If the past few years have taught us anything in regards to schools, it’s that it’s time to reimagine what a classroom looks like. Long gone are the days where students all obediently come in, sit down, are polite, do their work, are respectful towards one another, and are intrinsically motivated to become better. Some students are still robot-like, but most aren’t. And rightfully so. We have transformed as a society, and our classrooms should be doing the same. 

 

What I’ve learned over the past 12 years in the classroom is that students desperately need and barely get any real connection. Parents push students to join activities, participate in sports, and be “well-rounded”. They have jobs whether for personal gain or to help pay for their family needs. They have the pressure to have the newest gadget, look a certain way, choose a certain filter, be a specific way–whether that’s who they truly are or not. All of this is done primarily on their own, or behind a device, with parents who are equally busy and chasing their own dreams/visions of what a parent should be. 

 

And THAT is why the classroom is so important. For 42, 65, 90, however many minutes your school’s periods are, students walk into a classroom and have the opportunity to take a break from all of that stuff, truly connect with their teachers, their peers, and themselves, and yes, learn the tasks and concepts at hand. But the connection, the discovery, the pause of the everyday demands is the key function of a classroom nowadays. Or it should be. Because those things, those intangible lessons, that time for discovery, is what allows students to have meaningful learning experiences. It’s also what will create better classroom management, higher test scores, and a stronger commitment to the course itself. 

 

Districts have been obsessing over Social-Emotional Learning and providing opportunities for students to learn more about their feelings and how they interact in the world but more often than not, the emphasis is on activities–short activities that may be effective, may have meaning for some students, but these activities aren’t changing the foundation. No, we need to shift the focus from checking off that teachers integrate SEL activities into the classroom and into making Social-Emotional Learning, Connection, Personal Development–for both teachers and students the central focus. We MUST start with the teachers because if the teachers aren’t practicing it themselves, how on earth can they truly impact their students? 

 

So that’s the mission of Tools to Teach. To help support districts in whatever way they need in order to begin the unlearning of traditional classroom management strategies and the formation of the new way of teaching—connection teaching.