Tuesday, May 19, 2015
"It's all about relationships!" she exclaimed as we drove toward the school where she worked. "People try to overcomplicate things, but it all has to with how we relate each day to our students."
In my travels to and fro, I'm blessed to meet some of the world's most successful educators. For over three decades, this woman had enjoyed great effectiveness…and joy…with some of the most challenging special needs teens on the planet.
As we pulled into the parking lot, she smiled, "I've seen quite a few expensive classroom management and school climate systems come and go. Right now we're six months and $500,000 into our latest program. Like all of them, they have some good parts that completely fail when we forget about how we actually relate to students.
In our nation's desperate attempt to find more sophisticated sounding strategies for reaching our youth, is it possible that some have skipped over the basics? In our daily lives of hustle and bustle, is it easy to forget that people run on relationships…not systems or techniques?
Love and Logic is all about building and maintaining win-win relationships by:
| • | Demonstrating to all students that we love them for who they are…not what we want them to become. |
| • | Providing limits in ways that communicate mutual respect and avoid triggering power-struggles. |
| • | Preventing outbursts and other disruptions through the use of empathy, constructive humor and problem-solving. |
| • | Making each student a member of the classroom family by encouraging them to participate in decision-making and the basic chores required to keep this family running. |
| • | Taking care of ourselves so that our students have healthy, powerful and positive role models. |
These are the basics of a Love and Logic classroom family…and the basics of what we'll be communicating during
this summer's retreat in Vail, Colorado. Join us for three days of love, logic and scenery that will knock your socks off.
Charles Fay, Ph.D.