Having good relationship skills is important in many areas of life. These skills include the ability to communicate effectively, listen actively, stand up for yourself, and build trust and respect in your relationships. The ability to solve problems and work through conflicts with others is also an important aspect of strong relationship skills. In my classroom, I promote these skills through group work (which we can use more often now due to block scheduling). I assign students to random groups to work on math problems together, which also helps my 7th-grade students who may not know many of their classmates, as they might have come from different elementary schools. This allows them to build relationships with students they may not know yet.
