What a title coming from a teacher.
I strive to get to know my students. Over my 20 years of teaching there have been good relationships, poor relationships, but mostly no real relationships. I really like getting to know the people in my classes. I like hearing about their lives outside of class. I like hearing them talk about my class and their other classes. It brings me joy when they bring me into those conversations as well.
I think it is important for me as a teacher to get to know them as best I can. It allows the class to grow. That growth shows itself in relationships between the students as well. When those relationships grow I find that they want to come to class and they want to stay at the school for more classes. What also grows is the communication during class.
I try to make my classes “talkative”. I want the students to feel comfortable asking questions about what we are talking about in class. I want them to ask questions about things they are thinking about with regard to physics they may be thinking about. I want them to ask questions about their academic career. I want them to ask about things they have heard in the news. I want them to ask about life. The students tend to learn that I will talk to them as people and I will answer “most” of their questions. I also tend to tell stories in my classes about my life, and I ask them about their lives. I want them to know that I do care about them more than just being a “butt in the seat”. And for some students this is super important.
These different levels of talk occur as the relationships grow over time. The questions about class come relatively quickly in my in-person classes. They realize that I am open to those questions, and that I will try my best to answer them to the best of my ability. After that, the general physics questions tend to start coming during the first half of most semesters. What happens is that the students realize I am willing to answer questions and they find that they can ask me those questions. That is when the relationships start to grow and change some. Not all students do this, but there are usually some each semester.
Once a second semester starts with some of the same students, the relationships often grow more. They already know they can ask me physics things, and they start to learn they can ask me school things as well. Sometimes this comes earlier, but usually not until the second semester. By now they know me and feel that comfort in asking more questions. The other thing that develops are the stories we tell each other, and these stories deepen the relationships we have. During this time some students will enter the classroom and ask right away ,”Hey, Mr. C. (or something like that) how was your weekend?” Or I might beat them to the punch and ask them first. They know I am not just asking to ask, but that I want to hear their stories. This has allowed me to learn about them, and them about me. We may not always agree about things and we may fall on different sides of ideological lines, but that never seems to matter, and that is important to me.
I can remember one year where I had a student (G) that was gay. We would talk some about his feeling on the matter and he would ask me my feelings, and even though we didn’t agree all the time, we got along very well. (G) would ask me my thought on different things outside of class and I would be honest with him, and he was always honest with me. It was great to ask him about his weekends. He would tell me about going to a comedy club or something like that, and he would ask me about my weekend, and we would laugh about stuff. It was fun, and the other students in the class started joining in on the conversations as well and we grew as a class. Then there was another semester where I had a student that didn’t like me all that much the first semester. She (A) didn’t care for my teaching style at first. But as we talked about life, and I showed interest in her life as person, she realized that I was doing more than just teaching her physics. (A) chose to take my second semester class, and she really enjoyed it. She told me that in the end she felt I was one of her best teachers she had. That came from building the relationship during those 2 semesters.
I had another student few years ago that in her journal writings she would be very honest about how she was feeling about the material. She (K) would talk bluntly about how the material “sucked” or “was too hard” or “I just don’t get it”. I would address these things with her, and it helped her. She was appreciative of me taking the time to get her past her dislike for a topic or idea or math section. The other thing (K) did often once we were into semester 2 together would be to ask for extra credit. She would come in at least once a week to class and say something like, “Can I get some extra credit for…?” Or she would say something really good in class and end it with, “Extra credit?”. It was a good time. She ended up enjoying my classes so much she convinced her now husband to take my classes as well. She would send hellos through him to me. Towards the end of my time with her now-husband he came in with a gift for me. (K) had a shirt made for me:
It was perfect, and I occasionally wear it to class, and it makes my students worried since there is typically some extra credit in classes.
There are sometimes down sides to building these relationships. One big one recently is that sometimes my classes can get a bit loud. I have had second semester classes where at least some of the students have gotten to know each other so well that they enjoy the talking time more than listening to me as a teacher. I like it and I hate it. It means I have to work harder to get them to listen to me. I have to drop books more often in class to get their attention. (Or use a soft voice and say something like, “And now we are going to talk about the physics of sex.”) Those things usually work pretty fast to get attention. But at the same time I love the relationships. This last semester I had a student (R), whom I had gotten to know, give me a whistle at the end of the semester with a note letting me know it was to help keep future classes under control. He wasn’t being mean, we laughed about it. He enjoyed the year with the students and me, and commented, “I don’t want you to break your book.” That comes from the caring involved in those relationships. I have had to use the whistle a few times this semester already. Thank you (R)!
Occasionally I get students for a third (or even fourth) semester. I have only had this happen a couple times. It allows me to really get to know at least a few of the students really well, because typically each semester has less and less students. But these students also want to be there with me as their teacher. One student, “M”, was a dynamite student that I had for four classes (111, 121, 131, and 241). He worked hard as a student, but we also were able to talk as people. We both enjoyed a TV show (The Expanse) along with the books the show was based off of. So, we would talk about the latest episode or the most recent book in the series. It was a good time. That same semester I had a student that was a geology student (D), and he ended up coming over to my house for one of my kids’ birthday parties to talk about geology and break open geodes. That is not something that would have happened without building relationships.
Right now, I have a third semester class I am teaching, and I have had almost all of them for 1.5 years now (3 semesters). During the second semester many of them grew close to each other outside of class. They built friendships that I believe will last for years. But they also have grown super comfortable with me. Two of the students even told me at the beginning of the semester they didn’t even need the class but liked me and some of the other students so much they wanted to be in the class. Those are real relationships, and I am so blessed to be a part of those relationships. There are three women in this class that bought me a shirt for Christmas (N, H, D). They were super excited to give it to me, and it is a great shirt:
I am thankful for these relationships. They are great women. They ask me questions about me and my family every time I see them. I ask them how their lives are going. Some have even started asking me more life questions rather than school/physics/generic questions. They have had guy issues and have asked me my opinion on things. I am far from an expert, but if I can help I am glad to do what I can. I am glad they feel comfortable asking me life questions and just have general life conversations. We joke with each other about what we eat (one is a vegetarian and I am very much not). They have grown so close to each other that they are hanging out on the weekends together, and not just to do physics work together (although they do that too). I have really enjoyed these relationships.
These are relationships that went/go beyond just teacher/student. I realize that it isn’t my job to make friends with them. But I think by making friends with some of them, and trying to make connections with the rest, that I am helping them grow as people. I think I am helping keep them in school and at my school. School becomes more than just a place to take classes but becomes a place they want to be. I look forward to years of relationships. I may never find out what happens to any of these students in the long run, but I kind of hope I do with some of the resent students like (N, H, D, M, D). I hope that as I get older I don’t lose that ability to get to know my students. I am already so old compared to many of them; I graduated from college before some of my current students we even born, but I am always going to try.
Relationships matter.