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Capturing Kids’ Hearts: Middle schools focus on building relationships
Rigor, relevance and relationships were topics of discussion for much of the middle and high school reform work last year. These “three Rs” are so important that middle school educators will participate in extensive training this year in a program that is designed to build productive relationships between teachers and students.
Beginning in October, teams of middle school educators will be trained in the “Capturing Kids’ Hearts” philosophy. Program founder M.B. Flippen said, “If you have a child’s heart, you have his head.”
David Sneed, DPS Executive Director of Middle Schools, added that teachers who have implemented the approach report better classroom management and students who feel more valued.
“Through this approach,” Sneed said, “teachers treat students with more respect and students take more ownership for their behavior. Kids monitor themselves and their peers, while teachers are able to do the teaching and coaching that they need to do in the classroom. We feel confident that the end result will be improved middle schools and more student learning.”
DPS middle schools already have begun to reduce class transitions, improve orientation for new students and make additional structural changes to reduce disruptions. Capturing Kids’ Hearts will strengthen the bond between students and teachers.
Greeting students at the classroom door, shaking hands with students, and developing social contracts (classroom behavior expectations) are a few of the Capturing Kids’ Hearts techniques.
Half of the middle school faculty at each school will be trained in 2005-06 and the rest in 2006-07.
Githens Teacher Puts Techniques to Work
Hope Hampshire-Jones, 8th-grade Social Studies teacher at Githens Middle School, participated in the Capturing Kids’ Hearts’ training last spring and already has put the techniques to work. She said the relationship-building training helped her realize how important it is for teachers to understand the personal lives of the students. She feels that the training helps create trust between teachers and students.
Because of the training, Hampshire-Jones’ classroom has become “self-governing.” “One reason educators are so drained is because we spend so much energy on discipline,” Hampshire-Jones said. After participating in the training, this young teacher now has her students develop rules and consequences for their behavior.
Posted around her classroom walls are “Social Contracts,” the rules and consequences for each of her classes of students—rules and consequences the students themselves developed. Teachers who complete the training call their classes “teams” because that’s how they view their relationships.
Hampshire-Jones predicts that parents will notice a significant difference in their students who are a part of these teams. She said, “We have very safe classrooms where children trust their teacher and their classmates. Parents should see their children come home more excited to do their work.”
Visiting one of Hampshire-Jones’ teams at work is a testimony to the training. Students follow the rules that they set for themselves and monitor their classmates, in a respectful manner.
Hampshire-Jones said team members learn never to accuse each other—rather they investigate and engage to enforce the rules. Hampshire-Jones said she was skeptical at first that the training could do all that it claimed. She’s now a believer and feels that parents can use some of the same techniques at home by having children develop rules and consequences.
In developing the social contracts at school, students answer three questions:
How should we treat each other?
How should we treat our teacher?
How should we treat each other during conflict?
Examples of rules include: Stay on task, Don’t come to school unprepared, and Show respect for the teacher. Examples of consequences include: warnings, a call home, lunch detention, community service. There also are positive consequences including eating in classroom, praise, being the errand-runner, and earning bonus points.
As a teacher in her early years of work, Hampshire-Jones said the maturity of her students surprised her. “The students want structure—consistency. They want me to be fair and to help them enforce the rules and consequences.” Hampshire-Jones said her teaching style has changed forever because of the training and she is excited about her colleagues experiencing the same training.
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