181208research Paper Aem

Running Head: TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS
Student perceptions of teacher-student relationships:
Examining the effects of self-awareness and community-building exercises
Allison Miller
ED 626 Classroom Research
University of Alaska Southeast
December 8, 2018
TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS !2
Abstract
In this qualitative study, implications of teacher-student relationships (TSRs) for students and
teachers were explored, with special attention paid to affective influences on engagement and
motivation. Developed through research of the existing literature, a responsive, adaptive school
climate intervention program was implemented in a small secondary classroom for three weeks
to examine how the introduction of community and empathy building exercises and mindfulness
practices affected student perceptions of the school climate. Student responses, behaviors, and
observations were organized into five thematic dimensions that emerged from the data. Further
analysis of the data indicated that continual reflexive responses to student perceptions of curricu-
lum and classroom socio-emotional dynamics encouraged student as well as teacher engagement,
motivation, and overall classroom climate. My findings suggest that authentic relationships be-
tween teachers and students can even improve areas of the school climate not directly related to
social interactions, offering promising prospects for future research on the impacts of socio-emo-
tional learning in broader contexts.

Introduction
My experiences as a pre-service educator in classrooms where I volunteered and have
been employed as an instructional aide and substitute teacher in a small rural school in Alaska
prompted me to consider the most effective ways for educators to interact and relate to students
of all ages. Experienced teachers have offered varied advice and role-modeling ranging from au-
thoritative discipline focused on compliance, to friendly relationships with students in which
academic expectations often seemed compromised and classroom management was haphazard.
During the development of this study, I was temporarily working as a long-term substitute
teacher for grades 6-12 after their teacher unexpectedly resigned without notice. The previous
year I worked as an instructional aide in the same classroom, and that year their teacher was also
their principal. Despite his welcoming, encouraging, and uplifting charisma and positive influ-
ence on his students, he simply didn’t have enough time to shine in both positions. Concurrently,
drastic budget cuts continued to plague our small school, affecting the number of teachers, and
consequently student enrollment. In our small community, there were 19 school-aged children
who were homeschooled. There were 29 enrolled in the school. As enrollment dropped, so did
funding, creating a reciprocal problem that could only be solved by having more students attend
public school.
As a result of this problem, those who were most at risk were the secondary students who
continued to remain enrolled in the public school. They saw their homeschooled peers complet-
ing their courses online in a fraction of the time they spent at school, leaving extra time for earn-
ing money, caring for family, and sometimes partaking in illegal and dangerous activities. Stu-
dents who were still in school needed persuasively positive reasons to stay in school. As more of
their class subjects transitioned to online formats, there was less engaging interaction between
teachers and students, and even less interactions between students that were relevant to their ex-
periences at school. I wanted to explore the most effective ways to enhance the relationships at
school that might positively influence their perspectives of the school climate and their thoughts
about school in general.
Literature Review
Positive relationships between teachers and students have important and varied implica-
tions for both students and teachers. These relationships can affect students’ cognitive develop-
ment, engagement, motivation, and academic achievement. They can also affect teachers’ confi-
dence, efficacy, and professional identity, emotional dimensions that impact practice, and can
lead to possible stress and burnout. Therefore, strategies that utilize researched and successful
practices in building positive effective relationships are necessary.
Implications for students
Teacher-student relationships (TSRs) have long been shown to increase student engage-
ment and motivation (Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Skinner, Wellborn, & Connell, 1990; Worthy &
Patterson, 2001), and this engagement has been shown to act as a mediator between TSRs and
academic achievement (Furrer & Skinner, 2003). This indirect effect was found in first grade
readers to impact the following year of school, and be reciprocal in nature, so that the level of
student engagement also affects the quality of the resulting TSR (Hughes & Kwok, 2007).
In a meta-analytical study conducted by Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort (2011), it was
found that TSRs were influential even for older students, that they were more important for stu-
dents academically at risk, and that the effects of negative relationships were stronger than for
positive relationships. The reciprocity found between TSRs and student engagement suggests
that, because student engagement links TSRs and classroom quality to achievement (Ponitz,
Rimm-Kaufman, Grimm, & Curby, 2009), student achievement may also influence the quality of
the TSR. A significant reciprocal relation has been found between students’ high achievement on
test scores and teacher’s emotional exhaustion that leads to teacher absence, inadequate prepara-
tion, and lower instructional quality (Klusmann, Richter, & Ludtke, 2016). This indicates that
poor relationships lead to poor achievement, from which poor relationships and achievement
perpetuate.
Skinner and Belmont (1993) also found this cyclical reciprocity in positive relationships,
to the extent of being exclusive to behaviorally engaged students. Students who showed high ini-
tial behavioral engagement elicited more teacher involvement, structure, and autonomy support,
whereas students who were behaviorally disengaged elicited fewer teacher responses. The im-
portance of TSRs on student behavior has also been indicated in research. Adolescent self-reports
found that students were less likely to get in trouble in school when they had more positive views
of their teachers, and that this intergenerational bonding can be a protective resource for future
achievement (Crosnoe, Johnson, & Elder, 2004).
These findings suggest that positive relationships are crucial in the developmental stages
of school adjustment, particularly for lower-achieving students, and have lasting effects that con-
tinue to predict and protect not only student engagement and behavior, but indirectly their acad-
emic achievement, and also determine the resulting quality of future TSRs. The literature indi-
cates that teachers should be aware of the reciprocal implications of how these relationships are
impacted by behaviors, engagement, and achievements. Research is needed to explore how in-
tervening strategies can interrupt unhealthy cycles and ameliorate the detrimental affects of nega-
tive relationships and disengaged behaviors.
Implications for teachers
Teacher-student relationships have been shown to have both beneficial and detrimental
implications for teachers. TSRs can bolster teacher confidence and efficacy, but can also cause
confusion and power struggles that compromise the professional identity of teachers. Establish-
ing positive relationships with students can help new teachers evolve from having feelings of in-
adequacy to focusing on the needs of individual students, and mitigate the damaging effects of
labels and preconceived notions about children who are struggling (Worthy & Patterson, 2001).
Close relationships with students can also pose complicated decision-making issues.
Aultman, Williams-Johnson, and Schutz (2009) found that teachers were overwhelmingly con-
cerned with their ability to balance showing students they cared with keeping “an even keel” in
the classroom (p. 644). Drawing boundary lines in TSRs can cause teachers to struggle with is-
sues in emotional involvement. The emotional involvement often required of teachers in building
rapport and establishing positive relationships has been found to be a cause of emotional exhaus-
tion when concerns are brought home from work. This same involvement can sometimes cause
students to take advantage of a teacher’s kindness in way of behavioral or academic grading ex-
pectations (Aultman, Williams-Johnson, & Schutz, 2009). In fact, experienced teachers tended to
“change their approaches to developing involvement and changed the parameters of various in-
teraction boundaries as they gained confidence in their teaching role” (p. 645).
Many teachers have been shown to experience emotional exhaustion related to emotional
involvement, potentially leading to emotional exhaustion and burnout. Yilmaz, Altinkurt, Guner,
& Sen (2015) found that the emotional labor required by teachers to establish and maintain posi-
tive relationships with their students without crossing any number of boundaries has predicted
burnout. The different levels of dealing with emotions in the teaching profession were studied to
find that teachers have the highest level of burnout when they experience emotional exhaustion.
The study also found that emotional exhaustion was predicted when teachers used a lot of sur-
face acting (to pretend to be feeling a certain emotion through words and body language). It was
concluded that surface acting leads to burnout. They also found that teachers’ emotional labor
was at a high level for deep acting (which acts to internalize emotion) and naturally-felt emo-
tions. The implications of this study suggest that the emotional involvement required in genuine
teacher-student relationships, and the emotional labor of establishing and maintaining appropri-
ate TSRs that benefit student performance, come with potentially detrimental consequences for
teachers.
Strategies
Classroom practices that potentially encourage the interpersonal closeness that leads to
excelled student performance while also enhancing teacher efficacy and professionalism without
compromising emotional integrity are explored.
Mindfulness. Mindfulness practices in the classroom have been shown to benefit not
only students by improving focus and motivation, optimism and self-concept, but also other
school personnel by decreasing stress and increasing social competence behaviors in the class-
room and improving relationships (Black & Fernando, 2014; Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010).
Mindfulness training (MT) has also shown to be beneficial for teachers, who by developing self-
regulatory resources to meet the cognitive, social, and emotional demands of teaching, are able
to “conserve precious motivational and self-regulatory resources for investment in relationships
with students and classroom teaching rather than coping and defense” (Roeser, et al., 2013, p.
16). MT or mindfulness education (ME) can be characterized by incorporating strategies such as
sustained intentional attention and non-judgmental cultivation of positive emotion toward oneself
and others, and practicing self-regulating control of one’s thoughts and emotions (Roeser, et al.
2013; Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010).
Restorative Practices. Restorative approaches to maintaining relationships focus on
mending negative experiences and cultivating an atmosphere of respect (Zehr & Toews, 2004).
Recently, restorative practices have been expanded in schools to include methods for preventing
infractions, emphasizing an ethos of care and social and emotional learning (SEL)
(Blood & Thorsborne, 2005; McCluskey, et al., 2008). Drewery (2007) explains that “restorative
practice in schools includes a less confrontational approach to discipline and a focus on relational
practices earlier in the chain” (p. 207). Restorative strategies can be characterized by communi-
ty-building exercises, affective communication, shared ownership, and increased personal ac-
countability. Common practices include peer mediation, classroom circles to resolve problems,
restorative conferencing, student leadership training and parent education (Armstrong, 2007).
Gregory, Clawson, Davis, & Gerewitz (2015) found that teachers who implemented restorative
practices in their classrooms had more positive relationships with their students, and that they
perceived their teachers as more respectful. Kaveney & Drewery (2011) found that restorative
practices improved the atmosphere in classrooms, making them calmer and more relaxed, and
that teachers experienced lower levels of stress, which they attributed to their acknowledging
how they felt in class meetings. The quality and output of student work also improved.
Warm Demander Stance. Embedded in the literature of TSR strategies and techniques,
especially concerning culturally responsive pedagogy, is the warm demander stance that first ap-
peared in Kleinfeld’s 1975 study of effective teachers of Native Alaskan students to describe an
approach to building positive relationships with students characterized by warmth as expressed
by non-verbal language such as smiling and physical closeness coupled with an active demand-
ingness that students meet high academic expectations. The phrase began to appear later refer-
encing effective teachers of many diverse cultures (Irvine & Fraser, 1998; Vasquez, 1989; Ware,
2006). Warm demanding teachers approach relationships with their students as caregivers, disci-
plinarians, and pedagogues whose central concern is social justice to improve the lives of their
students, in and out of school (Ware, 2006). The warm demanding stance is characterized by
deep abiding care, an authoritative approach to discipline, and instructional activities that are re-
sponsive to their students’ cultural norms and traditions (Bondy, 2013; Irvine and Fraser, 1998;
Kleinfeld, 1975). It is through relationships with students that teachers are able to engage and
hold strictly high expectations for their performance so that students will internalize those expec-
tations and academic engagement (Bondy, 2013).
Conclusion
The relationships that are built and maintained in classrooms between teachers and their
students have significant and enduring influences on both students and teachers. For students,
relationships with their teachers can influence academic achievement, engagement and motiva-
tion, and behavior. The reciprocal nature of the correlations between TSRs and the implications
for students means that, as student achievement, motivation, and behavior also influences the re-
lationship, a cycle can result in either positive or negative relationships that undermines the ben-
efits of building and maintaining TSRs. More research is needed on potential strategies to break
the cycle of unhealthy reciprocity and realigning relationships.
The implications of TSRs for teachers relate to efficacy and professional identity, emo-
tional influences on practice that can lead to exhaustion, and struggles with boundaries that can
be difficult to maintain. In order for TSRs to be truly beneficial for both students and teachers,
special care should be taken to design classroom relationship-building practices that lead to
closeness and community while drawing clear and consistent boundaries.
Three overlapping strategies have been identified to enhance teacher-student relationships
in classrooms: mindfulness, restorative practices, and the warm demander style of teaching.
While each strategy is characterized by different activities, attitudes, and focus or direction, all
three can be understood to build personal accountability within a classroom community and en-
hance awareness of self and others. In Figure 1: Relationship concept web, characteristics of
Figure 1. Relationship concept web

TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS 1! 1
each strategy are explored and connected to determine which traits are most common. The traits
that can be directly connected to four or more other traits have been highlighted in yellow. As
indicated in Figure 1, the most common traits between the three strategies are: personal account-
ability, community building, affective communication, self-regulation, and high expectations.
Theoretical Framework
Social Development Theory and Teacher-Student Relationships (TSRs)
The social development theory of Lev Vygotsky (1978) has long influenced the belief that
relationships precede cognition in child development. Vygotsky’s belief in the importance of the
more knowledgeable other (MKO) emphasizes the critical role that adults play in the cognitive
development of children. The MKO is anyone who has a better understanding or higher ability
level, and is integrated into another important Vygotskyan principle: The Zone of Proximal De-
velopment (ZPD). The ZPD refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help
and what can be done with help and guidance. Vygotsky claimed that a child follows an adult’s
example and can gradually develop the ability to complete the task without help. The ZPD and
MKO imply that relationships with adults are crucial to cooperative construction of new knowl-
edge.
The philosophical works of Martin Buber (1947; 1958) provide further insight into the
theoretical foundation of the current study. Buber held strong philosophical beliefs on the neces-
sity of relationships, dialogue, and inclusion in education, stating that “all real living is
meeting” (1958, p.25). Buber stated that we grow and develop as we learn to live in relation to
others, as we encounter one another and the space between. As we meet, Buber contends, the
primary mode of exploring the distance between one another is dialogue. Through this dialogue,
we include ourselves in another person’s experience. This is not empathy, which Buber believed
risked the losing of oneself, but rather experiencing oneself and simultaneously perceiving an-
other person’s experience. These are profound implications for building and maintaining TSRs.
The Ethic of Care
Nel Noddings’ (1984) philosophy describes a feminist approach to morality, one that val-
ues relations, connections, and context. Caring is “rooted in receptivity, relatedness, and respon-
siveness” (p. 2), characteristics inextricably linked to relationships. In regards to education, she
contends that teachers and students need to interact as whole persons in whole communities, thus
incorporating the ethic of care into educational practices (Noddings, 2005).
Emotional Geographies of Teaching
Andy Hargreaves’ (2001) concept of emotional geographies considers the distance or
closeness in people’s interactions or relationships, and allows for the identification of supports
and threats to relationships. These geographies are imaginary and are continually reexamined and
remade according to interactions with others. It is through the examinations and recreations of
emotional geographies that teachers better understand how to create stronger emotional under-
standing in their relationships with students.
Emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. Necessarily embedded in the
emotional geographies of teaching are the threats to positive relationships that these emotions
can incur. The concepts of emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and burnout are challenges to
TSRs that many teachers face and struggle with in response to deeply caring about their students.
Emotional labor, as first defined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1983), is emotion regulation
used in the workplace to show positive emotion and temper true feelings. Surface acting is sup-
pressing an actual (undesired) emotion (e.g., anger), or faking a desired emotion (e.g., excitement
or calmness). Emotional exhaustion (EE) refers to a depletion of emotional resources, thus feel-
ing emotionally overextended (Evers, Tomic, & Brouwers, 2004). Burnout has been defined as
“a psychological syndrome in response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job” (Maslach,
Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001, p. 399).
Because of the potential adverse affects of emotional labor on teaching efficacy and per-
sonal health, it is crucial that teachers implement appropriate TSR building and maintenance
strategies that not only promise beneficial implications for students, but have low risk of causing
detrimental emotional consequences for teachers.
Research Question
How will student perceptions of teacher-student relationships be affected by the imple-
mentation of a three-week homeroom program infused with self-awareness practice and commu-
nity-building exercises, supported by a warm and caring teacher with high expectations, in a
small rural Alaskan middle school classroom?
Research Design
In this exploration of relationships in a small rural Alaskan secondary classroom using a
responsive program to build and maintain positive community, I took a qualitative action re-
search approach to attempt to influence classroom relationship dynamics with the implementa-
tion of a three-week community-building and self-awareness program during morning home-
room period. I took a narrative approach in this research through a content analysis design high-
lighting the themes that emerged in student perceptions of teacher-student relationships. (Merri-
am & Tisdell, 2016).

