Relationship Building Ideas for Teachers who Hate Icebreakers

A phrase that I have heard many times since moving to teach high school is that elementary teachers love kids and high school teachers love the content. 

I have always had a problem with that comparison. As a teacher it boggles my mind that you wouldn’t like kids, that you would care more about passing on the content you are teaching and not reaching the student with the content. Unfortunately, that is something I have witnessed before as a student and as a teacher. There is sometimes this stigma that high school teachers do not know how to connect with their students or just don’t want to. 

I will admit that I don’t have any experience teaching below 6th grade, but what I have noticed is that high school deals with an entirely different type of learner. It is harder than ever to reach students and it can be harder and harder for teachers to connect with students. Another part of the problem is that we are I feel sometimes limited in our range of what it means to build relationships in our classrooms. Many high school teachers that I have worked with have said that they feel the traditional ice breakers and community building games are too touchy-feely for them and seem less than sincere. 

I will admit that at times, I fall into that sentiment as well. I don’t always like the typical team building materials, but I 100% believe that building relationships with your students is important. That goes for all of your students as much as you can. What I think we should work on is finding ways to build those relationships in way that is authentic to our personality and teaching style. 

Don’t get me wrong there is a place for cheezy and over the top and I think it is a good thing for all age levels to participate in those activities as well. As much as some may complain, they can definitely build a bond and build community in a group. What I want to talk about though are some ways that teachers that struggle with that type of community building can still build meaningful relationships with all of their students. 

Here are some ways that I take time to build community in a way that I feel is authentic to me and my students. 

1. Find or create games that act as challenges and relate them to your content if you can. Games are great ways to build community. If it a really good game it can get students talking, relating and bonding with each other and the content depending on the game.
   1. This I will say is probably best once you have already built some community in your class. It can be hard to trust people in a game and have them really get into it if they don’t already feel comfortable with their class and you.
   2. Check our previous post on review games for some ideas on games that could build community and relate to content!
2. Create assignments or activities early on that give students a chance to express themselves and their interests.
   1. There is one teacher that I know that also teaches geography and does a create your dream vacation project right at the beginning of the year. He does this to give students a chance to talk about their interests. Then after sharing the class will learn about each other and potentially find some common interest.
   2. My students are required to have a binder for class to work on organization skills. One of the first things that we do is create a binder cover. They are required to add pictures, phrases or doodles that show at least three things about themselves that I should know.
3. Ask questions and find time to have 1 on 1 conversations with them as much as possible.
   1. Share your story and show interest in theirs. In the beginning this can be a little awkward especially if you have student that doesn’t really like talking but in the end it usually seems to work even if you don’t really see the outcome at the time. The key is to find a few minutes either at the beginning of class or really whenever and have a short conversation with them about something unrelated to school. This does require the teacher to put themselves out there sometimes and talk about their own experiences. I usually start this process from the first day and will typically try to find some random thing that I hear a student say to someone else and I jump in and tell a story about myself. At first it is like I am the weird person that overhears a conversation and jumps in (I totally am) but before long, they are seeking me out to have a conversation about something and not just staring at me strangely. I also try to find a couple minutes usually at the end of class while we are packing and cleaning up materials to have a conversation with at least one student. I learned this week that one of my students used to be a bull rider. That was really interesting. I just expressed interest in his story. That is the key. Kids just want to know that you care about their story. Sometimes though this can go overboard and I have had students try to tell me things that I really don’t want or need to know about them or take it to an inappropriate level. It can be difficult to find a balance when many of our students do not really understand boundaries.
   2. Try attendance questions. This came from a blog post that a friend of mine shared on Facebook. This teacher has what they call the attendance question. The point is to get students thinking but also connecting with the class. As you take attendance the students answer the posted question for the day. In the beginning they should questions that are low risk and then as you through the semester they can get deeper, but they should never completely relate to the content. I have tried them this semester and it has been a good way to get to know my students and have them learn about each other. I do not do it every day, but make sure that I have an attendance question at least once a week.

The key to building relationships in the classroom is to find a method that you are comfortable with. Do you like humor, games, competitions, projects, or conversation? What are some ways that you can authentically show students that you care about their story? I do not think that there is only one way to build relationships with students, but we do them a disservice if we don’t try to connect with them on at least some basic level. We also cannot be afraid to try something outside our comfort zone if we are not reaching our students in the ways that we have in the past.  

We would love to hear how you build relationships with your students!