Developing a Positive Classroom Climate and Building Relationships with Students

One of the most important aspects of classroom management is the classroom climate and relationships you build with your students.  A plethora of research has been done on the positive effects of building prosocial relationships with students in the classroom.  “Teachers must ‘win their students’ hearts while getting inside their students’ heads’ (Wolk, 2003 p.14). As Haberman (1995) suggested, this winning of the hearts occurs through very personal interactions, one student at a time,” (Beaty-O’Ferrall, Green, & Hanna, 2010). 

Teachers who have these personal, meaningful relationships with their students experience less behavioral problems and better academic performance in the classroom. It may seem difficult to promote these prosocial relationship and yet maintain the classroom climate and continue teaching effectively, but Beaty-O’Ferrall et al. provide techniques that have already been adapted for teachers in order to make education more effective (2010).

One of the most effective ways to build a relationship with a student is to simply get to know more about them. There might be something in their life that is affecting the way they perform academically, and you might have just chalked this up to being lazy or ill-prepared.  “Teachers who adopt a relationship-building approach to classroom management by focusing on developing the whole person are more likely to help students develop positive, socially-appropriate behaviors,” (Beaty-O’Ferrall et al., 2010).  

Some general suggestions for building positive student-teacher relationships include gentle interventions, making time to bond with the student, relying more on reinforcing positive behavior than punishment for negative behavior, and giving lessons and activities that ensure success for all students.  These strategies are fine and dandy for some students, but we must continuously think of students as individuals, not as a group, and realize that each student has individual needs.  A teacher must employ other strategies when dealing with more difficult students. These strategies include, but are not limited to:

• ­Building empathy – People in education tend to view empathy is a largely misunderstood concept, often seen as simple affection or caring. While this is true, it is also much more than that. “Adler (1956) defined empathy as ‘seeing with the eyes of another, hearing with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another,” (Beaty-O’Ferrall et al., 2010).  The end result of empathy should be that the student feels heard and understood.

• Admiring negative attitudes and behaviors – I’m sure you read this bullet point and immediately started to question my sanity.  I assure you, this is a researched and tested method “based on a well established area of research called ‘positive psychology’ (Seligman, 1999). This approach looks upon negative student behavior as a skill he or she has been practicing and refining for many years,” (Beaty-O’Ferrall et al., 2010).  Since most of these skills get their start within the students’ family, it is only expected that they will come with the students to the school setting. Beat-O’Ferrall et al. gives the example of a student who has only been effective by manipulating to get her needs met in her family, so of course, she would bring this skill to school to get her needs met there as well.  “Rather than engage in a power struggle with such a student, a teacher should acknowledge the skill that the student has worked so hard to develop—and then redirect it,” (Beaty-O’Ferrall et al., 2010).  Teachers can take these skills and direct them in a way the student can further her academic progress.  Channel that manipulation into a positive method.

These are only two of the many ways a teacher can build positive relationship with difficult students, thus producing a positive classroom climate.  The one thing that you should get out of this post, however, is that RELATIONSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT TO STUDENTS.  How they feel about you as a teacher and as a person can greatly affect how they perform in your classroom.

Beaty-O'Ferrall, M. E., Green, A., & Hanna, F. (2010). Classroom Management Strategies for Difficult Students: Promoting Change through Relationships. Middle School Journal. 41(4), 4-11.