Participants
Participants were middle and high school students in grades 6-11 in a small rural K-12
school in Southcentral Alaska. The convenient sample was ten students, one of whom was in
sixth grade, one in seventh, two in eighth, one in ninth, three in tenth, and two in eleventh grade.
Two students were male, eight were female. The implementation of the program took place four
days a week (Tuesday through Friday) during the morning advisory period, a half-hour time
block during which positivity projects and classroom circles recently took place. During the sec-
ond week, however, an already short week (because of scheduled parent teacher conferences)
was reduced to a single day of the program due to researcher illness.
Methods
Pre- and post- intervention questionnaires on student perceptions of school climate were
completed by students before and after implementation of the three-week program. The Students
As Allies questionnaire, developed by www.whatkidscando.org, was designed and administered
by student-teacher research teams at twenty schools in five cities. It includes a common core of
questions focusing on school climate, teacher-student relationships, teaching styles, academic
expectations, safety and discipline, student voice, and improving student learning. It consists of
50 Likert-type survey questions and two open-ended response questions. This survey was modi-
fied for this study by adding questions about distractions and the ability to focus. The resulting
hybridized questionnaire (Appendix A), succinctly addresses student perceptions of relationships
and the school climate concerns explored in this study. The questionnaire was administered by
myself by talking students through each question as they completed it in order to dispel confu-
sion. Because the principal had required that all students who participate have parent permission,
of the eight students who were present that day, six had returned permission forms and were
permitted to participate. The two students who hadn’t returned their permission slips sat with us
and listened while I guided the rest of the class through the questionnaire. The following day,
another two students completed the survey. Eight students completed the pre-assessment ques-
tionnaire over the course of two days.
The student responses to the pre-questionnaires were reviewed for themes that indicated
student interest and areas that students felt needed significant improvement, which determined
specific features of the intervention program. Thus, students indirectly designed the intervention
program via their responses to the questionnaire. A researcher version of the questionnaire (Ap-
pendix B) was color-coded by theme to indicate which questions were of particular interest in
five areas: green for relationships; yellow referred to empathy; orange related to the curriculum
and learning concerns; blue referred to mindfulness concerns relating to ability to focus as well
as intentional thought; and pink questions were those relating to emotions and how students felt,
some of which raised safety concerns.
Once student questionnaires were collected and totals were tallied, I entered those totals
onto the researcher version of the questionnaire and looked at those responses that received the
highest frequency of disagreement. While most questions were framed with a negative correla-
tion between statements and students’ perceptions (for example, disagreement with the statement
“Teachers like me”), a few statements indicated positive correlations (for example, agreement
with “Most of my teachers don’t understand what my life is like outside of school”), for which
values were inverted. These results guided the specific direction of the intervention program. For
example, if students indicated that they were not distracted, and were able to easily focus during
school, but the majority indicated that they did not feel understood by their teachers and other
students, then the intervention would focus more on community building within the classroom,
and less on self-regulation and intentional focusing. Students also completed a condensed ver-
sion of the same questionnaire at the end of the program which was limited to the questions that
had been used to guide the development of the program. Pre- and post- questionnaires were
compared and analyzed in reference to one another as well as triangulated with other data
sources.
The school climate program consisted of three weeks during the half-hour period in the
morning when students learned and practiced a variety of self-awareness strategies and commu-
nity-building exercises. Students explored mindfulness by becoming aware of their breath and
thoughts, recognized their emotional status by ‘checking in’ with the class, and built empathy
and community through talking circles, group activities, and sharing reflections. Specific lessons,
activities, and writing prompts were developed in response to the themes that emerged in the pre-
intervention questionnaire, and the daily activities were modified in response to student reactions
and written responses throughout the program. Appendix C outlines the activities, exercises, and
projects the class completed. Throughout the three-week program, I strived to improve my warm
demander stance by exhibiting a caring curiosity about all students backed by an insistent de-
mand of student effort and engagement.
During the course of the intervention program, I had intended to take field notes during
the homeroom period with particular attention focused on student participation, attitude, and
teacher-student relationship changes. Toward the beginning of the program, I found that I was
not able to take notes while actively guiding discussions and giving instructions, so I made notes
immediately following our sessions. In a two-column format, I took chronological notes on the
occurrences of the session in the first column, also indicating any notable events or impressions I
had. In the second column I reflected more deeply on the immediate notes and added possible
responses to events and immediate impressions. Each day, I used my reflections on student be-
haviors and comments to guide future discussions and activities.
Weekly, I pored over my notes with colored pencils, highlighting passages in colors
matching the themes designated in the researcher’s version of the questionnaire. Then I placed a
plus or negative symbol beside each note to indicate whether the event or thought represented a
positive statement or one that I felt indicated a need for improvement in that dimension of the
school climate. These indicators of positive and negative interactions in the classroom during my
intervention program were entered into a spreadsheet organized by theme and date. Student
quotes, responses, and notes on behaviors were also pulled from my field notes and examined for
patterns and trends.
The final method of data collection was student-generated exit tickets twice per week that
inquired about student perceptions of self-awareness, relationships, and classroom climate. The
nature of these specific writing prompts was determined in response to emergent themes during
classroom discourse. Student written reflections were used as formative assessment for program
development as well as analyzed and compared to student responses in field notes and question-
naires. One exit ticket was issued on Wednesday of each week, and another on Friday. Student
responses were recorded in a single digital document and coded according to the themes deter-
mined for this study.

Internal validity in this study was accomplished through triangulation of multiple meth-
ods and sources of qualitative data, and considered researcher reflexivity (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). Narrative and content analyses of questionnaires, field notes, and exit tickets was con-
ducted. Data content was analyzed for emergent themes in student perceptions, and a narrative
approach was used to share the story of the study. Finally, researcher assumptions, biases, and
expectations is discussed in relation to the research process i.e., how the researcher is affected by
and affected the research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Results
Data for this study on student responses to an adaptive school climate program was col-
lected for this study from a secondary classroom in a small rural Alaskan school of grades 6-12.
Ten students participated in the study in varying degrees owing to a combination absence and
lack of parent permission. At the beginning of the implementation of this program, eight students
completed a pre-assessment questionnaire from which the following three weeks of program-
ming were designed. Also contributing to specific guidance for program curriculum were reflec-
tive field notes and students’ exit tickets. Not only were these data used as formative assessment
for intervention planning reasons, these three forms of data were also investigated and compared
to determine summative implications for this study.
Pre-Assessment Questionnaire
The student questionnaire (Appendix A) issued prior to the social climate program com-
mencement elicited responses that not only suggested indications of which areas of the school
climate students thought might need improvement, but also provided baseline data on student
perceptions to which subsequent student responses and behavior could be compared. It was
found that the highest disagreement was found for statements associated with the challenging
nature of their classes (50% disagreement), feeling that students belong in school (50% dis-
agreement), self-motivation (37.5% disagreement), and the ability to focus (37.5%
disagreement). Three of eight students claimed that they had thought about dropping out of
school, the most frequent reasons being because school was boring, they did not feel prepared for
class, and because they had family responsibilities.
Students claimed that they found themselves most distracted when they were overly tired,
bored, and during conversations. They stated that they were most frequently distracted by
friends, technology, and noises. Students felt that teachers spoke with them most often about
good academic performance, their interests, not completing assignments, and disrupting class.
They rated more one-on-one from teachers and more real-world examples as the top choices for
what would help them learn better. The most effective teachers they characterized as being nice,
funny, and having knowledge and enthusiasm for teaching. All students agreed that they should
take responsibility for their learning, and there was a slight disagreement that student-teacher re-
lationships affect academic achievement and school climate. When asked “What do you think are
the most important issues that need to be addressed at your school?”, the most frequent responses
referred to teachers— the low number of them, and the lack of presence and changing consisten-
cy of a full-time teacher.
Field Notes
The field notes examined in the results of this study focused on student statements and
behaviors regarding their perceptions of the school climate. I tallied positive and negative stu-
dent responses and behaviors for each day of field notes that referred to the five dimensions of
the school climate I had determined for this study: 1) relationships between students and teachers
and among students; 2) empathy and respect for their peers and educators; 3) curriculum and
learning concerns; 4) issues related to mindfulness and the ability to focus; and 5) the emotional
dimension of school climate.
As shown in Table 1, my initial field notes for the first week indicated one mention of
positive relationships, one negative reference to learning or curriculum, and one negative com-
ment about emotions. On the second day of the intervention program, negative indicators out-
numbered positive statements about issues relating to empathy, but student response and behav-
iors in the curricular aspects of school climate were slightly more positive. The third day showed
positive growth in relationships, but the empathy dimension continued to be dominated by nega-
tive indicators. On the fourth day, the empathy and curriculum dimensions joined relationships in
positive gains, as the mindfulness dimension remained in the negative range. During the first
week of the intervention, my field notes of student responses and behavior indicate that positive
relationships overrepresented negative ones, and references to the curriculum dimension of
school climate were more positive than negative. However, in the dimensions of empathy, mind-
fulness, and emotions, negative student responses and behaviors were more common than posi-
tive references.
Dimension of School Climate
student response/behavior referred to

Relationships Empathy Curriculum Mindfulness Emotions
Date of + - + - + - + - + -
Number of notes on
field
student response/
notes
10/23 1 1 1
10/24 2 2 1 3 3 2 1 1 1
10/25 8 3 1 3 1 1 1 1
10/26 5 2 2 1 2 3 1 2
week 1 16 7 5 7 7 5 1 4 2 5
Table 1: Positive (+) and negative (-) indicators in field notes for week 1
October 30th was a day of the intervention for which my notes saw more mentions of
negative student responses and behavior in four out of five dimensions of school climate. That
being the only day in which the school climate program took place that week (due to parent-
teacher conferences and researcher illness), the second week of the school climate program was
characterized by negative statements and behaviors about relationships, empathy in the class-
room, curriculum and learning concerns, and mindfulness, as shown in Table 2.

