STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Mower. If it had not been for her the concept and idea for this research paper, it would not have happened. She is the one who felt like my idea was worth researching and studying. She also continued to support and motivate me as I struggled to find the words to express what I was discovering through this process. I would also like to thank my parents and children for the unwavering support and sacrifice they gave me as I spent many hours trying to eloquently describe my experience in the classroom. I thank them for their patience and constant love during all of this. I also thank James. You were not able to see me finish this, but I know that you would be proud to see me accomplish this feat. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 3 Table of Contents NATURE OF THE PROBLEM ............................................................................................... 6 Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 7 Relationship Between Student and Teacher ....................................................... 8 Definition of Student-Teacher Engagement ....................................................... 9 Importance of Engagement ..............................................................................10 Teacher Engagement Skills ..............................................................................10 Other Engagement Types .................................................................................14 Attachment theory ................................................................................15 Person-centered psychology .................................................................18 Summary .....................................................................................................................22 PURPOSE..............................................................................................................................23 METHOD ...............................................................................................................................25 Participant ...................................................................................................................26 Researcher Bias ...............................................................................................27 Procedures ...................................................................................................................27 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.............................................................................................30 Emergent Themes ........................................................................................................32 Insight ..............................................................................................................32 Authenticity .....................................................................................................33 Rapport ............................................................................................................34 Security ...........................................................................................................36 Recommendations .......................................................................................................37 STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................38 Final Thoughts ............................................................................................................38 References ..............................................................................................................................41 STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 5 ABSTRACT The student-teacher relationships are an important aspect of the culture of a classroom. How students and teachers engage with one another and what happens when there is a connection can assist in a student’s learning and desire to succeed in school. In this study I researched the benefits of the student-teacher relationship by exploring how engagement from a teacher’s and relationship building’s perspective could manifest itself in a classroom setting. I used my own personal narrative regarding my time in a fourth-grade classroom, and the experiences I had to better understand the dynamics of the student-teacher relationship. After I completed my free-written narrative on my classroom experience, I used NVivo to code the written reflection. Three categories emerged from the coding process: teacher observations, relationships, and social work observations. From these three categories four themes emerged: insight, authenticity, rapport, and security. Analysis of the data using NVivo software exposed the skill set that I had been using in my classroom to have more emotional attunement with my students. In this paper I discuss how engagement defined in different terms can aid in the student-teacher relationship, but more importantly, how those relationships appear in a classroom setting. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 6 NATURE OF THE PROBLEM On October 13, 2015 on National Public Radio (NPR) a segment aired entitled, “Experiment Tests if Teacher-Student Relationship Helps Performance.” Host Steve Inskseep spoke with Shankar Vedantam about a study that was conducted at the University of Vienna and Technical University of Dresden. A series of pictures were rapidly displayed to individual kindergartners in which one of the pictures was the student’s own teacher. The pictures were presented in such a rapid succession that the kindergartners were not able to properly process the images. However, the researchers discovered that if kindergartners subliminally saw a picture of a teacher they liked, they were able to solve problems faster than peers who did not see pictures of a teacher they felt connected to. Vedantam suggested that the relationship between teacher and student can actually make a big difference in how well the student performs in the classroom. When students are confronted with difficult problems or challenges, it can help to have a sympathetic figure at the back of their mind (Inskeep, 2015). This research supports the importance of teacher-student relationships. The world of education is constantly evolving and changing to enhance learning which means teachers have to engage students in a variety of ways. Beyond the traditional role of teaching curriculum and academic skills, teachers also provide behavioral support and teach coping skills to children (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Liem and Chong (2007) stated, “empirical evidence suggests that active engagement in school to be critical in fostering student learning and academic success” (p. 121). Students’ engagement is essential not only to their success in learning but has an influence on their life long accomplishments. Social workers, such as the researcher of this paper, are taught many distinctive ways and skills to engage with all different types of people and environments. Social workers know the STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 7 importance of relationships and the purpose they serve in connecting with others. Altman (2008) defined social work engagement as an interpersonal process whereby the social worker creates an environment of warmth, empathy, and genuineness that allows the client to enter into a helping relationship. Social workers are taught the importance of the relationship as a change agent and the power it can have to drive others beyond their personal limitations. As a social worker, the researcher recognizes the value of relationships between teachers and students. Knowing the connection between student-teacher relationships and engagement strategies can provide a depth of understanding of how teachers can be more effective in working and assisting students to go beyond their practical limitations and being more diligent in learning. Engagement skills are the basis for developing teacher-student relations. As a teacher understands how engagement is defined in the world of academia, they might better understand how using social work engaging skills can enhance the teacher-student relationship. If students can feel connected to the teacher, then students are more likely to be successful not only in their classroom and academics but also in their ability to adjust and handle the rigors of life. Therefore, the research for this paper focused on how I, using my social work background as well as skills learned in teacher education coursework, developed the student-teacher relationships based upon varies types of engagement. Literature Review The literature for this research intersected elements of educational practices and social work theories. This literature review begins with defining the importance between the student and teacher and their relationship. The student-teacher relationship can be examined through student behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement in the classroom. Finally, the paper STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 8 examines engagement by understanding attachment theory and the person-centered psychology as it appears in the classroom setting. Relationship Between Student and Teacher The student-teacher relationship has been hypothesized to be one of the most fundamental components in the learning process (Bingham & Okagaki, 2012). Some experts in the field of both psychology and education have suggested that a relationship with at least one caring adult (not necessarily a parent) is perhaps the single most important element in protecting children who have multiple risk factors, related to their environment, behavioral, or cognitive deficits, in their lives; for many children, this adult is a teacher (Sabol & Pianta, 2012). Hamre and Pianta (2001) noted when kindergarteners had higher level of conflict with their teacher, that conflict predicted their grades, work habits, and disciplinary infractions throughout their academic career. Thijs and Fleischman (2015) stated that the student-teacher connection is at the core of the learning process. If teachers focus more on goals, they do not understand the student-teacher relationship as important. The teacher-student connection also leads to greater motivation, “When there are high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict and dependency, students are more likely to be motivated to success, to feel successful in educational pursuits and consequently, to perform better than students without such supports” (Zee, Koomen & Ven der Veen, 2013, p. 517). How a student perceives their teachers’ attributes, interactions with others, expectations, and attitudes toward them, as well as their feelings about their teacher, assist children to be able to adjust to their climate and culture of their classroom (Pianta, 1994). Bingham and Okagaki, (2012) supported this notion by saying, “students who report having supportive teachers are more likely to be engaged in learning engagement behaviors” (p. 87). Teacher-student STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 9 relationships also tend to be more elevated in classrooms in which the teacher uses more developmentally appropriate instructional strategies and participates in frequent instructional dialogue between teacher and students with large and small group instruction (O’Connor, 2010). Positive relationships with teachers are necessary to establish a positive classroom environment. Teachers are the prominent figure in the classroom to establish connections with students, setting the tone in the classroom, and providing personal and academic support (Voelkl, 2012). He also stated, “teachers’ expressions of support are likely to be interpreted as a sign of caring. A caring supportive teacher can impact students’ identification with school” (p. 205). Even at the classroom level the development of positive trusting student-teacher relationships was associated with decrease in troubling behavior. When there is a high quality of connectedness between teacher and student, there is more engagement in the classroom (Griffiths, Lillies, Furlong, & Sidhwa, 2012). The research defined the importance of the student-teacher relationship and the benefits the teacher and student have with establishing a connection. However, how that is manifested in the classroom and exhibited between the student and teacher is not effectively described in the literature. Definition of Student-Teacher Engagement Positive social connections with teachers are valuable for student engagement in the classroom for many reasons. Students are more eager to earn respect and praise for good work and accept goals that are set for them from teachers who known them well and demonstrate real interest in them and their success (Davis & McPartland, 2012). Student engagement plays a critical role in the positive outcomes for children in the classroom such as, increasing academic achievement (Mahatmya, Lohman, Matjasko, & Farb, 2012), and they have a degree of active involvement in school through their feelings and actions (Lewis, Huebner, Malone, & Valois, STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 10 2011). Active involvement is important because “student engagement represents the goodness of fit between students and the school environment and is more useful when constructed as a process that evolves over the course of the school experience” (Liem & Chong, 2017, p. 122). In the simplest form, engagement is the extent a student is actively involved in a learning activity (Reeve, 2012). Importance of Engagement Students’ engagement behaviors highlight attributes that occur as part of the learning process. Engaged students exhibit many behaviors inside and outside of the classroom that reflect their interest and commitment in their own learning (Mazer, 2017). Students who are interested and curious about being in the classroom provide a much more conducive environment for learning. Students who are more engaged in the classroom are more attentive and participate in class discussions. They exert more effort in class and exhibit interest and motivation to learn (Liem & Chong, 2017). Consequently, disengaged students become disruptive and are less likely to aspire to higher educational goals. They have lower grades and are less likely to complete their high school education. Students who are not engaged in the classroom are more likely to be passive learners and report being bored, anxious, or even angry about being in the classroom (Reyes, Bracket, Rivers, White, & Salovey, 2012). They stated, “Effective learning is therefore contingent upon the extent to which students are engaged in classroom learning activities” (Reyes et al., 2012, p. 700). While Liem and Chong (2017) noted the effects of poor student engagement pose a significant strain on teachers’ effectiveness in teaching, hinder their sense of competency, and deeply affect their satisfaction and psychological well-being. Teacher Engagement Skills Engagement has become prominent in educational and developmental psychology STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 11 literature and is generally defined as involvement, participation, and commitment to educational goals (Gutherie, Wigfield, & You, 2012). Behavioral engagement involves active participation and involvement in studying and learning. Cognitive engagement suggests the level of students’ investment in learning activities, including self-regulation and commitment to mastery of their own learning. Emotional engagement encompasses a students’ attitude toward school, enjoyment in their learning, and a sense of belonging in the classroom (Ulmanen, Soini, Pietarinen, & Pyhalto, 2016). A large basis of the student-teacher interaction relies on a teacher’s ability to cultivate an emotionally supportive classroom climate. In order for engagement to flourish in a classroom there needs to be supportive conditions, especially supportive student-teacher relationships (Reyes et al., 2012). The role of the teacher is not to create engagement but rather to support the student engagement that already exists (Reeve, 2012). Behavioral engagement relates to positive conduct and the absence of disruptive behaviors and involvement in learning and academic tasks, which includes behaviors such as persistence, concentration, and attention (Mahatmya et al., 2012). This form of engagement centers more around attention in the classroom, participation in educational learning, and effort in academic activities (Cappella, Kim, Neal, & Jackson, 2013). Behavioral engagement consists more of observable acts of students when they are engrossed in the learning process (Lewis et al., 2011). Capella et al. (2013) stated, “Research indicates behavioral engagement is directly and strongly associated with academic performance. In addition, academic motivation is consistently and positively associated with multiple forms of engagement” (p. 368). Behavioral engagement in a classroom is an important aspect to a classroom’s climate and aids in the teacher-student relationship but usually only addresses the physical needs of students (Lewis et al., 2011). STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 12 Cognitive engagement draws on the idea of investment in the classroom. It incorporates thoughtfulness and willingness to exert the effort necessary to understand complex ideas and master challenging tasks related to the curriculum (Mahatmya et al., 2012). Lewis et al. (2011) stated, “Cognitive engagement includes self-regulation, understanding the importance of school, students’ investment in learning, and desire for challenge” (p. 251). It is the expenditure of thoughtful energy in order to comprehend complex ideas. Cognitive engagement refers to behaviors that are directly related to the learning process such as attentiveness, asking questions for clarification, persisting with difficult tasks, and using self-regulation and other cognitive strategies to guide learning (Finn & Zimmer, 2012). This form of engagement is described as the extent