Sharing is Caring

I'm sure we've all heard the old adage that goes something like this: People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. For me, this saying rings true now more than ever. As responsible citizens, of course, we have to follow physical distancing guidelines, but I certainly don't need to distance my students socially. On the contrary, I need to invite them daily to conversations, such as those on Google Classroom or to virtual gatherings such as those on Zoom. What we do know is that our students like to share and be heard and FlipGrid gives them an outlet to be creative.

I'm convinced that every single one of our students wants to invite us into their daily lives. Therefore, I've been hosting daily 2:00 Zoom meetings. Holding the meeting at the same time each day builds in that much-needed structure that we are all missing right now. This is an opportunity for me to hold pseudo Restorative Circles. (By the way, letting students know the talking point beforehand allows them to have plenty of think time.) So often, during these meetings, I have students who want to show me their cousins, new puppies, kittens, baby siblings, etcetera. Even though these "bird walks," so to speak, are not part of the curriculum, they are essential to building and maintaining a relationship with our students.

It makes it easier to have those hard conversations with students and parents about not completing assignments, about partially-completed assignments, etcetera when they know that you care about them as people. Clearly, we need to maintain a professional boundary between ourselves and our students. It is not advisable to be "friends" with them, but we can and should always be friendly and approachable.

Zooming like never before!

Lola Jollie