Date of + - + - + - + - + -
response/behavior
Number of notes
field
on student
notes
10/30 3 4 2 3 4 3
week 2 3 4 2 3 4 3
During the final week of the school climate program, November 6-9, positive indicators
dominated my field notes for student responses to the dimensions of relationships, empathy, and
learning, while negative indicators were more common than positive for the emotions dimension.
Responses to mindfulness concerns were equally positive and negative. Looking closer at each
day of that week, it was apparent that this summary of the week is representative of each day ex-
cept for the second day, in which statements and notes on relationships and curriculum were
slightly more negative than positive. See Table 3.

Date of + - + - + - + - + -
field
Number of notes on student
notes
response/behavior
11/6 6 3 1 6 3 1
11/7 2 3 4 2 2 4 2
11/8 6 5 7 4 7 3 1
11/9 14 8 2 2 6 5 2 1 1
week 3 28 19 14 8 21 15 2 2 1 3
Summarizing indicators in my field notes on student responses and behaviors for the
overall program, positive statements outnumbered negative ones in the relationships, curriculum,
and empathy dimensions. Student responses and behaviors in regards to mindfulness and emo-
tions, however, were predominantly negative in my field notes overall.


Date of + - + - + - + - + -
Number of notes on student
field
response/behavior
notes
week 1 16 7 5 7 7 5 1 4 2 5
week 2 3 4 2 3 4 3
week 3 28 19 14 8 21 15 2 2 1 3
Overall 47 30 19 17 31 24 3 9 3 8
Table 4: Positive (+) and negative (-) indicators in field notes, a comparison of weekly totals and
overall totals.
Exit Tickets
Writing prompts for four exit tickets were administered twice a week, on Wednesdays
and Fridays. Because I was not able to meet with the class on Wednesday or Friday of the second
week, no exit tickets were collected for that week. The writing prompts were as follows, present-
ed in the order in which they were issued to students:
• Why does school climate matter?;
• How does learning more about each other impact school climate?;
• What was difficult about the mindfulness exercises you participated in and how did you feel
immediately after the mindfulness exercises?; and
• What is the best way to improve school climate?
Student responses were collected and color-coded according to the underlying theme of
their statements (Appendix D), which referred back to the five established dimensions of school
climate: relationships; empathy; curriculum and learning; mindfulness; and feelings and emo-
tions. Although one of the prompts referred directly to only one of the five dimensions (mindful-
ness), the other prompts elicited responses relating to a range of aspects of the school climate.
Initial student responses to exit ticket questions predominately referred to curriculum and learn-
ing as the reason why school climate matters. One student said that “If the school climate was
bad then it would be harder to learn and to be successful in life because no one would want to be
at school.” Another student even referred to the implications of school climate for post-secondary
education: “I think you need a school with a good climate to truly succeed. You need a good edu-
cation to get in a good school.”
As the intervention program progressed and students participated in team-building exer-
cises, more responses indicated the importance of relationships and how students treat one an-
other. One student claimed that “by learning about eachother, we can get along more, and im-
prove our relationships with our friends and our school.” Another student introduced the idea of
adverse effects of close relationships in school: “When learning about each other it can affect the
schools climate either negatively or positively. We could have HUGE differences that could
cause arguments or it could help us get along.”
The exit ticket prompt that addressed student reactions to mindfulness exercises referred
only to the mindfulness and emotional dimensions of school climate. Students found noise and
an overwhelming amount of thoughts to be the most difficult obstacles to successful mindfulness
practice. Most students claimed that they felt no different after the mindfulness exercises, al-
though one student did claim to feel calmer, and another was more relaxed.
The final exit ticket elicited responses that stressed the importance of student cooperation
and teacher-student relationships, respect and kindness, flexible and cooperative learning, and a
comfortable environment. When asked what they thought the best way to improve school climate
was, some illuminating responses were: “The best way to improve school climate is to improve
our relationships with our fellow students and teachers.”; “The best way to improve school cli-
mate is to respect and realize peoples beliefs and point of view”; “Students can be kind and
school can be flexible”.
Post-Intervention Questionnaire
On the last day of the program, students completed a condensed version of the pre-as-
sessment questionnaire issued prior to the start of the program (Appendix E). The questions in-
cluded in the condensed version were those that received the highest frequency of negative re-
sponse in the pre-assessment questionnaire. These were questions that had raised the greatest
concern, were addressed by the responsive development of specific activities designed to im-
prove the given dimension, and student responses to curriculum, one another, and the teacher re-
searcher had been observed and noted. Eight students participated in completing this survey,
however it must be noted that this group of eight is not the exact same eight as those who had
completed the pre-assessment questionnaire. Two of the students who took the initial question-
naire were not present on the final day, and two students who had not participated in the pre-as-
sessment questionnaire due to absence or lack of parent permission were able to participate in the
post-intervention questionnaire.
Students most frequently indicated that most of their teachers didn’t understand what
their life was like outside of school (50% agreement), disagreed that classes in their school chal-
lenged them (43.75%), disagreed that they really wanted to learn (25% disagreement, 12.5%
strong disagreement), disagreed that they were able to stay focused and motivate themselves
(37.5%, 31.25%), and disagreed that student-teacher relationships affect academic achievement
and overall school climate (31.25%). Two of the eight students disagreed that they felt they be-
longed at school, two felt distracted by other people talking, and were worried about problems
outside of school. Other questions that elicited responses indicating a need for improvement in
the school climate were related to extra help with school work, students helping one another even
if they were not friends, and students taking responsibility for their own learning.
Pre Post
7. Classes in my school are challenging. 4 3.5
10. I feel that I belong at school. 4 2
17. I can motivate myself to learn. 3 2.5
20. While doing schoolwork, I am able to stay focused. 3 3

