Supp0rting students who need a personal connection
Associating academic success to the personality of the instructor is a natural response for many children. With the majority of teachers this is a good thing because they want to be connected to their students. Sometimes the teacher is strong but there is a personality conflict or, else, a
misunderstanding that gets blown out of proportion.
The following recommendations were compiled by members of the Parent Institute Committee of the Office of Gifted Education and Curriculum Development, and are based on the experience of educators and parents of gifted students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools.
Repair the Student-Teacher Connection
If your child is struggling because he feels disconnected first see if you can help repair the connection and secondly help your child learn how to learn whether he likes the teacher or not.
Arrange a time to discuss your concerns with your child's teacher. The following recommendations were compiled by members of the Parent Institute Committee of the Office of Gifted Education and Curriculum Development. They are based on the experience of educators and parents of gifted students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools.
Learning With or Without a Personal Connection
misunderstanding that gets blown out of proportion.
The following recommendations were compiled by members of the Parent Institute Committee of the Office of Gifted Education and Curriculum Development, and are based on the experience of educators and parents of gifted students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools.
Repair the Student-Teacher Connection
If your child is struggling because he feels disconnected first see if you can help repair the connection and secondly help your child learn how to learn whether he likes the teacher or not.
Arrange a time to discuss your concerns with your child's teacher. The following recommendations were compiled by members of the Parent Institute Committee of the Office of Gifted Education and Curriculum Development. They are based on the experience of educators and parents of gifted students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools.
- Do not assume that you have the whole story by what your child tells you
- Do not assume that the teacher has the whole story about the home based on what the child tells he
- Do not assume the teacher does not like your child
- Ask the teacher to describe her understanding of your child's strengths and weaknesses
- Share with the teacher what you see to be your child's strengths and weaknesses
- Ask the teacher to describe how she can use her professional talents to help your child be successsful
- Ask the teacher how you can support your child's education at home
- Ask the teacher how she can work to change your child's perception of his feelings toward her
- Older children can be brought into the conversation at some point, but the timing should be based on when both you and the teacher
feel ready for the discussion - Younger children can be brought into the conversation at some time, too, with the awareness that some of the discussion will need to be couched in terms they will understand
Learning With or Without a Personal Connection
- Help your child learn to value learning even if she does not like a particular teacher
- Help her understand that she will probably not have a personal connection with all of her teachers in secondary school and college
- Treat learning to be academically successful whether or not she has a personal connection with a teacher as a skill she will need to master as she matures and becomes a scholar
- When she becomes upset with a teacher calmly let her know that the disagreement is unfortunate but she will still need to do the school
work - Calmly help her disassociate the work from the teacher ("Yes, I know you are angry with Mr. Brown right now, but history
is important no matter what you think of him at the moment.")