Building trust is, to my mind, more about listening and follow-through than anything else. By listening and following-through on our commitments, we demonstrate that, as teachers, we value the lived experiences of our students. If we don’t demonstrate that we value our students (even if we think we do value them), we risk that they will feel alienated from the learning process. This, in turn, often leaves students disengaged.
By showing students that we value their voices and experiences in our feedback, we say to them, “I see you; I hear you.” Verbal and written feedback that suggests genuine interest in students’ work creates an atmosphere primed for comfort and risk-taking so that students are willing to show who they are. Because culture directly affects the way students see and experience the world, it’s also important that we adjust our curriculum to speak to the diversity of our students. This is as important here in the U.S. as it is in South Africa. One of the ways I do this in my own classroom is to design curriculum that is open-ended enough that my students are not pigeonholed into one narrative. It means “exploring” topics from our varying views rather than being “taught” those same topics from mine. I completed the CRSTP with my daughter, age 7. Though I used the elementary template, I still found a number of slides required adjustment or omission. She had difficulty with some aspects of metacognition (not surprising considering her age), but showed remarkable insight in other respects. For instance, I learned from this process how attuned she was to the perceptions of others regarding her bilingualism and her speech impediment. Having found the CRSTP incredibly useful as a parent, I have no doubt that teachers might use it to better understand the needs, desires, and insights of their students.
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AuthorI'm Kelly. I teach English as a Second Language, business English, and writing. I eat poems for dinner. Archives
January 2019
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