13. Students in my school help one another even if they are not friends. 2.5 1
22. It’s often hard to pay attention in class because I’m worried about 2.5 2
problems outside of school.
23. I can calm myself in challenging situations. 2.5 0
16. I really want to learn. 2 3
21. While hearing what others are saying, I become easily distracted. 2 2
3. I feel emotionally safe in school. 1 0
6. Faculty and staff value what students have to say. 1 0
19. I often need extra help with schoolwork. 1 1.5
1. Students in my school treat one another with respect. 0.5 0
46. Students should take responsibility for their learning 0 0.5
47. Student-teacher relationships affect academic achievement 1.5 2.5
48. Student-teacher relationships affect overall school climate 1.5 2.5
Table 5: Comparison of pre- and post- intervention questionnaire responses with the highest val-
ues.
Comparing student responses to pre- and post- intervention questionnaires, as shown in
Table 5, it was found that values for all but several questions decreased, which indicated a lesser
degree of concern as students more frequently agreed with positive statements and disagreed
with negative statements. There were, however several questions for which student response val-
ues increased. The responses of highest concern related to student-teacher relationships. Student
disagreement values for how student-teacher relationships affect academic achievement and
overall school climate increased, as well as disagreement that students should take responsibility
for their learning.
Analysis
Because the focus of this research study was on student responses and perceptions about
the school climate, the data collected during the program duration continuously informed the de-
velopment of the intervention program, and was also examined in retrospect to determine the
success of the program that resulted. Initial student responses to the pre-assessment questionnaire
suggested that students perceived a need for improvement in the quality and rigor of curriculum,
many felt that they did not belong in school, and over a third of them stated that they had diffi-
culties with self-motivation and focus. Students who had thought about dropping out of school
claimed it was predominantly because school was boring, and stated that receiving more one-on-
one from teachers and more real-world examples would best help them learn better. They charac-
terized the most effective teachers as having personality traits that lead to better relationships
with students like kindness and a sense of humor, and also related to their efficacy as peda-
gogues: knowledge and enthusiasm for teaching. While all students agreed that they should take
responsibility for their learning, there were two students who expressed disagreement that stu-
dent-teacher relationships affect their academic achievement and school climate. They also iden-
tified the number of and consistency of full-time teachers in their school as the most common
issue of importance to be addressed.
It was from this summary of results from the pre-assessment questionnaire that I designed
a responsive school climate program that addressed three dimensions most explicitly: relation-
ships, mindfulness, and empathy. I created a curriculum that progressed from establishing posi-
tive relationships to building empathy, interspersed with self-awareness and intentional thought
exercises. Because I was not their full-time general education teacher, I could not directly ad-
dress the curriculum concerns they expressed, however I could attempt to address their need for
challenging curriculum by insisting on high expectations for their participation and behavior
while I conducted the school climate program. The field notes and exit tickets I collected during
the program provided insight to changing student perceptions of these three dimensions of the
school climate, and allowed me to assess the accuracy and efficacy of how I responded to student
behavior.
Relationships and Empathy Dimensions
Student behaviors and statements increasingly referred to the importance of relationships
and understanding other perspectives as they learned more about each other and participated in
interactions that encouraged the improvement of relationships. I recorded an increase in eye con-
tact and smiling, willingness to elaborate in responses, and a growing atmosphere of camaraderie
and community in the classroom as the program progressed, both with myself and between stu-
dents. Analyses of the activities that ensued during the school climate intervention program fol-
low.
Emotion check-ins. The introduction of emotion check-ins to the initial program brought
a few students out of their shells. These were students with whom I had previously noticed trou-
ble connecting with. They were typically disinterested and often off-task in my previous interac-
tions as an instructional aide and substitute teacher in the classroom. Although it took a few days
of practicing this procedure to teach students to respect and pay attention when classmates were
speaking, and there were a few students who never really did offer more than a vague response
like “OK” or “fine”, this activity was effective in decreasing the distance between myself and
four students who up until this point behaved disinterested and disengaged in any classroom ac-
tivities I asked them to partake in. It should be noted that all of these students who I noticed im-
proved relationships with after this activity were high school students. However, the burgeoning
relationships resulting from the emotion check-ins were slow-growing. During a discussion on
school climate that followed, one of the students still exhibited reluctance to being completely
honest about his perceptions of school climate. While other students offered positive adjectives
about the social aspects of the school climate like fun, silly, relaxed, and ottertastic (the school
mascot is the sea otter), Z2 hesitated to write boring and not many people on our collaborative
poster. He said his comments under his breath, and I confirmed that those were valid comments
to make about student perspectives of their school’s climate. Exit tickets from this activity indi-
cated that students felt that the school climate mattered because of concerns with academics. Two
students referred additionally to comfort and boredom, but every student alluded to learning or
success.
2 truths and a lie. I responded to exit ticket information by scheduling the ice-breaker
game 2 truths and a lie for the next day, which was intended to establish a sense of community in
the classroom by learning new things about each other and nudging them to conclude that the
social aspect of school climate matters too.
The game elicited effort from all students, and all were engaged in writing statements that
were interesting and believable. Student T commented that the game was hard because they all
knew each other so well. This would lead one to believe that a strong sense of community and
friendship existed in this classroom, but I noted that there were two students who were regular
targets for ridicule, and varying degrees of alienation were present among peers. One student
who was not familiar with the rules or goal of the game had written her name on her slip, and
was scoffed at by the student who read her statements aloud because the two truths she wrote
were so visibly obvious, there was no guessing which statement was the lie. Another student who
frequently dressed provocatively and often made statements that several students regarded as
condescendingly stupid was often made fun of and publicly shamed for her flirtatious and naive
personality. Her choices of statements for this game were also laughed at for their simplicity and
how easy it was to guess who wrote them. I knew I had let the opportune learning moment pass
when I had addressed the instances of disrespect that had occurred with subtle redirection and
direct eye contact with the offenders. I didn’t want to turn a fun game into a harsh lesson in em-
pathy and possible embarrassment of the victims. So although I ended up writing notes in my
journal that the ensuing camaraderie was palpable and that I was beginning to feel welcome and
a part of the classroom, the lingering feeling of disrespect that several students had for their peers
needed to be confronted with sensitivity, while insisted upon with gravity.
Discussions about culture. The students had been discussing discrimination in their so-
cial studies class, and thinking about the comment T had made about how well they knew each
other, I thought talking about culture and learning about their personal cultures would be relevant
and insightful. Comparing this decision to pre-assessment questions about what teachers spoke
with them about, their family responsibilities, and the worries they had about issues not related to
school, student responses suggested this was a curriculum choice that would be responsive to
student needs. The following four sessions were highlighted by discussions about and student
interviews on personal culture, punctuated by self-awareness exercises that attempted to address
their responses in the pre-assessment questionnaire regarding the challenges of focusing in the
school setting.
We started our exploration of culture with a general discussion about what culture means.
Students offered many examples of aspects of culture including religion, foods, music, traditions,
skin color, actions and thoughts. When asked if a white American has as much culture as some-
one who just immigrated to America from another country, Z2 stated “Yeah! We all have
culture.” After reviewing our discussions about school climate and the new things we learned
about one another from the 2 truths and a lie game, I gave them an exit ticket prompt, asking
them to write about how learning more about each other impacts school climate. They worked
diligently at writing their reflections, which overwhelmingly referred to friendships, getting
along, relating to others, and the ways people treat one another. It was interesting to note that
three responses diverged from this line of thought from students who were absent during the 2
truths and a lie game, responses related to the adverse effects of getting to know more about peo-
ple: meanness and drama; differences that can cause arguments; and the distractions that new
friendships can cause.

