relationships

In education, the 3 R’s “reading, writing and arithmetic” used to refer to the most basic skills students were expected to master. Today, however, a new set of 3 R’s, “rigor, relevance and relationships” has been added to meet the demands of a growing, globalized society. Rigor refers to the intensity of the curriculum students need to reach their highest potential. Relevance has to do with the importance of the subject matter to the students in order to capture and maintain their interest and commitment to their goals. Relationships between students and teachers, as well as all others in the learning community, including faculty, staff, and parents are considered essential for student success because it is thought that positive relationships in all these areas will open the doors for rigor and relevance to be maximized. In Ann Arbor, the order of the 3 R’s has been switched and for many schools, emphasis is being placed on nurturing all these relationships. The belief seems to be that rigor and relevance are ineffective without strong, positive relationships among all members of the learning community. It begins in the individual classrooms between the students and the teacher and extends outside to the classroom to include the entire school, district and community as a whole. During the Middle school years, in particular, children are expanding in terms of their physical, cognitive and social/emotional capabilities. Interactions with others become very important during this time, and are helped by preadolescent’s ability to modify their language to fit their audience (Alexander, 2003). They can also listen to and react to the ideas of others, thereby gaining social exchanges. Given this, teachers need to consider these developmental changes and put forth effort to work with these needs and honor social and emotional growth by developing strong personal relationships with their students.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this throughout the year and upon reflection, I truly believe that in order to be an effective teacher, one must strive to establish strong, positive relationships among all members in the learning community. In my opinion, this is one of the strengths of my mentor and I have been making a lot of effort to observe, learn and model this during the school year. It is also evident to me that Forsythe, in general, encourages and fosters strong, positive, relationships within the school.