No More Molasses Classes

I recently read No More Molasses Classes by Ron Clark. I was wondering what other schools or teachers are doing to build relationships with students...

I mean besides the normal things like talking to students, attending events at school, etc. I'm looking for "out of the box" ideas. In the book one of the suggestions was to have pictures of students hanging in frames around the school. I'm looking for things like this, both simple and extreme.

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Permalink Reply by dana.davis on July 28, 2012 at 11:28am

The first day of school in the past I have had students to write on a note card name, address, name and phone number of an emergency contact, birthday, people they live with name and age and relationship, and on the back I ask them to put something special about them self that they wanted me to know about them. I put my information on the board as an example of how I wanted the card filled out. I kept the cards in a box, and as often as I could I would call students "emergency contact" to tell them something positive about the student. I always started the conversation off with " Your child is not in trouble, I just wanted to let you know ..."

After one call home students would remind me of things to say when I called their house. I would write those things down and call that day if possible. Many parents told me know one had ever called from the school to say something positive about their child. This was a simple thing to do that had a profound effect on the culture of my class, the relationship I developed with the parents as well as the students.