students are willing to take on the learning task, effort they are prepared to invest in their learning, and how long they are willing to persist to complete the desired task (Rotgans & Schmidt, 2017). Students are more metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active in their learning and have a greater sense of self-regulation with a larger sense of control over their learning process when they are cognitively engaged (Helme & Clarke, 2001). They also asserted that, “Cognitive engagement involves the thinking that students do while engaged in academic learning” (Helme & Clarke, 2001, p. 135). Students experience multiple types of emotions in school that range from academic emotions, motivation, engagement and/or achievement. Lewis et al. (2011) noted, “Emotional engagement refers to the affective reactions of students toward school or their teachers” (p. 251). However, for many years educational researchers have neglected the role student-teacher emotional engagement has in connection to grades, goals, and cognitive engagement (Ganotice Jr., Datu, & King, 2016). Emotional engagement incorporates positive and negative reactions to teachers, peers, academics, and school environment. It signifies students’ affective reactions in STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 13 the classroom including interest, boredom, happiness, sadness, and anxiety (Mahatmya et al., 2012). Affective engagement is a level of emotional response characterized by feelings of involvement in school. It provides the incentive for students to participate behaviorally and feel included in the school community. This structure assists in helping to identify school as a significant part of their own lives and recognize that school provides tools for out-of-school accomplishments (Finn & Zimmer, 2012). Emotional teacher-student support occurs when students recognize the message of others as a way to promote desirable outcomes including decreased emotional stress, adaptive coping strategies, improved emotional health, and generally supportive interpersonal relationships (Lewis et al., 2011). Classroom emotional support reflects the extent to which students perceive that their teacher is available and able to provide emotional support about topics that are directly or indirectly related to school (Mazer, 2017). Students were more engaged in learning when teachers were more sensitive and responsive to the emotional needs of the classroom and supported the diversity of the individual learners (Downer, Rimm-Kaufman, & Pianta, 2007). Students who have frequent experiences of positive emotions related to their school have a greater perceived cognitive engagement with school work and a desire for future aspirations. They also have stronger psychological engagement, which benefits the student-teacher relationships. Findings supported that students who report less engagement in school experiences have more frequent negative emotions while in the school setting (Lewis et al., 2011). Children form attachments to caregivers, which can include teachers, who are invested emotionally in them. Caring, supportive, and emotionally available teachers create an environment in which students feel a sense of belonging and become more engaged in the learning process. Such emotional engagement allows for students to bond with a teacher, which STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 14 can be crucial to a child’s psychological adjustment. In contrast, if children are not in an emotionally supportive learning environment, they feel disconnected from school and less engaged in their learning. Therefore, their academic performance could suffer (Reyes et al., 2012). Students want to be in a place in which they feel a level of trust and respect, and people care about them; feel their classroom was like being a part of a family; consider their teacher to be helpful, encouraging, and listen to their opinions and ideas; and have opportunities to be responsible, with freedom and choices (Freiberg & Lamb, 2009). However, students’ perspective on their emotional engagement is often lost. Students are the ones who decide their engagement or disengagement in school (Walker, 2009). This decision is often lost when there is not explicit deprescription about what student engagement should look like in the classroom and how a teacher could identify when students are cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally engaged in their learning. Other Types of Engagement The basis of engagement is the ability to connect with people and provide an environment that allows for growth and change (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). Altman (2008) stated, “It can be seen as the process whereby the social worker creates an environment of warmth, empathy, and genuineness that enables a client to enter into a helping relationship and actively work toward change” (p. 555). Another definition for engagement is the relationship or alliance that exists between two people (Yatchmenoff, 2005). Carl Rogers and his person-centered approach “maintained that a basic trust in the innate drive and capacity of a person to grow, develop, and mature is integral to a caring relationship” (as cited in Washburn & Grossman, 2017, p. 413). Engagement is closely linked to the affective component of the helping relationship, required in STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 15 creating a safe environment for people to share information, and establishing a connection so they want to continue that relationship (Staudt, Lodato, & Hickman, 2012). Attachment theory. The conceptual framework for student-teacher relationship literature has its roots from various aspects of literature within education and psychology. Its original framework was most strongly influenced by attachment theory (Sabol & Pianta, 2012). They identified “the attachment framework provides the basis for understanding that children form working models of attachment based upon their early experiences with parents and other adult caregivers” (Sabol & Pianta, 2012, p. 214). In order to truly understand the importance of the student-teacher relationship and the benefits it brings to the classroom, understanding attachment theory helps to illustrate how it can benefit the classroom and create a place of growth and development for students. Attachment theory dates back to 1951 when a renowned British psychologist, John Bowlby, wrote a report for the World Health Organization titled Maternal Care and Mental Health. In the article he made the connection between mother-child relationships and how important it is to child development (as cited in Blakely & Dziadosz, 2015). Bowlby (1951) stated, “…it is sufficient to say what is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (p. 11). Bowlby (1951) researched and wrote extensively on the subject of attachment and how separation and loss of a primary caretaker and the serious, negative effects the lack of attachment has on mental health, interpersonal relationships, and social functioning (as cited in Blakely & Dziadosz, 2015). Fraley (2014) summed up attachment theory as the proximity of the primary attachment figure to the child. The connection is activated whenever there is a threat of STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 16 separation from the attachment figure. If that person is nearby and responsive to the child’s needs, the child will feel secure. If the attachment figure is not nearby or responsive to the child’s needs, the child will display anxious behaviors until the attachment figure returns and pays attention to the child. Blakley and Dziadosz (2014) further explained attachment theory by identifying secure and insecure attachment styles. When a secure attachment style is established by a secure base provided by the primary attachment figure who actively cares for a child, the relationship generates confidence and the person’s ability to be comfortable in maintaining attachment relationships, even when those figures are not readily available (Bowlby, 1951). Insecure attachment styles are characterized by negative working models in which a person has decreased self-esteem and self-confidence. These insecure attachments cause a lack of trust in the relationships with others and the belief that others are not caring and responsive. Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, and Oort (2001) noticed, “The central idea of attachment theory is that positive relationships between parents and children promote feelings of security in the child” (p. 494). Attachment theorists have provided substantial evidence to support the idea that children develop unique working models of their social world based upon their early relationship experiences with adult caregivers (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). These researchers stated that these early relationships with caregivers help shape early development and influence children’s school experiences. Children who are securely attached engage more actively in peer interactions and exploration of their school environment. They have higher self-esteem, show a greater capacity for forming friendships, and demonstrated less negative emotions. Children who are more insecurely attached are at risk for lower social competence and self-esteem. They tend to show STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 17 more levels of aggression, hostile behavior, and struggle with peer relationships (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Baker (2006) stated, “Many studies of teacher-child relationship quality have their roots in attachment theory, which posits that children use relationships with significant others to construct views about themselves and the nature of the social world” (p. 212). During the elementary school years, children start to consolidate academic competencies and develop increased cognitive representations of themselves as learners and associate their beliefs, attitudes, and motivation regarding schooling. Towards late elementary school, children have already developed decisive beliefs about their capabilities and aptitude to do well in school (Baker, 1999). Furthermore, Wentzel (2002) stated that “Children are likely to internalize positive school-related values and goals in a developmental context by warmth and nurturance, such as that provided by a positive teacher child relationship” (p.288). Attachment theory suggests that the development of a secure adult-child relationship is related to an adult’s perceived sensitivity to a child and their needs (Sobal & Pianta, 2012). Heatly and Vortuba-Drzal (2017) described two of the most important relationships in a young person’s life are with their parents and teachers. Students, who in early childhood have high-quality relationships with their primary caretakers and teachers, who display elements of closeness, sensitivity, and a sense of shared affection and warmth with those students, create a higher likelihood for those students to be more secure and stable in their future endeavors. Students, who feel that their teacher is more available and sensitive to their needs, develop a more secure connection and therefore have more self-confidence, which is a base whereby children can participate in exploration and scaffold learning opportunities (Ahnert, Harwardt- Heinecke, Kappler, Eckstein-Madry & Milatz, 2012). Sobal and Pianta (2012) reported that a STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 18 teacher who is perceived to be more sensitive to a child and their needs with an insecure attachment were not at risk for developing fewer close relationships. Suggesting that the quality of teacher-child relationships is not only influenced by children’s attachment but also a teacher’s sensitivity. Students’ perceptions of teachers as negative or unsupportive were positively related to students’ academic devaluing. Younger students, who generally like their teachers, but who perceived their teacher as negative and/or insensitive to their needs, had a higher prominence of negative feelings about school and their achievement (Bingham & Okagaki, 2012). How a student attaches to others in the classroom helps with their sense of security and success, but it may be hard to determine how this might discernably be apparent in the classroom. Person-centered psychology. Relationships form the fabric of human life and have a big impact on individuals. Carl Rogers developed a theory grounded in the assumption that every human has the want to self-actualize or to fulfill his or her potential and achieve goals, wishes, and desires (as cited in Shefer, Carmeli, & Cohen-Meitar, 2017). Walker and Greene (2009) stated, “Maslow argued that only food and shelter take precedence over the need for love and belonging, whereas attachment theories have long held that taking part in a mutually beneficial relationship plays a vital role in personal growth and development” (p. 464). Rogers was a recognized pioneer of humanistic psychology. He promoted acceptance and respect for the client by trusting the client to be the expert in his or her own feelings and life experiences (as cited in Ross, 2009). Acceptance, respect, and trust are also important in the relationship between teacher and student. Rogers developed the popular and widely used person-centered psychology which focuses on the universal human motivation for growth, development, and autonomy. Joseph and Murphy (2013) provided an example to understanding the basis of person-centered psychology: STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 19 The metaphor most often used to convey this theoretical principle is how an acorn has the potential to develop into an oak tree. Given the right nutrients from the soil and the right balance of sunlight and shade, it will grow to be its fullest potential as an oak tree. But given a lack of nutrients from the soil and the wrong balance of sunlight and shade, its potential as an oak tree will be only partially fulfilled. Thus, it is with people, person-centered theory suggests, the tendency to proactively grow, develop, and move toward autonomous functioning, when the social-environmental conditions are optimal. (p. 29) If people have a supportive and nurturing environment, they can grow to be productive and industrious persons. The person-centered psychology focuses mainly on the person’s potential rather than their lack of ability or expertise (Joseph & Murphy, 2013). Person-centered has a foundation related to a person’s condition of worth which are their attitudes, beliefs, and values that are associated with the person’s social interactions. These social connections establish a sense of conditional or unconditional regard. If there are conditions placed upon their interactions with their world, then the person learns to evaluate their experiences based upon external qualifiers and learn to ignore their own sense of self. When unconditional expectations placed upon a person’s interactions, they learn to view their experiences in a more self-actualized manner (Joseph & Murphy, 2013). Person-centered psychology is grounded on the framework that people are intrinsically motivated to grow and develop to become well adjusted, productive adults in the right social environment and conditions. The underlying aspect of this approach is the relationship that the teacher develops with the student to be perceived as empathic, genuine, and unconditional (Joseph & Murphy, 2013). Jodefowitz and Myran (2005) suggested in a respectful relationship STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 20 when there is a non-judgmental openness in the student-teacher relationship, students are able to think and be themselves with complete acceptance from the teacher. Rogers (1961) believed that unconditional positive regard happens when one person shows positive warmth and caring for another. The relationship allows each to have their own feelings and experiences and to find their personal meaning in their individual life events (Rogers, 1961). Teachers provide this type of encouragement for students by showing concern for their welfare and supporting their efforts. Person-centered approach has an emphasis on viewing humans as a unique entity and values them as individuals that are exceptionally themselves. People are distinctive, irreplaceable individuals who should be valued for what they can contribute rather than what they cannot. The focus is not on what the person would or should be but focused on understanding the person as an individual (Cooper & McLeod, 2011). With this focus on looking at people as unique individuals and allowing them to use their own perspective to identify their strengths and limitations allows them to empower themselves in their own growth. This structure permits the person to grasp their own sense of self-determination in a way to dictate what their future holds for them and less what others determine as important for them. Person-centered psychology also establishes an environment in which a person can feel safe to go beyond their own limitations to explore and grow in a manner that best fits their own defined needs and expectations (Cooper & McLeod, 2011). Rogers (1969) extended his person-centered approach into the classroom. He referred to it as person-centered learning and illustrated how a teacher or “facilitator of learning” could provide trust, understanding, and realness to allow the students to be more active and involved in their learning (Rogers, 1969). Teachers can approach the management of student behavior in a more proactive manner through building a positive and trusting relationship (Gatongi, 2007). He STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 21 further stated, “Teacher establishes himself/herself as a person who cares about the pupil’s well-being in and out of school. This can create an atmosphere in which the student self-esteem can flourish” (p. 210). Teachers play a specific role in ensuring students’ sense of belonging in the classroom and subsequently at school. Teachers, who are sensitive to students’ needs and