Cultural suitcase interviews. The next time we met, I introduced the Cultural Suitcase
project to the students by providing them with an instructional handout that explored differences
in cultural traits among nationalities, religions, and personal family traditions. They were en-
couraged to begin thinking about and asking family members about their heritage and share six
different traits of their personal culture. Possible traits included their values, heritage, foods,
things that give them joy, family traditions, family mottos, and what is most important to them.
Engagement in these discussions was low, and my field notes indicate that students were unre-
sponsive and numerous side conversations occurred that I attempted to redirect. One student
asked what I meant by the trait values, and while I offered several examples that at least one stu-
dent nodded in recognition of, I realized that I had not planned this project in a way that provided
enough structure for students to succeed. I had initially intended the free-form nature of this
project to culminate in a visual representation of students’ cultures we could adorn the bare walls
of the room with, but given the short school week due to parent-teacher conferences, I began to
envision a more interactive format that would foster more personal discussions between students,
and concluded that the following week students would partner up and conduct interviews.
After a long weekend, we started the new week with partner interviews on their personal
cultures. I provided students with templates to write their partners’ responses in on the six differ-
ent cultural traits stated above. When students were instructed to pair up with someone in the
class whom they felt they knew the least about, not a single student made a move, and one stu-
dent looked helplessly at me and pleaded me to partner them up. Although it would have been
very interesting to see how this would have played out had I insisted that they self-select their
partners, I knew that our time was limited to a half-hour, so I methodically paired up students
according to difference in gender, age, and seating arrangement. Once students joined with their
partners and interviews were underway, I noted that there were no off-task conversations and all
students were engrossed in the interviews and their partners, laughing and responding to one an-
other’s answers with examples of their own. There was only one pairing that seemed quiet and
perhaps uncomfortable. When I stopped by to check in with their progress on the interviews and
elicit more substantial responses from each, they reacted with openness and conviviality. After
students completed their interviews, one pair offered to be the first to introduce their partners’
personal culture to the class, and shared what they learned about one another with a comfortable
ease that was a stark contrast to the awkwardness that had filled the atmosphere when asked to
self-select partners. While I interjected questions and statements of interest during presentations,
I noticed that all students were completely willing to offer more information about themselves
and not a single student was closed-off emotionally or unresponsive.
During the conclusion of presentations, I took a few minutes to assess their perceptions of
the activity, and many related this exercise to a project they had participated in during elementary
school, Student Spotlight. When asked how the Cultural Suitcase Interviews differed from Stu-
dent Spotlight, they responded that Student Spotlight was better because they were each the fo-
cus of all of their classmates’ questions for an entire week. I agreed that it would be really great
to dedicate more time to learning more about one another. “Aren’t you different people now,
with different values and interests than when you were elementary students?” I asked. There was
an uproar of agreement, and one student exclaimed “I sure hope so!”, confirming my validation
of them as maturing, unique young adults with intriguing and interesting lives and values.
Thinking back about the disrespect and lack of empathy I had witnessed in the class pre-
viously, and also in response to exit tickets that referred to differences between people and the
impacts of those differences, as well as initial responses to pre-assessment questions about be-
longing, I asked students if they thought that learning more about each other could help people
get along better. Many students thought that it depended on what they learned. Examples like
politics, religion, and a criminal past suggested that students acknowledged that relationships are
complex constructs. One student claimed that if she learned that someone had killed another per-
son, there would be no way she’d want to know any more about him. I asked them how we can
disagree respectfully, and student responses included “Don’t say mean things” and “Maybe it’s
just better to not know as much”. Statements like these insinuated that students were not readily
willing to empathize with perspectives that differed from their own, and I wondered if this was a
trait that could be taught in school.
Empathy scenario. I presented students with a short scenario about a new student and
recorded their impressions about him and wonderings they had on the whiteboard as we talked
through the scenario. I asked students for input at specific intervals in the scenario: first impres-
sions/wonderings; impressions after hearing negative rumors; feelings about being partnered
with a student about which dangerous rumors are circulating; and feelings about the student once
they learn more about his background and life story. My intention was to show students, through
their own words and statements, that there is often a reason why people make the choices they
make and behave the way they do, and these reasons are often beyond their control. I wanted to
illustrate a context in which the roots of violence and theft might be better understood and per-
haps even empathized with. It was fascinating to me that even once students learned that the new
student was rumored to have been in jail because he had beaten kids up and stolen things, they
still thought he was cool and they claimed they wouldn’t be intimidated with being his partner.
My field notes mention that one student changed her mind after I specified that maybe he had
beaten girls, but another student still said she was not judgmental and wanted to hear the new
kid’s story. On one hand, their unexpected response altered the outcome of my lesson so that
there were no drastic changes to their first impressions of the new student with which to compare
and contrast changing impressions. But on the other hand, I was shown that these kids were not
as judgmental as I had believed. There was still an undesirable element of disinterest and annoy-
ance in being burdened with the uncomfortable feelings associated with hearing a classmate’s
painful story, but their suspension of harsh judgement as well as their ability to come to see the
new student as “an innocent kid who made a few poor choices” suggested that these students
were indeed practicing socio-emotional skills like empathy and compassion.
Social values brainstorm. On the last day of the school climate program, students were
encouraged to make connections between their own values and those of their classmates by par-
ticipating in collaborative brainstorming about social values. The class was invited to form their
own two teams of four people and given ten minutes to decide upon which social value was most
important to their team. They wrote responses to open-ended questions about examples of their
social value, the importance of it in everyday life, and what life might be like without it. The stu-
dents indifferently teamed up with whoever was nearest, and each team went to work using dif-
ferent approaches. My field notes tell of one team who was visibly influenced by the oldest team
member, whom instinctively reached to record their responses on the worksheet and read the po-
tential social values aloud. That team chose cooperation as the most important social value. The
other team appeared to avoid the suggested social values, actively debating about other terms
they deemed important and considered whether or not each would be an appropriate “social”
value. Relaxation and leniency were two terms they discussed before settling on friendliness as
their team’s most important social value.
Team Cooperation did not at first exhibit pervasive cooperation as I watched them fail to
include the youngest student, who was also one of the previously mentioned students who were
the most often alienated and disrespected. The eldest student recorded answers that she seemed
to come up with on her own while speaking quietly among the other two students. It didn’t ap-
pear that she was eliciting input from other team members. Team Friendliness, on the other hand
displayed strong collaboration and cooperation, but not exactly friendliness. They were comfort-
able debating or defending statements, and took their time discussing their thoughts about each
question before recording a response they all agreed with.
No-hands cup pyramids. This team-building game was the last activity of the interven-
tion program. The teams established in the previous activity segued into competing against one
another in transporting and stacking paper cups from one side of the room to the other using only
rubber bands linked to a central rubber band they could cooperatively expand and contract by
pulling on their individual rubber bands. From the very beginning, it was apparent that the two
teams were using different strategies. Team Cooperation worked together to strategically get one
cup over and stacked before they moved on to the next cup, which would then be perfectly
stacked before continuing on. They took their time and seemed to instinctively communicate as
they struggled with cups nestling within each other and perfecting the alignment of their pyra-
mid. This team was definitely led by the oldest member and her closest friend, with the other two
members abiding by their decisions happily. Team Friendliness, however, prioritized transporting
the cups and worried about stacking them after they completed moving them from one side of the
room to the other. They dropped cups under the table and flipped them upside down and side-
ways in their haste to move the cups, and they got very adept at manipulating the cups and com-
municating verbally about the cups and how they behaved, terming the space between stacked
cups “lippies”, and cuing synchronized rubber band expansion with the signal shout “PULL!”.
During the first half of the fifteen minutes of the game, team Cooperation appeared to have a
more defined presence with their goal in mind, as they had a pyramid up on the table that they
were gingerly adding to, while team Friendliness appeared to struggle with even grasping and
releasing the cups. But it didn’t take long for Friendliness to catch up and literally during the last
minute come neck and neck in pyramid height. As they attempted to place the last cup upon the
top tier inverted, team Friendliness bumped their pyramid, sending a large chunk of it toppling.
After this happened, they bickered for a short time about who bumped it and who insisted on
placing that last cup right side up while team Cooperation jumped in a huddle and cheered.
The exit ticket I gave them after the game provides a summative conclusion of how stu-
dent responses were impacted by the social climate program they participated in for three weeks.
I asked them What is the best way to improve school climate? and I clarified the prompt by ex-
pressing that their answers could include ideas for students, teachers, principals and districts and
could address any aspect of school. Five of eight student responses referred predominantly to the
relationships between students and teachers, working together, and cooperative learning. Three
mentioned respect and kindness, and two referred to flexibility of school and group activities.
These are quite different responses than the responses to the first exit ticket question, Why does
school climate matter? While initial student perceptions of school climate referred overwhelm-
ingly to learning and success in an academic sense, final perceptions stressed the importance of
the more social aspects of school.
Mindfulness
Although the majority of activities and discussions that took place during the intervention
program were focused on relationships and building empathy, there was also an element of dis-
traction and focus that needed to be addressed, according to the responses of students in the pre-
assessment questionnaire. Mindfulness and self-awareness was intended to be the focus of the
second week of the program. Even in the very beginning stages of the program, a spontaneous
discussion relating to mindfulness was spawned during the first emotion check-in. One student
was distraught and distracted by her new phone being locked because she lost the pass code. She
exclaimed that everyone should have to go without their phones until she was able to access hers,
and this morphed into the idea of an experimental phone-free day. I was surprised to learn that all
of the students bought in to the idea, and this informed and validated my decision to include ex-
ercises in mindfulness aimed at improving the ability to focus.
During the first mindful moment, some students chose not to close their eyes, and were
distracted by one another’s mock-serious expressions. They tried to halt the giggling that result-
ed, but they had already disturbed the sense of calm that might have existed had they just closed
their eyes. Other students claimed they were distracted by the noisy forced-air heater in the
room, and that it was difficult to focus on themselves and how they were feeling because it was
boring. During the second exercise I asked students to focus on the thoughts that entered their
minds. I encouraged them to allow any thought to come into focus, acknowledge it, and then try
to let it go. This time, all students closed their eyes and were quiet during the exercise, however
