The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Best practices, tips, and stories to help you be extraordinary in your classroom and beyond, featuring Curriculum Associates' Manager, Voice of the Customer, Hayley Browning.
The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Cultivating Meaningful Connections: Teaching Strategies and Educational Communities with Jonathan Kryk
Ever wonder how to cultivate meaningful connections with your students? This week, we sit down with Extraordinary Educator Jonathan Kryk who enlightens us with his innovative teaching strategies . He passionately dives into his unique 'two minute rule' - a novel method geared toward personalized connection and fostering a sense of belonging in students. He also introduces us to a poignant children's book, 'Each Kindness', employing it as a powerful tool to emphasize the power of relationships and the ripple effect of our actions. His vibrant 'Glow Getters' class is another highlight, aiming to instill positivity and foster a healthy self-identity among students.
Keeping up with the digital age, we also probe into the potential of social media as a dynamic platform for educators to bond, share experiences, and stay motivated. Can constructive feedback and mutual support build robust educational communities? Indeed, they can! From newbie teachers to seasoned educators, this episode is brimming with practical tips and valuable insights that can transform classrooms into thriving ecosystems of learning and growth! Don't miss out!
Read Jonathan's Blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/positive-classroom-cultures
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Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Curriculum Associates presents the Extraordinary Educators Podcast with hosts Danielle Sullivan and Sarah Loveris. Here are tips, best practices and successes to improve your teaching and leadership and drive student growth and learning. We're here for you.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Welcome to the Extraordinary Educator Podcast. I'm Danielle.
Speaker 1:And I'm Sarah. This week we are joined by Extraordinary Educator Jonathan in Florida.
Speaker 2:And he is so fun to talk with, has so many great ideas and really middle school educators who are listening. He just has idea after idea to help motivate and help students feel like they belong in a middle school classroom.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Without reinventing the wheel at either free or low cost. And so Jonathan is such an inspiration for us because he really prioritizes relationships and trust and has such great results with his students because of that. So here is our conversation with Jonathan. Welcome back, Jonathan. We're so excited to see you and have you back on the podcast yes, hey, I'm so excited to be back.
Speaker 3:It's like a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 2:Well, jonathan, you're a breath of fresh air. Honestly, thank you. Thank you for writing the blog. We'd love to unpack some of the things that you wrote about in the blog, including that really interesting analogy about relationships, and I'd love to know how do you formalize some of that relationships in your classroom as you move throughout the school year.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, absolutely Like, so like, based on like my last podcast that I've done, including the blog. It's all about relationships. You have to have a relationship first before you can build the confidence in your students so they can tackle the academics that they need to tackle and they feel good doing it. So that first week of school for me is always extremely important and in my blog I actually talk about that as well, about using that first week to get to know your students before you throw rules at them and expectations. I talk about how you wouldn't be expected to follow rules from some random stranger. You have to have a relationship with that person to respect them. That's just a normal human characteristic, and kids are no different.
Speaker 3:And in my blog I refer to this book. It's a children's book, so of course, I'm an ELA teacher, so I love my books and I remember reading this book and it made me think. And so this book is called Each Kindness and it's about a girl who is actually being bullied in school and it's actually from the perspective of the bully, and the bully realized that her actions were affecting this other girl very poorly. She was making fun of her and she realized that her actions have a ripple effect. So, just like if you throw a stone into a pond, you're going to have a ripple effect. So it could be a positive ripple. She could use her actions in a positive way, or she could use her you know, her stone to make a negative impact as well.
Speaker 3:So I was like, okay, well, I was thinking about it one night when I was actually writing my blog ago. Wait a minute. Teachers kind of have that power to. We have the power to have positive relationships with our students or negative relationships with our students. So you can throw that stone in that first week of school, make your first wave, and so that way it sets off your year on a really good note. But the best part is it's never. It's never too late to start having that ripple effect either. You could in, you can introduce all the strategies I talk about my blog whenever you want, so it doesn't just have to be the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that, I think, especially for folks listening to this. Now, you know, the first days of school are behind us. If there's a teacher or leader listening and they haven't necessarily spent the first days focusing on that what are some of the things that they could do tomorrow with their students to help start, you know, rebuilding or building that trust and forming those close relationships like you have with your students.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so the one thing I love to do every single day and I'm very lucky to be at a school that does prioritize relationships all the time and one of the things that we do it's like our two minute rule. So you want to find those kids that say you know, it's almost October, it's end of September. Right now you can know your kids, kind of you know those kids who we're going to have, those kids that are thorn on our side. It happens, but those are the kids that usually just want attention because they're simply not getting it elsewhere. So again, you can have that positive impact on those students and so I use that two minutes.
Speaker 3:I just do two minutes a day, just have a conversation with them. It could be because I teach middle school, so it could be when they're coming in and my kids are getting settled. It could be in the morning when I see them coming in. It could be in the afternoon, whenever I just find two minutes to have a true, raw conversation with them, get to know what's up in their life. Hey, did you watch the game last night? They all like to make fun of me because I am terrible at picking my plays for NFL. So it is what it is. I always lose. So there was actually one student who I've been doing this two minute thing with and I actually have him now pick my place. I've been doing a lot better, but I wouldn't have known that he was into football if I didn't have those conversations at first. I was able to build that relationship, so now he's excited to come into my class, excited to tell me about the Thursday night game, and so you can do those actionable steps two minute conversations right away.
Speaker 2:And I know we're in a podcast, but to the listeners, jonathan's, in his classroom and behind you is something called Glow Getters. So can you describe what the Glow Getters is, how you thought of it, and how does that relate to building relationships with students?