issues, regard students in a positive manner, and provide feedback that is fair and respectful, assist in helping students feel connected to the classroom and more active in their learning (Ulmanen et al., 2016). Teacher-student relationships have also been reported to be influential in determining the course of a child’s school career (Pianta, 1994). In agreement with trusting relationships, Cornelius-White (2007) suggested, “students desire authentic relationships where they are trusted, given responsibility, spoken to honestly and warmly, and treated with dignity” (p. 116). Teachers, who display qualities of empathy, warmth, and encouragement, create a classroom that is more inviting and encouraging for growth. This classical approach emphasized teacher empathy, unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and encouragement of critical thinking. Certain qualities exist in the personal relationship between the facilitator (teacher) and learner (student). Facilitation requires at least an initial genuine trust in learners by the facilitator followed by the creation of acceptance and empathic climate (Cornelius-White, 2007). In elementary school, caring teachers know each student individually and distribute praise and rewards to all students. They often provide a reason for students to come to school and try to do assigned work (Voelkl, 2012). All human beings wish to have an environment where there is acceptance, non-judgement, and warmth. A person-centered classroom can exist when a teacher displays those skills (Rogers, 1961). Freiberg and Lamb (2009) stated, “A person-centered classroom creates STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 22 balance between the wants of the teacher and the efforts and needs of the students, forming a collective classroom including all persons in a classroom” (p. 100). Person-centered environments promote positive outcomes for creative/critical thinking, achievement, student participation, student satisfaction and self-esteem, increased motivation to learn, less disruptive behavior, and fewer absences (Freiberg & Lamb, 2009). Despite the value of investigating academic emotions through person-centered approaches, very little research uses this specific methodology of academic emotions and key student outcomes, such as motivation, engagement, and academic achievement. Using a person-centered approach is beneficial for understanding the diverse needs of students and their key student outcomes (Gantoice Jr. et al., 2016). A person-centered classroom supports both the needs of the teacher and students, but the description on how that may manifest in the classroom is unclear to be able to be recreated in the classroom. Summary The literature provided understanding of how students in a classroom need to feel engaged and connected to their teacher. The approach to how to engage students may vary depending on a teacher’s background and skill set. However, engagement is important to building the student-teacher relationship and providing a classroom that is not only academically enriching but also a place of complete acceptance. The literature showed many examples of how crucial teacher and relationship-building engagement is in the classroom but lacked what that engagement really looks like in a classroom setting. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 23 PURPOSE Students need to connect to their classroom and their teacher as a way to develop a sense of safety and security in order to feel comfortable enough to leave their sense of contentment to go beyond their self-perceived restrictions in their learning. This connection provides a base of confidence and self-reliance students can access when presented with challenges that encourage them to move in diverging directions of unexpected thinking, consider a variety of solutions, and solve problems in a more creative manner. Teachers in the classroom develop this level of trust with their students through various forms of engagement that are designed to curb unwanted behavior, elevate cognitive involvement, and provide an emotional state of stability. When these factors are fully implemented in the classroom, the potential for an increase of cognitive commitment and a higher level of learning is realized. Students benefit from a higher sense of self-efficacy not only in their learning but also in themselves. Human beings have a natural desire and yearn to connect and attach to others. The want to attach is ever present in the classroom and the basis for the student-teacher relationship. This attachment and the process of connecting is enhanced when the teacher is perceived to be nurturing, kind, and engrossed with the talents and needs of the class. When students are viewed as individuals and the teacher cultivates an environment where their distinct personalities are able to be present in the classroom and independent strengths and weaknesses are allowed, the relationship between the teacher and student develops and strengthens a student’s desire to achieve and explore their learning in an environment that is safe and accepting of faults. Teachers, who understand how to connect to their class, nurture the relationships with their students, and be entuned to the needs of the individuals in the class, are able to encourage and thrust their students to accomplish things in their learning that might have been inconceivable. A STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 24 strong student-teacher relationship benefits the students in a manner that may not always be understood at the time in the classroom but helps students to be able to take risks in their learning because of the safety of the relationship. The purpose of this study was to examine how one particular teacher, with a background in social work which focuses on relationship building and a strong understanding of how to enhance and maintain connections, used those skills as a way to engage students in the classroom. This self-study set out to explore how engagement skills were reproduced in an elementary school classroom of a particular teacher who adheres to the person-centered approach with an understanding of attachment theory. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 25 METHOD Narrative inquiry has become a way to understand the personal experience of individuals while maintaining their unique voice. It provides a point of reference to explore and examine what experience is and how it might be studied and represented in research. In narrative inquiry experience is the stories people live (Clandinin, Pushor, & Orr, 2007). Stories lived and told educate the self and others by examining the words and context in which these stories are articulated and shared. The value of a story and how the account is voiced provides immense exploration into the understanding of people’s worth and significance in the context of their lives (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). In using narrative inquiry, the researcher is able to illuminate how the discourse of social and theoretical context shape experience by analyzing individual’s thoughts, shared experiences, and internal voice (Bryne, 2017). Bruce (2008) suggested that narrative inquiry is a valuable methodological approach because stories describe human knowledge regarding experience and action. Individuals naturally talk about themselves and their lives in a story format. This structure provides more understanding and depth to our lives by maintaining the fidelity of a person’s story. This study used narrative inquiry and grounded theory (described below) as the basis to explore how the focus of student-teacher relationship engagement skills were implemented in a classroom setting. A written narrative was used to gather qualitative data to assess how engagement that focuses rigorously on building relationships benefited students in the classroom and determined if there was a need for further exploration of building the student-teacher relationship. This research also used the practice of grounded theory in analyzing and interpreting the data. Grounded theory was developed by Glaser and Strauss as way to “systematically apply a set of methods to generate inductive theory about a substantive area” (as STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 26 cited in Glaser, 1992, p. 16). Fendt and Sachs (2008) detailed that grounded theory method provides new insights into social phenomena. It is applicable in understanding more complex social interactions where little to no theory exists to explain the phenomenon that occurred. The methodology lends itself to allow interpretations to emerge from participants with very little interaction or interpretation by the researcher. The data from the field are constantly compared, fractioned, coded, and analyzed using observational and interview data until saturation is reached and themes have emerged. Grounded theory method was used to assist in providing insight into how engagement occurred in the classroom and how that benefited the student-teacher relationship. Participant Research was conducted using a single participant qualitative study. The participant in the study was me. I have a Master of Social Work and am currently licensed as a Licensed Clinical Social Work with the state of Utah. I worked for over a decade in the area of child welfare working in various capacities with all different types of families. I have a background in behavior modification and clinically trained to work with children and families. My background also includes knowledge and skills in attachment theory and trauma-focused interventions for children who have experienced severe trauma. After spending as many years as I did in child welfare, I was feeling burnt out and struggled to stay vested in the families I was working with. I decided to challenge myself and expand my skill set by returning to school. I was accepted into a graduate elementary teaching licensing program through Weber State University. I completed coursework and student teaching to obtain my license in the summer of 2016. My first full-time teaching position began in the fall of that year. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 27 Researcher Bias The research bias that existed during this project was based upon the years of experience I had in the field of social work, my background in relationship building, and using connections as a change agent in the healing and learning process. This perspective brought a different element and components to this study. Because the narrative was written by me, as the researcher, it would be impossible to be completely objective. Even though measures were put into place to make my analysis as objective as possible – leaving my written narrative for a period of time and analyzing the narrative out of order – the potential for biases still existed because I was researching myself. When I wrote my narrative, I had recently stepped away from teaching in the middle of the school year due to a traumatic, emotional event that had occurred in my family. My leaving teaching for a period of time was also exacerbated by my feelings of being in a negative and unsupportive work environment. These issues put me into more of an emotional and subjective state of mind that had a potential for me to sensationalize and idealize more positive experiences. Procedures This research study began with wanting to understand how engagement manifests itself in the classroom when the teacher comes from a non-traditional teaching background. The concept of using narrative inquiry was suggested as a way to examine the student-teacher relationship in a manner that allowed me to investigate my own personal experience in the classroom as a fourth-grade teacher and how using my social work background in developing relationships emerged in the classroom. After meeting with my committee chair, I was instructed to write my personal narrative detailing everything that happened in my fourth-grade classroom. It was suggested that I start my narrative with why I changed careers from being a STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 28 social worker to being a teacher. This beginning was to get my mind thinking about what had transpired in the year and half that I was in the classroom. I was told not to put any limitations but just let my thoughts flow onto the paper. After thinking about this process and before I started writing my narrative, I felt that it was important to focus my writing on the specifics of what happened in my classroom and my interactions with my students and parents. The only other instructions I was given was not to go back and reread or edit the narrative: just write down my free-flowing thoughts. I gave myself a one-week deadline to write my single-spaced, thirteen-page narrative. Once the narrative was written I emailed it to another person and left it alone for several months. After several months of not looking at or reading my narrative, I uploaded it into NVivo (a computer-based, qualitative research tool) to explore my narrative in a more clinical and objective manner. I used predetermined classifications or nodes that were related to the themes and context of my literature review. I established two nodes that were related to social work observations and teacher observations. In order to be more objective about my narrative once I started coding it, I started from the bottom of my narrative and coded it from the bottom up. As I read the narrative from the bottom up I focused on one sentence at a time as I placed them in the nodes I felt they would most belong. It took me two days to initially code my narrative to establish three dominate categories. Once the narrative was input and initially coded with NVivo, three categories were established: teacher observations, relationships, and social work observations. I then focused on how to define each category in a way to display how each one could be identified in a classroom setting. Under each category I established five descriptive words for a total of 15 classifications as a way to define each of the three categories. The explanatory words were chosen based upon STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 29 a free-flowing thought process of what words came to mind when I thought of each individual category. The rational for using a free-flowing thought process was to be able to define what I knew each one of these categories would look like in the classroom. I used this strategy as a way to determine how best to illustrate the description of what I felt teaching observations, relationships, and social work observations would be able to be observed in a classroom setting. As I entered the descriptive words into NVivo, they were automatically alphabetized so when I conducted my finally coding I was not aware of which of the three main categories the descriptive words belonged to. I uploaded the text that were categorized from my top three categories into three separate documents. I once again coded each document from the bottom up as a way to continue to focus on each sentence content and not on the document as a whole. The themes of my written narrative arose. These themes were insight, authenticity, security, and rapport. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 30 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The student-teacher relationship is the basis for developing an environment in which learning and growing can happen in a classroom. Teachers who devote time and energy in connecting with their students and building an environment of trust and acceptance enhance learning and personal growth. The use of personal narrative was a way to understand how I, with a background in relationship connections, working in a fourth-grade classroom saw and tried to understand how engagement assisted and aided in the student teacher-relationship. The personal narrative provided an opportunity to examine and scrutinize events and interactions that occurred in the classroom to explore how engagement benefitted the student-teacher relationship. The basis of the written narrative was to self-reflect on my experience as a teacher and to provide some understanding of the phenomena that I saw in my classroom. An initial analysis of the data produced three major categories, which emerged from the data: Teacher Observations, Relationships, and Social Work Observations. Teacher observations were determined as the basis of what would happen in the classroom as I interacted with students, taught lessons, and/or participated in planning. Any text that discussed students’ academic skills, classroom engagement skills, or reflection on lessons taught or comparisons between classes were coded under teacher observations. (All names used in throughout the reporting are pseudonyms.) For example, “John was my most academically gifted student”; “He would always say what was on his mind, never raised his hand, and could get an entire class off track with just one comment”; and “I did some of the things I had done my first year, but they didn’t seem to have the same results and didn’t connect the class like it had before.” Teacher observations were a way to reflect how I, as a teacher, observed or STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 31 implemented what I had learned in my teacher education courses with respect to the cognitive or behavioral encounters in my classroom. The relationship category was established as a determination when there was a connection made or interactions that built up a student or students in my classroom. I defined relationships based upon acceptance, nonjudgement, and warmth to others. Texts that referenced warmth, fondness, or connections were coded in this category. For example, “As I would work with him I noticed that even though my frustration level with him would grow as he could not complete simple math problems, my connection to him was also growing stronger, and I was feeling more vested in his success” and “John and I would banter back and forth and the class really loved it.” Relationships were a way for me to categorize the connections I was trying to make with my students and their response to those gestures. Social work observations were established as a way to categorize what I was seeing that related to the person-centered approach of building relationships and seeing my students as having the ability to grow and develop when they were in the right environment. These reflections came from activities or events that provided an opportunity for more emotional growth and change. Texts that were coded in social work observations were, “When I felt like my class was struggling with empathy, I created an empathy lesson involving cake”; “ . . . there was a running joke about his behavior but also after that Trent was less emotionally needy and calmed down about being the class clown”; and “After we had a lock down, [in] that week’s Happiness Circle [described later], we talked about how we felt during the lock down.” Social work observations were used to bring understanding to more of the emotional learning that I perceived in my classroom. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 32 Emergent Themes As I explored my written narrative in many different aspects and levels, I continued to look at the three major categories that grew out of my written narrative but did not provide enough of an explanation about how engagement could look in a classroom or how a background in developing and maintaining relationships aided in the student-teacher relationship. After further exploration and continued scrutiny of my narrative four ideas emerged from my continued analysis. The extracted themes that resonated throughout the data were (a) insight, (b) authenticity, (c) rapport, and (d) security. These four concepts brought more understanding to how using engagement enhances the student-teacher relationship. Insight Insight was defined by knowing and understanding the needs of students based upon observations and attunement into their behavior. Sobel and Pianta (2012) indicated that a secure attachment is created when a teacher is sensitive to a child’s needs. I had a student in my classroom who was challenging with his behaviors. “The only thing I felt I was accomplishing was making our relationship contentious.” “With that awareness I spent more time trying to get to know Bill and talk about non-school related topics.” Ahnert et al. (2012) indicated that if students perceive their teacher as more sensitive to their needs, they will develop a more secure connection and be more self-confident. Another student, Bob, struggled to make friends and had some instances the year before with being overly aggressive with other students. “Bob was a kid who struggled socially and really wants people to be his friend, but he does not know how to be a friend.” At the beginning of the year I spent a great deal of time with Bob talking to him about his past aggressive behavior. Making this connection helped when he did get into some real trouble, and I had to STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 33 bring in his mom. I was able to provide the mom with a recount of the incident that got him into trouble, but I was also able to give her some positive experiences in which I saw him trying to change his past behaviors. Bingham and Okagaki (2012) reported that when students see their teacher in a more negative manner, they are less likely to connect and work with them. I started “Happiness Circle” as a way for my class to meet in a safe and simple environment. Happiness Circle was typically done on Friday before lunch. We would push our chairs and desks to the sides of the classroom and sit on the floor in one giant circle. Each week there was a different question to answer. I would give them a question and then we would go around and answer the question. In the beginning it was to help us get to know each other and allow my students to express their thoughts and feelings in a secure place. “There were times when we did not have Happiness Circle because it did not fit into our schedule, and my class started demanding it because we were all feeling a lack of connection.” Happiness Circle became a place where we all felt accepted and valued. “I am not sure what I learned in the classroom, but I learned pretty quickly that teachers needed a lot more emotional support.” Insight is also of great value in the ability understand how teachers can impact students. Insight was a manner in which a teacher is more aware of emotional needs of students. I found in my classroom that the more insight into the needs of my students and the more I was able to see their perspective, the more they were willing to work and learn for me. Authenticity Engagement in the student-teacher relationship does not develop in isolation or when a teacher has more attunement to students’ needs. Washburn and Grossman (2017) noted that a person-centered approach of having a basic trust in the innateness of a person can only be STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 34 established if the people in the relationship are genuinely themselves. I learned I could be on the same level of my students and still be an authority figure in the classroom. I could also be someone who made mistakes, and I did not have to have all of the answers. “I also laughed at myself and was quick to own my mistakes and to make light of a situation.” My ability to not take myself seriously and my talent to admit when I was wrong helped my students see me as a person and not just their teacher. One day I was teaching a lesson about repeating patterns, and I continued to confuse the triangle for a square. “After about 20 minutes of trying to teach the lesson and still making the same mistake I threw my dry erase marker up in the air and told them that we were done with math because my math brain was not working.” Being my authentic self not only helped me to be more approachable, it also allowed my students to see that making mistakes was not a bad thing. I had a student who, on occasion, had to sit at a desk all by himself. He called the desk “Christian Island”. “It became one of our class jokes, and I had to explain to quite a few parents at SEPs what Christian Island was and that it was not something that I really used.” “I would tease him often about Christian Island and that he might not get a return ticket from there.” “The next year Christian introduced himself to his fifth-grade class as someone who had an island named after him.” Mazer (2017) expressed that a teacher who appeared to support interpersonal relationships had more desirable outcomes in the classroom. I found that the more authentic I was with my students, the more responsive they were to me and what I was asking them to do. Rapport Rapport was defined as the connection established between teacher and student that allows for reciprocal learning and growth in the classroom. Thijis and Flecishman (2015) indicated that a student-teacher connection is at the core of the learning process. If a teacher STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 35 spent time on building a connection to students, that could lead to more motivation in the classroom. At the start of each year, “I had each student fill out a ‘getting to know you’ questionnaire that asked questions about favorite food, color, vacation, what they wanted to be when they grew up, and something they never wanted to do. Instead of me just reading them, at the end of the day I would read a few at a time and then have the class guess which student it was.” “They were really funny and loved trying to figure out who each person was.” This exercise not only helped me to get to know each of my students but gave the student a minute to have the spotlight on them. Davis and McPartland (2012) indicated that if a teacher expresses real and sincere interest in students, they are more willing to accept teachers’ goals and expectations. “I had a lot of students who loved to read so I started to talk to them about books, and we had a lunch book club for a while.” “My cute Suzy always wanted to know what I was reading. “We would talk about books all the time.” “I would also walk around the classroom and pick up the books they were reading and asked them about them.” It helped to make a personal connection but also allowed for time to talk about something that was not always school related. The personal connection helped some students to feel more part of the class but also helped to reduce some attention-seeking behaviors. “One day my class came back from preps, and I opened our behavior envelope and looked at Keith. I asked him why he got a check for bad behavior. He looked shocked and scared. When I told him, I was just teasing him, he sat on the floor and started laughing.” This little action helped to reduce this students’ attention-seeking behavior. Liem and Chong (2017) reported the teacher-student relationship is best when it develops over time and when students feel that they are an active part of the relationship. