Why Are Strong Teacher-Student Relationships Important?

By Mary Catherine Holcomb, Educator

I saw this activity on social media where a teacher had his students look inside a box to find out who his favorite student was. Inside the box was a mirror, so when each student looked inside, they saw their faces. As you can imagine, they were quite excited to see their own faces in the reflection because it could mean only one thing: they were their teacher’s favorite student.

A few years ago, I decided to do this same activity with my fifth-graders thinking it would be just as fun and cute, and it was — at the end. But right at the beginning, something happened that gave me a huge pause. My students were very nervous. Did they actually think that I was going to have someone’s name inside of that box? But to add more salt to the wound, a student said “I know who it will be,” and she said the name of her classmate. Now, I didn’t tell her this, but unfortunately, she would have been right.

So even before this activity ended, I knew I had work to do as a teacher. Sure we aren’t perfect, and we will connect differently with people because that’s life. After all, we are human. But in a perfect world, every student deserves to feel that they are the most important student. My mom has five children and even though I think I am her favorite — and all of my four siblings think that they’re her favorite too — she never shows it. But how can we, as teachers, make sure that what we are doing is the right thing, and that we are giving each relationship with our students the attention that it deserves?

As teachers, we know that one of the most fundamental duties of our job is to cultivate strong relationships with our students. However, do we truly know the impact these relationships can have on our students — academically and emotionally?

Again, we all know we should have positive relationships with our students, but we know as teachers that having evidence to back up our opinions doesn’t hurt.

According to Education Week, a Review of Educational Research analysis of 46 studies found that strong teacher-student relationships were associated in both the short- and long-term with improvements in practically every measure schools care about, including higher student academic engagement, attendance, grades, fewer disruptive behaviors and suspensions, and lower school dropout rates.

Teaching in a bilingual school, I have many students who struggle to speak in English and get quite embarrassed when speaking with me, so I make it a point to share my struggles with them too about learning another language.

When I was a keynote speaker at a teachers’ conference, I expressed my nervousness to my students leading up to the big day. However, they just couldn’t wrap their minds around that because every day I am in front of them teaching, so how could I be nervous to speak in public? But I laughingly told them this was a crowd of adults, my peers. I can’t take away their break time if they don’t pay attention.

By sharing these vulnerabilities, I am opening that door for them and letting them know that it is okay for them to also feel nervous when speaking in public and in a different language. With these personal examples, we can strengthen those connections with our students by allowing them to see we all go through the same struggles.

Findings from the organization Growing Up in New Zealand showed that students who report positive relationships with their teachers are more engaged in school. Based on 4,400 twelve-year-olds, the researchers measured levels of school engagement and examined the factors that helped students stay engaged in school.

Josie Tait, a lead author of the study, said, “We found that positive student-teacher relationships were one of the most important factors for young people’s engagement in school. Students were much more likely to be engaged in learning activities when they felt their teacher listened to them, helped them, respected them, and was fair to them.”

When we show our students that we care and that we listen, we are paving the way to even deeper connections. These deeper connections will strengthen that line of communication between us and our students, enabling a stronger, more positive, and more engaging classroom environment.

A father of a student told me that his daughter has all of the cards I’ve written to her hanging on her bedroom wall. Not inside her locker or on her desk at school, but in her bedroom at her home.

These reminders proved to me again that each action we take as teachers — whether it be small or big — will make an impact on our students that will continuously affect their learning and their well-being.

Make sure to stay tuned for part two of this series for ways you can cultivate those strong teacher-student relationships.

Mary Catherine Holcomb has over a decade of experience in international and diverse educational settings and experience as a broadcast, print and online journalist. She began her educator journey as a third-grade writing teacher in Houston, Texas by combining her passion for writing with her love for teaching. Since then, she has taught internationally in Tokyo, Japan and Milan, Italy while still utilizing her journalism background as a writer for a lifestyle publication in Italy. Mary Catherine has a strong desire to help others, which is evident not only in her chosen profession but in her years of volunteer experience with at-risk youth in a variety of after-school programs and leading writing classes to female inmates.

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