Speaker 3:Yes, so our Glow Getters that's our class name, so all of my students are called Glow Getters. So it actually started with. When I was in fifth grade last year I had a light bulb theme, and so I am very big on. You want to have the confidence and the ability to want to push forward and always want to try your best. You want to be the best version of yourself every single day. It's an opportunity to improve, and so I said, well, I don't want to be a go getter, because that's what a go getter is, but it's light bulbs, so Glow Getters. And so this year it's disco balls. So same thing you glow, you shine. Same same same thing, same shtick. So we incorporated that and I wanted to have a classroom culture.
Speaker 3:I actually had another teacher that I saw that did a Facebook page for their class and I loved the idea, and so I kind of like tacked on to that idea, because I'm a firm believer. There's three things teachers are very good at begging, borrowing and stealing, and it's all about stealing those good ideas, and I'm I have no shame, so I have to give credit to where credit's due. But I took hers and I said I'm going to make it mine as well. So we made a class Facebook page and I use that to let my families know what's up in the classroom. I'll share student work.
Speaker 3:And another way I use that page is to also highlight their hard work and their perseverance, their hard tasks. So, for example, the other day I shared a few samples of their writing. We focus on one piece of writing every single day, so the other day was purposeful fragments, adding that suspense into your writing, and I shared a few. Students and some of my students came the next day go. My mom showed me what you posted on the Facebook page and it's not just something that elementary kids get excited about, but also kids in secondary, because they feel like I don't know, they feel like they're famous. I have an audience of like 160 parents on there. So, yeah, they're going to feel a little famous, and then sometimes our school page will even share that stuff as well. So it just makes them feel special, not just inside the classroom, but also outside the classroom.
Speaker 1:It's amazing and it's such a nice way to close that loop of family, you know, school communication, and in an efficient way for you too, right? Because rather than calling however many families, sometimes you are, you know, putting a post out there and it's, it's all on theme. And I, I'm so curious, even it's you've been back to, you know, to school not for too long now. How do you feel that you know, having a name for your students and I don't want to say mascot, but like there's something like what I guess your team name essentially how is that impacting kind of your student sense of belonging and your culture, even in the fall?
Speaker 3:Honestly so at the beginning of the year I actually gave them all a bracelet because I'm extra and it says be a glow getter on it and it's actually glow in the dark because we glow. And so they all have that bracelet and honestly, I was expecting all of them to lose it by now and a lot of them are still wearing it, like some parents tell me. They don't even take it off. So they I love that. They feel proud to come to school.
Speaker 3:And especially once you get into that secondary mindset, a lot of kids start to kind of they're not really aiming to please their teachers anymore like they were in elementary school, because I've been there and they have to have a really strong sense of self motivation and I've learned the best way to do that is to make them feel like they're supported and they're a part of something and a part of something special. So to know that they can come in and they're celebrated, they're a part of this group and they see it on social media. They hear about it all throughout school. Our principal knows about it. It makes them feel like there's a part of something and when you feel like you're a part of something, I feel like you're willing to go the extra mile because there's a name to it and you're attached to that.
Speaker 2:You just gave a master class in psychology 101 about a motivated middle schooler. All of what you're saying is absolutely true. I mean, if my teachers did that when I was in middle school, I would wear the bracelet all the time too. And the fact that you're leveraging social media in a space where families hang out you might also have a TikTok that's probably where your students hang out, but to know that parents are looking at that page, communicating with them, that's amazing. And also you have it visible in your classroom, so not only students have that physical representation of their bracelet, they also can see it when they walk in. All of this is just a wonderful listener, a wonderful master class in how to create belonging relationships and connection, especially in a middle school classroom. So, jonathan, we're running out of time. We could definitely talk to you all day. What's one thing? If middle school teachers are listening to you and they already are feeling overwhelmed and the school year just started what's maybe one small thing that they could do to start to create a positive classroom culture?
Speaker 3:I honestly think that the best way to start is not only to do that two minute rule I was talking about earlier because you can do that whenever but to also begin to celebrate the little things. As silly as it may sound, as you guys all came in and you read the board, oh my gosh, I am so proud of all of you. Or you know, kids love candy. Jolly Ranchers are not that expensive, so little things like I love that answer. You took the courage to actually speak up and raise your hand, even though there was a risk it was wrong, something that we just kind of take for granted. It takes a lot of courage to raise your hand. Or it takes a lot of courage to just come to school and have to learn six, seven different teachers expectations and try to keep it all together on top of their extracurriculars. When you recognize that and you let them understand like you know what, hey, it's all good. I'm proud of you guys.
Speaker 3:You did this today. You raised your hand, you tried your best, you struggled, but you didn't give up. Did you get the right answer in the end? Yeah, but it took you a long time. Who cares? You got there. Celebrate them, award them with little things like a Jolly Rancher, a sticker, a high five, whatever works for your students. I have a shout out board. You could even do that. They just write on sticky notes and you put it on their board so they get to see it all the time. It's a collage of all their celebrations. So that's what I would recommend starting off with. Just those little actionable steps can have that giant ripple effect and then it will evolve into a wave.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you so much, jonathan, for your time, for your a million amazing strategies and tips and best practices and making it so digestible for everyone. So we appreciate what you do. Your students are so, so lucky to have you and it was great chatting again. Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on Twitter, at curriculumassoch, and on Instagram, at myirety. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or want to be a guest, email extraordinaryeducatorsatcainccom. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators like you join the conversation, please leave a review.
Speaker 2:And remember, be you be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates. Editing by Whiteboard Geeks, social media by Atstie Hannan, guest booking by Sarri LaBearis, production by Hailey Browning. This podcast is copyright, material and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.