitute for that.
Let me know what you think.