Teaching Tip #115

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #115

Ten Questions to Help You Become a Better Teacher This Year.

Question #5 – How can I use my strengths?

This one is easy for me – I use my strengths of relating to kids – to build culture in my room.  I tease.  I joke.  I harass.  I question.  I wonder.  I talk.  

One by one, I try to make a personal connection with my students in order to build some kind of relationship.  Once that happens, culture will follow.

I just had an example of this last Sunday (by the way, I’m writing this on June 25, 2017, but this is being published likely around January) at the pool.

Mrs. Onkka came over to me and said, “I am going to test your memory” with a smile.

“Uh – oh,” I said.

“We were touring UND with Carter last week,” she began, “and when our tour guide found out we were from TRF, he asked us right away if we knew you.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking that it must have been one of my intro to education students.

“You had him last year as a student and you always harassed him for his orange Crocs.”

“Francis,” I said.  “My cake eater.  I always gave him grief about that too since he went to a private school on an island somewhere in the cities.”

“Well,” Mrs. Onkka said, “he sure had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

This reminded me of a truth I’ve repeated over the years – the three most important words in education are relationships, relationships, and relationships.

It is vital for us to recognize our strengths and put them to use every single day in our classes.