many were hunched over on their tables and appeared to be sleeping. Students offered no verbal
reflections coming out of this exercise other than one student claimed she was unable to let go of
her thoughts. It was the day before Halloween and a short week, and I do not think that I offered
enough scaffolding for students in the most effective ways to sit and breathe and visualize during
mindfulness exercises. I wanted to help further develop their abilities to focus, and had planned
to do a breath awareness exercise with more detailed explanations and visualizations, but the
short week turned into a single day when I became ill and was not able to meet with them the
other day I had planned to lead the exercise. I did however make a point to have them reflect on
their mindfulness experiences in writing. The mindfulness exit ticket I gave them asked them to
reflect on what they found difficult about the mindfulness exercises, and how they felt directly
afterward. The majority of students referred to the noises in the room as distractions that made it
difficult to focus. Others wrote about how difficult it was to push thoughts out of their minds.
Afterwards, most students said they felt no different, a few thought maybe a little tired, and one
student said she felt calmer.
Patterns
Visible in all activities that took place during the school climate program were recurring
patterns of interactions between teacher and students. Students who were initially unresponsive
and disengaged in classroom activities opened up and began to participate in more meaningful
and personal ways after I had kept insisting on a relationship that may have not initially been
there. These students continued to engage in conversations with myself and their peers about top-
ics related to the curriculum as the program progressed from ice-breaking to establishing rela-
tionships to building empathy. Yet, when I did not involve students in discussions and attempted
to cover more material in a shorter span of time, I lost these students’ engagement first, along
with most of the rest of them. Another pattern that emerged was that when spontaneous, authen-
tic discussions surfaced and I was able to use them as bridges between their experiences and the
curriculum, not only did students better understand the information, but I felt closer connections
to them and noted that they related to one another with genuine affection as well.
Discussion
My findings in this study indicate that timely response to student input in developing cur-
riculum engenders an increased level of student engagement, and remaining responsive to stu-
dent perceptions by eliciting ongoing student feedback about activities and spontaneous relevant
events in classroom dynamics fosters not only improved relationships between students and the
teacher, but also more respectful and understanding relationships between students. Activities
that involved a high level of group work, regardless of whether groups were student-chosen or
teacher-arranged, when scaffolded with adequate structure and informative and enlightening dis-
cussion, gave students relevant opportunities to practice and strengthen the community-building
skills that the activities were designed to develop. Giving the students multiple venues by which
to reflect upon their own points of view and how the curriculum added to or changed those per-
spectives offered me ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of the curriculum and allowed me
to subtly communicate my care and concern for their opinions, thus further improving my rela-
tionships with students.
My research question focused on how student perceptions of the social and emotional
climate of their education might be impacted by giving students opportunities to explore and dis-
cover how their personal identities contribute to school climate and confront differences between
students with respect and understanding. Findings were determined by triangulating three differ-
ent formats of student perceptions.
The pre- and post- intervention questionnaires were anonymous and gave me general
“average” class perceptions, but did not offer any insight on how individual students’ perceptions
may have changed over time. The fact that student disagreement with the statements that student-
teacher relationships affect academic achievement and overall school climate increased after the
intervention was disconcerting because it suggested that my intervention program had a negative
affect on teacher-student relationships. Although the difference was only one response, and it
could be due to different students taking the two separate surveys, it would have been helpful to
compare individual student responses instead of generalized collective changes in the classroom.
The exit tickets offered more insightful information regarding changes that occurred in
student perceptions. These writing prompts were responsive to interactions and activities that had
occurred in the classroom, and although the framing of the questions and the time at which they
were administered may have influenced the nature of the responses, this format contributed
deeper reflections than the constricted perceptions gleaned from the questionnaires. The exit
ticket responses suggest that at the culmination of the school climate program, more students
identified positive relationships with teachers and one another as crucial components to a good
school climate.
Researcher field notes offered a wealth of information about individual students as well
as overall classroom climate changes, and although they are subjective to what I noticed and
where my attention was focused, and were not able to be recorded during the class sessions
(which probably caused some mental notes and impressions to be forgotten by the time I sat
down to record them after class), they were valuable as evidence of changing student reactions to
curriculum choices I had made. Another weakness of this method was that these were merely my
impressions of students thoughts— or the outward expression of their thoughts, which hypotheti-
cally could differ greatly from their internal thoughts. Although I tried to omit my perceptions
about their behaviors and statements in order to limit personal bias, I also realize that what I re-
membered and noted are inextricably tied to my thoughts and impressions.
The self-awareness and ability to focus component of this study produced findings that
are not fully understood because mindfulness activities were not entirely successful, and the time
frame was much too short to gauge changes to students’ ability to focus or awareness of their
selves and how that contributed to school climate. More time would be needed to give students
more practice with becoming comfortable with the practice, and I wonder if a teacher needs spe-
cial training in guiding students through meditation to be effective. The findings of this study
suggest that several students did note an improvement in the ability to calm themselves, as found
in both the comparison between pre- and post- intervention questionnaires and exit tickets. My
impressions in field notes fail to recognize any changes that might have occurred in response to
mindfulness activities.
Overall, the findings produced by this study addressed the problem of practice by con-
firming my assumptions based on the theoretical works of Vygotsky, Buber, Noddings, and Harg-
reaves. More meaningful relationships between teachers and students can improve areas of the
school climate not directly related to social interactions, because most areas of the school climate
depend on positive relationships and communication. Although some teachers and administrators
might argue that current academic concerns leave little time for socio-emotional learning, I
would argue that all academic learning depends on strong socio-emotional foundations.
As the theoretical foundations of this study proclaim, my findings confirm the importance
of social development theory, specifically Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and
the More Knowledgable Other (MKO). As students engaged in lessons led by myself, the MKO,
it was apparent that those lessons in which interactions between myself and students were the
most natural, meaningful, and relevant were the occasions when students extended their ZPDs
the furthest. Buber’s contention that we grow and develop in the space between one another
while exploring that distance through dialogue leading to an understanding of another person’s
experience is also apparent in the findings of this study. Students were given the opportunity to
explore and discuss the differences between one another’s perspectives, and consequently came
to believe that learning more about one another improves relationships and school climate.
I found Noddings’ assertions about the ethic of care (Noddings, 1984) to be true in this
study as I applied a responsive receptivity to the unfolding development of the curriculum, and
thus relationships overall. Had this study been extended for a longer period of time, I might have
encountered occasions in which my level of caring might have caused emotional labor and diffi-
culties establishing boundaries with students, but given the short time frame I did not confront
this issue. There were moments that my empathy with certain students caused me to examine my
emotional involvement, and during those times I strived to look at the situation through all the
perspectives present. I struggled in the moment, unsure whether to apply a stricter demeanor
characteristic of warm demanding teachers toward the offenders, and decided it would not truly
benefit the victim to confront the aggressor publicly. I was able to respond sensitively by adapt-
ing the curriculum to address the problems, and if I had had more time with these students, I
might consider using a restorative justice approach to more comprehensively address issues of
respect in the classroom.
As research has suggested, I found that teacher-student relationships increased student
engagement and motivation (Skinner, Wellborn, & Connell, 1990; Skinner & Belmont, 1993;
Worthy & Patterson, 2001); that these relationships were important even for older students and
especially for students who were disengaged (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011); and that
these relationships helped me as a new teacher overcome my feelings of inefficacy and uncer-
tainty (Worthy & Patterson, 2001).
Interaction with the data has impacted my classroom practice immensely because it was
from the ongoing collection and examination of data that I was able to develop a responsive,
adaptive program that directly answered students’ stated shortcomings in the current school cli-
mate in a timely fashion. My relationships with students have consequently grown more com-
fortable, relevant, and meaningful. Particularly with students whom I had noticed a need to im-
prove the quality and quantity of meaningful interactions between myself and them, as well as
their interactions with their peers, this was an extremely effective and rewarding study.
Conclusions
Given the context in which this study is uniquely situated, it would be helpful to explore
components of the study in different contexts. My problem of practice surfaced in response to
my current educational setting, which is pre-service teaching in a small mixed-grades rural
school. I’d like to conduct this study when I am an in-service teacher responsible for academic
curriculum. I feel that the warm demander component of this study was not fully utilized because
I was not the full-time teacher of the students. The non-academic nature of the activities did not
encourage much enactment of the warm demander stance. I would like students to additionally
know me for my insistence on high quality work and high expectations of students academically.
It would be interesting to learn how a school climate program like this affects academic subject
areas as well.
Additional questions generated by this study are Would these practices and exercises be
just as effective at improving school climate if they were conducted across subject areas? and
How can teachers transfer the lessons learned from this study to single-subject classes or across
subjects? In the current educational climate where pressure to meet standardized expectations is
often the first priority of classrooms, teachers may not immediately recognize the necessity of
explicitly teaching socio-emotional skills and directly addressing the social climate of their class-
rooms. If it were easier for teachers to integrate these skills into content areas, teacher buy-in
would likely be greater. Realizing that we can find ways to incorporate community- and empa-
thy-building exercises into lesson plans through creative group work and cooperative learning
strategies is a promising lead.
The results of my study have helped me to realize that even though sometimes students
only engage in small ways with curriculum, these small ways add familiarity and personal com-
fort to relationships in the classroom. These aren’t qualities that can be forced upon students. Es-
tablishing, building, and maintaining relationships with students can be a gradual process with
some students, but I found that with all of these students, my (almost annoying) persistent insis-
tence upon establishing relationships was what eventually broke through their disinterested, un-
responsive exteriors. My previous wonderings about how to reverse and ameliorate the effects of
negative relationships have been answered by this approach to responsive pedagogy in socio-
emotional learning. The very structure and design of my study, in which I was continually adjust-
ing my curriculum and techniques according to student reception, communicated to them in sub-
tle ways that I was indeed listening to them, cared about what they thought, and that their opin-
ions truly mattered to me. Ensuring that communication and relationships maintain a priority of
equal importance as specific curriculum and delivery techniques means that the curriculum and
the success of student performance depends in large part on the quality of the relationships we
are able to construct in classrooms.

