Samantha Guest, Blog Post #2. Routman: Chapter 2 Bond With Your Students

I read chapter 2 in the Reading Essentials book by Reggie Routman. This was the first chapter that I have read in the book and I selected this chapter because I thought that it would be beneficial for me because I am a first year teacher and we are still pretty early on in our school year. The chapter was about bonding with your students. Bonding with your students is something that is so important as a teacher because if they don’t know you or like you then they are not going to want to learn from you or obey you. You also have to create a special trusting bond between your students so that they know they can come to you when they need anything. This chapter talks about how to bond with your students by modeling respect, encouraging shared decision making, telling stories of your life, value children’s stories, celebrate your life and enjoy your students. I really enjoyed reading in detail about every one of these ways that you can bond with your students. I feel that I have done most these things with my class already, but there is always room for improvement and there are also so many more ways that you can bond too.

I have talked to my students about respect and I explained to them what it meant. I told them that they have to respect me and I respect them too. I think that the students will truly learn what respect means by me modeling it for them. The chapter also talks about how you can’t bond with someone you don’t know. I have tried to not only take time to get to know each of my students, but I have let them get to know myself and each other too. At the very beginning of the school year we made all about me books. The students got to share these books with the class so that we could learn more about each other. I let my students tell stories about their lives and share about things that are important to them, because this also helps us bond as the chapter states. I don’t tell as many stories about my own life, but the book talks about how when teachers share about their own personal stories it makes them seem “real” and students can come to trust them. Stories help us connect with others because we all do have so much in common. Lastly, the chapter reminds me about how important it is to be a joyful teacher. Joyful teacher’s students are drawn to them like magnets and they are more eager to learn. No matter what may be going on, it’s important to be a joyous, excited, caring, passionate teacher who knows their students and can find the classroom to be an inspiring place to learn.