Relationships Are Like Fences ...

• Safer and more effective learning environments
• The qualities that make us most human - connection, community, positivity, belonging, and a sense of meaning
• The real, genuine, gratitude, appreciation, thanks, and love I get from building relationships with students fills my bucket

Last night, an educator told me, 'Relationships are reciprocal." He then asked, "What do we as adults get out of building relationships with kids?"

My life is built around teaching, coaching, leading and serving kids. A superintendent once told me, "In education, we are in the people development business." Our job is to teach, educate and develop people. Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, the Distinguished Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Faculty Director for the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA asked, "What does it take to educate the students that you serve?"

When I was asked what we get out of building relationships with kids, I immediately thought of that question from Dr. Noguera. Dr. Yvette Jackson, the Senior Scholar at the National Urban Alliance wrote, "Schools are defined by the relationships between staff and students." She further wrote that while a recent report by a Chicago-based research group focused on how strong relationships can help students and staff feel safe and free of physical threats, we also know that strong relationships have another critical benefit: they make schools "intellectually safe" for students to learn and thrive (Jackson).

Relationships help us inspire, motivate, and engage our students, and it helps us make connections between what is happening with them in the classroom and in their world. Relationships with students help us better understand their personal frames of reference and help us establish the relevance of school work to their personal lives (Jackson). 

Both students and teachers bring their own values, beliefs, experiences, and attitudes with them to school every day. If we don't recognize this and the biases that come with it, it can lead to disastrous results. Relationships help reveal our underlying thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, and they can help bridge gaps and bring us together. As Dr. Jackson wrote, "Relationships are like fences. They can keep you together."

But I think that is all transactional. It helps me better educate my students. Educating my students is my job, but relationships are deeper and more transformational for me than that, and the profession of developing people is more transformational than transactional.

Brene Brown wrote, "Connection is why we're here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it, there is suffering (Brown)." Workhuman is a company that has collected over 50 million data points over the last 20 years on performance and social recognition. In their book Making Human Work, they wrote, "The qualities that make us most human - connection, community, positivity, belonging, and a sense of meaning - have become the corporate fuel for getting things done, for innovating, for thriving in the global marketplace, and for outperforming competing (Mosley)." Those attributes are also some of the things that help me sleep better at night, and they come from the relationships that I have built with kids, from the ages of two to twenty-two, and their families.

I love winning games, and I love getting back great test scores. I love being recognized as a good teacher and coach. When I win in the classroom or on the court, I sleep well. But when I do it with people that I have built real, meaningful connections and community, I sleep even better.

In my last year of playing college basketball, I wasn't fully invested in the team and the process. I was ready to graduate, and I was looking ahead to my life and career after sports. My coach noticed this and had a simple challenge for me. He challenged me to invest more in my last year because I would never get this experience back, and it would be more meaningful if I was fully invested. We reap what we sow. That challenge has stuck with me, and it is how I look at relationships with my students. I get out of my relationships what I put into them. When I put in love, joy, gratitude, fun, hard work, grit, and care, I get more of that back. When I do that over time, I have seen the fruits come out in the most beautiful of ways, including but not limited to students graduating, getting married, playing college and professional sports, becoming parents, etc. 

But more importantly, and what I appreciate most about what I get the most out of building relationships with kids, I get back love. Real, genuine, gratitude, appreciation, thanks, and love. And that feeling fills my bucket and is why I am an educator and a coach.

References:

Brown, B. (2017). Daring greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.

Jackson, Yvette. "Why relationship-building is vital in schools." Washington Post, May 28, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-relationship-building-is-vital-in-schools/2011/05/26/AG7KVODH_blog.html

Mosley, Eric, and Irvine, Eric (2021). Making Work Human. McGraw-Hill Education.