Relationship Skills

Helping/Seeking Help: I will assign groups for review days in our class and students are required to work with only the members of their groups. Students must ask each student in their group a question if they are confused before they can come to ask me. I find students rely on me for information when they are all very competent and can answer each other's questions themselves. Sometimes, students feel uncomfortable asking each other for help, yet their peer explanations may connect with them better than the teacher's presentation of the material. 

While researching the CASEL framework I enjoyed reviewing all the different aspects of relationship building that help students establish and keep strong and positive relationships. These include, attentive and compassionate listening skills, empathy, working collaboratively to solve problems, offer help to others, work within different social contexts and cultures (cultural competency), portraying strong ethics, provide leadership and navigate conflict. I plan to encourage relationship skills within my classroom through continued use of positive short films that model the traits listed above. Teaching at the Jr. High level students tend to respond well to multimedia. I was encouraged to see all the activities and implementations suggestions offered on https://casel.org/systemic-implementation/sel-in-the-classroom/. These activities were also tailored for the different levels of the framework including classrooms, schools, families and communities.  

Relationship Skills refer to the ability to understand and engage effectively with others.  Building relationships and communicating effectively with others is an important life skill that is needed to be learned at an early age.  I see many students both young and older not have the ability to communicate effectively.  I believe the use of electronic devices in a fast paced world has contributed to this greatly.  Students need to be able to advocate for themselves and ask for help when it is needed.  They also need to be able to recognize and offer help to others as they need it. 
In the classroom, we can promote relationship skills by small groups and allowing students to listen and respond to one another.  Having conversations and actively listening to all in the class and then responding and helping others that need help.  For my younger students, we can find examples of characters that have good and bad relationship skills and talk about the similarities and differences.  Then make connections to their own lives and discuss how they would have handled the characters responses either the same or differently.

I think that relationship skills are so important.  I feel as though teenagers do not have the relationship skills that they used to due to technology and social media.  Today they communicate primarily through social media with their peers and have a difficult time communicating with adults or even their peers in some cases.  I see in my study halls that students are just constantly sitting on their phones, looking at social media, and not working on school work.  Relationship skills have certainly deteriorated amongst our youth over the last several years.

Good relationship skills are very important.  Relationship skills include listening and communicating effectively, advocating for oneself, and developing trusting, respectful friendships.  The ability to resolve conflicts with others and build healthy relationships with others is also a part of having good relationship skills.  In my classroom, I support having good relationships with others using group work.  I assign random groups for students to work on math questions.  This makes the students work with others they might not know.  My group work rules include Total participation, being respectful and kind to each other, and to help out a fellow mathematician.  I tell the students it is ok to disagree with a group member, but their tone and the way they communicate an opinion should be kind. I also encourage them to support each other and to ask their peers for help when they need it.  

The ability to build healthy relationships and communicate clearly, cooperate and collaborate effectively, and resolve conflicts.

When we start the year, some of my students don't really know how to be a student. They really do need practice in listening and communicating with each other. The best way to boost relationship skills in my room is by giving them time to play and be kids so that they can work through their conflicts in a healthy way. I am always listening or watching if they need me to intervene but allowing them to work through things is so important. I also try to encourage this through center time when I need them to work in small groups on their own. They love being able to help each other or to go to their peers when they need something.

Having good relationship skills requires effective communication skills, developing positive relationships with others, resolving conflicts with others, resisting negative influences, and being able to seek or offer support to others.  I encourage all of my students to have good relationship skills.  We talk about what it looks like to be a good friend, and what it looks like to be able to voice our opinions in a healthy supportive way.  I also encourage my students to self-advocate for themselves.  If they don’t understand something, need extra help, or extra time on an assignment, I encourage my students to talk to the teacher and ask if they can extend a time frame or if there is something they can do to raise a grade.