The Caring Teacher: Strategies for Working Through Our Own Difficulties with Students

Painful truth: there are just some students that you don't immediately connect with, and fear you never will. You have reasons and the teacher who had that student last year probably did, too. But what happens to students when they pass through school unliked? And is it possible for us to move beyond our initial feelings to better relationships with all students?

Cassetta and Wilson have a challenge to all of us: as professionals who have chosen to work with young people, it's our responsibility to find a way to care about every student, especially the ones who feel the hardest to like. Students can't learn from people who don't like them or who they don't like. If we teach, strong student-teacher relationships have to be one of our top priorities.

With a clear eye on the realities of teaching, The Caring Teacher lays out specific strategies to build and improve even our most challenging relationships. Acknowledging teachers' daily struggles, Cassetta and Wilson offer a variety of ways--from mindset shifts to small strategies--to improve all student relationships. These strategies can help us intentionally foster competence, relatedness, and autonomy in every student, giving them us the capacity to see their strengths and cultivate their roles as vital parts of our classroom communities.

The Caring Teaching is an invitation to look inward for reflection, and outward for connection. An invitation to try. Not just for the students who conform to our expectations, but for the ones who don't. The ones who most need us to be better.

Gianna Cassetta is coauthor of Classroom Management Matters: The Social and Emotional Learning Approach That Children Deserve; No More Taking Away Recess and Other Problematic Discipline Practices; and, The Caring Teacher: Strategies for Working Through Your Own Difficulties with Students. She began her teaching career in New York City, where she became one of the first 25 National Board Certified Teachers in the state. Her passion for education led her to co-found and lead a public-to-charter conversion school in Harlem, NYC, which outperformed the district it was housed in as well as the city. She helped launch the Office of School Reform and Innovation at Denver Public Schools, where she shepherded aspiring school leaders through a new school application and start-up process, before starting her own school in Far Northeast Denver. Gianna has led statewide professional development initiatives and consulted nationally. She is a certified Goleman EI Emotional Intelligence Coach and an International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach. Contact her at The Plain Red Horse Coaching and Consulting.

Margaret Wilson was a classroom teacher for 15 years. She has taught kindergarten, first, second, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. She has also worked as an assistant principal, professional developer, coach, and curriculum developer. She is the author of nine books, including The Language of Learning and Teasing, Tattling, Defiance and More.