Breaking The Ice

BUSU Ice Breakers logo (a group I have been involved with for the past two years)

     I think as teachers we all realize that it is important for us to know our students. For many teachers, this means learning about their students before they even enter the classroom. By that I don't mean creeping their social media profiles, but rather checking their student files to see if they have a learning disability or have had behavioral problems in the past. It is also important to know if any of them are new to the country or have recently moved into the region and whether English is their second language. Having this information greatly enhances how well a teacher can teach a curriculum to a class. But what effect does your students knowing you have on their learning?

    Going through high school, I got involved in the Outdoor Education Club which took students hiking, and backpacking and taught us survival skills. As the events were often long, with the last two being 3 and 5 day long events in the Bruce Peninsula and New Hampshire, I got to know the teachers running it very well over the years. To this day, I can walk into the Science department at my school and all the teachers will remember me and ask specific things about how my life is now. This greatly added to my interest in the sciences, specifically Biology and Chemistry (hence them being my two teachables now). I got to know two teachers in particular so well that even now, many years after graduating, we still meet up once a year over coffee to chat about our lives. One of these teachers has been a huge influence in my decision to become a teacher. I think it's important for teachers to share information about themselves as well. Now, I understand that there are clear boundaries when talking to students about your personal life and clearly you do not want to be going over those boundaries. However, by sharing random personal stories, it shows students that teachers are not just robots and that we too have lives. By making connections with your students, you gain the respect of your students and it actually motivates them to do better in your class. In grade 12, I was put into a classroom that was being taught by one of the two teachers that I had talked about earlier. As it was my final year, I had gotten to spend quite a lot of time with her over my years in secondary school. I remember her telling me on the first day that she was excited to finally have me in her classroom and frankly, i was also very excited to have her as a teacher. Having known this teacher for such a long time definitely contributed to how well I did in her class, not to call her assessment biased. I realized about a quarter way through the semester that suddenly I had put Biology at the top of my priority lists, I always did my readings and always finished assignments a few days before they were due (with some exceptions). I realized that I really did not want to disappoint this teacher because I knew her so well. Her outstanding level of understanding for when assignments were late really didn't help either, they just motivated me more to not disappoint her. Because she knew all the things I was involved in within the school, on days where there were many events or important meetings going on, she would understand if I were to hand in things late. This connection that the two of us had greatly contributed to my decision of applying to Brock for the Concurrent Education program and to finally decide to be in it as well although I had many other options for post secondary programs.

    Another teacher that had a great influence in myself becoming a teacher was my Chemistry teacher. She was also in the Outdoor Education Club although she was not as heavily involved. However, having her as my Chemistry teacher twice greatly added to how well I knew her and thus also really motivated me to do well in her class. This particular teacher would actually bribe us with her stories. The deal was that if we were good in class and didn't disrupt her while she was teaching, on Fridays, she would read us one of her personal adventures that she had written in her journal. Most of these adventures were from her crazy days of travelling after going to University and she was very good at story telling. This greatly contributed to her students thinking of her as more of a person than just some robot that comes every day to school to throw information at them.

     Last year, I was given the opportunity to go back to my secondary school and evaluate the teaching of some of my old teachers for an assignment. One of the teachers I had the pleasure of evaluating was my Chemistry teacher. What I had found at the end of the assignment was that the teacher used many of the great teaching techniques I had learned in school. I also noticed that the teachers exhibited very similar teaching philosophies than the ones I had developed over the last couple years in Concurrent Education.

These are just some of my personal experiences with how connecting with your students can motivate them to achieve success and do well overall in school as well. I think it's very important that teachers try to build connections with their students. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, break the ice!

I wanted to attach a different clip that I had thought of while writing this blog, however I have been unable to find it so I will leave you all with a similar one instead. Who said teaching can't be fun? Enjoy!