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 36 Security Security is the feeling of being physically safe and protected in the classroom. This feeling allows for being able to be oneself but still being accepted and validated as a person. It creates a feeling that they are able to be themselves and allow to grow at their own pace. “He told me that he liked coming to class because we would tease each other.” Roorda et al. (2001) reported that if a student has a positive relationship it helps support a feeling of security. Joseph and Murphy (2013) noted that if the focus is on the person’s potential and their condition of worth is encouraged then they internalize their experiences in a more self-actualized manner. I gave Christian an opportunity to go and tutor the students in the functional skills class once a week. “I wanted to give him a chance to rise to the occasion and let him know how much I trusted him by letting him go to the functional skills classroom as a peer tutor.” This opportunity improved our connection but also improved his desire to be at school. Joseph and Murphy (2012) noted that people have a desire to emotionally grow and develop into a well-adjusted adult under the right conditions. To help my class to develop connections with each other I created Happiness Circle that we did once a week. “Before I left mid-year and after I started Happiness Circle, I started to see that my class was started to develop a sense of community.” “During our weekly Happiness Circle. I asked my class to think about a time in which they were really happy and really sad.” “Many of my students responded that they were happy when they got a new pet or were able to spend some time with relatives who came from some place far away after the funeral.” “I had another student share that her parents at one time separated, and that made her really sad.” “I had one student share that she as sad when her father had cancer, and they were not sure if he was going to be cured.” “My student whose father had cancer said that she was happy STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 37 when they got the news that he was cancer free, and the other was happy when her father moved back into their home and things were going much better.” Jodefowitz and Myran (2005) stated that students who feel that their teacher is non-judgmental and allows them to be true to their own personality or character, without concern they will lose the acceptance from their teacher, have an enhanced sense of security and more willingness to be adventurous in their learning. Rogers (1961) stated that positive regard happens when a person shows warmth and caring for another. These feelings allow the individuals in the relationship to have their feelings and experiences and to find their own personal meaning in these experiences. “When I would have other teachers come into my room, they always noted that my students felt very comfortable and safe in my room.” Cooper and McLeod (2011) reported that when a person is able to use their own strengths and limitations, they are empowered and vested in their own personal growth. “My class moved from just being a class to more of a family, and we started to rely on each other.” Reyes et al. (2012) noted that the student-teacher relationship relies on the ability of the teacher to create and support an emotionally stable classroom environment. Reeves (2012) stated that the role of a teacher is to support student engagement that already exists by nurturing students’ level of interest and connection to their classroom. Recommendations Before I left teaching, when I shared my topic of research with several master level teachers about the importance of the student-teacher relationship, many of them were interested in what the outcome would be. They stated that after being in the classroom, they realized the importance of the student-teacher relationships but wished this aspect of teaching was something they had more understanding of when they first became teachers. STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 38 Recommendations for further study would be to include personal journaling along with the narrative as part of the data. Interviewing students who were in the classroom would also be a benefit to provide more observational data. Finally, using a small sampling of teachers with a similar background and how they perceived engagement in their classroom with regards to the student-teacher relationship. It would also be interesting to examine the experiences of other teachers who might have made a similar connection like I did. Conclusions To provide understanding of the importance of engagement and how it relates to the student-teacher relationship, I used a personal narrative as a qualitative method to help explain what I felt was a phenomenon in the year and half that I taught fourth grade. As I have read my narrative several times and examined the results of my initial coding, what I was seeing was that it was not a social work or a teacher or even relationships that were emerging from the data but more of my own natural abilities and personality traits that I have gained and nurtured over the years. These traits were what was building the connections with my students and making my classroom a place that was inviting, accepting, and fun for the students in my class. The sensation that emerged from my classroom could be recognized as emotional attunement that was heartfelt and empathetic of the needs and wants of my students. That moment of magic enriched the relationships in the classroom not only with me but also among themselves. Final Thoughts When I wrote my narrative, my goal was to provide some self-reflection on how to build a student-teacher relationship using engagement skills. What I learned in the process was it does not matter if a teacher is able to build a relationship with students by using behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement, or using person-centered approach and an understanding of STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 39 attachment theory. The most important engagement skills are those in which teachers feel they are being authentically themselves, have insight into their students’ needs, a positive rapport with their class, and ensure that the classroom and learning is done in a safe and secure place. The four major themes that arose out of my written narrative confirmed to me that the student-teacher relationship is critical in the classroom. As Freiberg and Lamb (2009) noted when a teacher establishes an environment that is authentic, secure, has an elevated level of rapport, and there is insight into students’ character, learning not only happens but relationships between student and teacher provide more critical and creative learning. The most defining measure of how I expressed student engagement and its reflection on the student-teacher relationship comes down to how one incident in my classroom that encompasses all four themes arose from my narrative. One day we were discussing a piece of literature that we were reading. “Charlie had his hand raised, but I didn’t call on him. When I picked another student, Charlie put his hand down a bit rejected and shouted out to the class that he wanted to answer the question so that he could have all of the glory.” “I started laughing and told him that I was sorry that I took away his glory, so I went up to the whiteboard at the front of the classroom and in a bright green white board marker I wrote Charlie’s glory and put it into a word bubble.” “I left the written ‘Charlie’s glory’ on my white board for the rest of the year. Many of my students wanted to erase it, and I would tell them that it was Charlie’s glory, and he could erase it when he was ready.” “There were others who wanted their own glory, and I would tell them that the glory was only for Charlie.” “Charlie’s glory became something in our classroom that was to be envied but also something that once again brought us together and gave us a sense of family.” On the last day of school there were a handful of students who wanted to erase his ‘glory’. I told everyone that it was Charlie’s glory, and it was up to him to decide when STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP 40 he wanted to erase it. “Charlie told us that he was not ready to erase it. Then right before it was time for us to go to lunch he stood up and said I am ready to erase my glory.” Charlie, being a little on the shorter side of life, could not reach his glory on his own. “So, John let him get on his back and as Charlie was erasing his glory off of our board the class started chanting, “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie”. When he was all done the entire class cheered and clapped.” Gatongi (2007) illustrated when a teacher creates a classroom that cares about students’ well-being in and out of school, an atmosphere is created that aids students’ self-esteem. In my classroom not only was there learning but more importantly the relationships that were created and encouraged only heightened the academics. 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