References
Armstrong M. (2007) Restorative practices: the journey continues. Teacher Learning Network,
14(1), 4-5. http://www.tln.org.au/
Aultman, L.P., Williams-Johnson, M.R., & Schutz, P.A. (2009). Boundary dilemmas in teacher-
student relationships: Struggling with “the line”. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25,
636-646.
Black, D.S. & Fernando, R. (2014). Mindfulness training and classroom behavior among lower-
income and ethnic minority elementary school children. J Child Fam Stud 23(7),
1242-1246.
Blood, P., & Thorsborne, M. (2005). The challenges of culture change: Embedding restorative
practice in schools.
Bondy, E., Ross, D. D., Hambacher, E. & Acosta, M. (2013). Becoming warm demanders:
perspectives and practices of first-year teachers. Urban Education, 48(3), 420-450.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042085912456846
Buber, Martin (1947) Between Man and Man, London: Kegan Paul.
Buber, Martin (1958) I and Thou 2e, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
Carson, R. L. (2007). Emotional regulation and teacher burnout: who says that the management
of emotional expression doesn’t matter? Paper presented at the American Educational
Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
Chang, M.-L. (2009). An appraisal perspective of teacher burnout: examining the emotional
work of teachers. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 21, 193–218.

Chong, C.S. (2018). 10 Mindfulness activities for the classroom. English Teaching Professional.
Retrieved on October 16, 2018 from: https://www.etprofessional.com/10-mindfulness-
activities-for-the-classroom
Crosnoe, R.L., Johnson, M.K. & Elder, G.H. Jr. (2004). Intergenerational bonding in school:
the behavioral and contextual correlates of student-teacher relationships. Sociology
of Education - SOCIOL EDUC. 77. 60-81. 10.1177/003804070407700103.
Davenport, M. (2018). Mindfulness in High School. Edutopia. Retrieved on October 16, 2018
from: https://www.edutopia.org/article/mindfulness-high-school
Drewery, W. (2007). Restorative practices in schools: Far-reaching implications. In G. Maxwell
and J. H. Lui (Eds), Restorative justice and practices in New Zealand: Towards a restora-
tive society. (pp.199-214). Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of
Wellington.
Evers, W.J.G., Tomic, W., and Brouwers, A. (2004). Burnout among teachers: Students’ and
teachers’ perceptions compared. School Psychology International, 25(2), 131-148.
Furrer, C., & Skinner, E. (2003). Sense of relatedness as a factor in children’s
academic engagement and performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 148-
162.
Gregory, A., Clawson, K., Davis, A., & Gerewitz, J. (2015). The promise of restorative practices
to transform teacher-student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline. Journal
of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 25, 1–29.
Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teach. Educ. 14, 835–854.
Hargreaves, A. (2001) Emotional geographies of teaching. Teachers College Record, 108(6),
1056-1080.
Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The managed heart: commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hughes, J. & Kwok, O. (2007). Influence of student–teacher and parent–teacher relationships on
lower achieving readers’ engagement and achievement in the primary grades. Journal of
Educational Psychology 99, 39-51.
Irvine, J. J. & Fraser, J. (1998). “Warm demanders”: Do national certification standards leave
room for the culturally responsive pedagogy of African American teachers? Education
Week, 17(35), 56.
Kaveney, K., & Drewery, W. (2011). Classroom meetings as a restorative practice: A study of
teachers’ responses to an extended professional development innovation. The In-
ternational Journal on School Disaffection.
Kleinfeld, J. (1975). Effective teachers of Eskimo and Indian students. The School Review, 83(2),
301-344.
Klusmann, U., Richter, D., & Ludtke, O. (2016) Teachers’ emotional exhaustion is negatively
related to students’ achievement: evidence from a large-scale assessment study.
Journal of Educational Psychology 108, 1193-1203.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., and Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 52,
397–422.
McCluskey, G., Lloyd, G., Kane, J., Stead, J., Riddell, S., & Weedon, E. (2008). Can restorative
practices in schools make a difference? Educational Review, 60(4), 405–417.

Merriam, S. & Tisdell, E. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation
4thed. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.
Nobel Coaching (2017). 5 Team-building Activities for Teens to Build Trust and Cooperation.
Retrieved on October 16, 2018 from: https://nobelcoaching.com/team-building-teens/
Noddings, N. (1984) Caring: A feminine approach to ethics & moral education. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press.
Noddings, N. (1992). The challenge to care in schools: an alternative approach to education.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. (2005). Educating citizens for global awareness. Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. & Shore, P. (1984). Awakening the inner eye: Intuition in education. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Ponitz, C.C., Rimm-Kaufman, S.E., Grimm, K.J. & Curby, T.W. (2009). Kindergarten classroom
quality, behavioral engagement, and reading achievement. School Psychology Review 38,
102-120.
Roorda, D.L., Koomen, H.M.Y., Spilt, J.L., & Oort, F.J. (2011) The influence of affective
teacher-student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: a meta-
analytic approach. Review of Educational Research 81, 493-529.
Schonert-Reichl, K.A. & Lawlor, M.S. (2010). The Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Education
Program on Pre- and Early Adolescents’ Well-Being and Social and Emotional Compe-
tence. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC DOI 10.1007/s12671-010-0011-8

Skinner, E.A., Belmont, M.J. (1993). Motivation in the classroom: reciprocal effects of teacher
behavior and student engagement across the school year. Journal of Educational
Psychology 85, 571-581.
Skinner, E. A., Wellborn, J. G., & Connell, J. P. (1990). What it takes to do well in school and
whether I've got it: A process model of perceived control and children’s engagement and
achievement in school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 22-32.
Teacher’s Guild. (2017). Empathy in Your Classroom. Retrieved on October 16, 2018 from:
https://www.oakland.edu/Assets/Oakland/galileo/files-and-documents/
Empathy%20in%20Your%20Classroom%20Teachers%20Guild.pdf
Teachthought. (2017). 10 Team-Building Games That Promote Critical Thinking. Retrieved on
October 16, 2018 from: https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/10-team-build-
ing-games-that-promote-critical-thinking/
Vasquez, J. (1989). Context of learning for minority students. The Education Forum, 52(3), 243-
253
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ware, F. (2006). Warm demander pedagogy: Culturally responsive teaching that supports a
culture of achievement for African American students. Urban Education, 41(4), 427-456.
What Kids Can Do. (2004). Students As Allies Survey. Providence, RI.
Worthy, J. & Patterson, E. (2001). “I can't wait to see Carlos!”: preservice teachers, situated
learning, and personal relationships with students. J L R 33, 303-344.

Yilmaz, K., Altinkurt, Y., Guner, M., & Sen, B. (2015). The relationship between teachers’ emo-
tional labor and burnout level. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 59, 75-90.
Zehr, H., & Toews, B. (2004). Critical issues in restorative justice. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice
Press.
Appendix A
Student School Climate Questionnaire

Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
1. Students in my school treat one another

with respect.
2. Most of my teachers don’t understand what

my life is like outside of school.
3. I feel emotionally safe in school.
4. My school disciplines students fairly.
5. Faculty and staff model respectful behavior.
6. Faculty and staff value what students have

to say.
7. Classes in my school are challenging.
8. Students are involved in decisions about

things that affect them in school.
9. Teachers are enthusiastic about teaching.
10. I feel that I belong at school.
11. Teachers like me.
12. I respect my teachers.
13. Students in my school help one another

even if they are not friends.
14. I feel physically safe at school.
15. Students are encouraged to say what they

think.
16. I really want to learn.
17. I can motivate myself to learn.
18. I participate regularly in class.
19. I often need extra help with schoolwork.
20. While doing schoolwork, I am able to stay

focused.

Disagree Agree
21. While hearing what others are saying, I

become easily distracted.
22. It’s often hard to pay attention in class

because I’m worried about problems
outside of school.
23. I can calm myself in challenging situations.
24. Have you ever skipped Yes No

class?
25. Have you ever thought Yes No

about dropping out of
school?
Please answer with honesty. Your opinions matter!

Never Once or A few times More than
Twice a year three times a
year
26. You did not feel prepared for class.
27. You were feeling bullied or harassed by

other students.
28. You were not getting along with a

teacher.
29. You did not feel safe at school.
30. School was boring.
31. You had family responsibilities.
If you answered yes to either 24 or 25, indicate how often you did due to
any of the following reasons.
32. When do you find yourself most easily distracted? Choose up to 3.
In conversations During class Doing homework Any time I’m bored
When I’m stressed out If I’m overly tired When I’ve had a ton of sugar, caffeine, or junk
or overwhelmed food
33. What distracts you the most? Choose all that apply
My phone Noises Technology Friends
Family My own thoughts about _____________________ Other __________________________

How often do your teachers talk to you about the following?

Never Once or A few times a More than
twice year three times a
year
34. Disrupting class
35. Good academic performance
36. Not completing assignments
37. Poor academic performance
38. Your interests and things important to

you
39. Your worries
40. At school , how many adults do you feel 0 1-2 2-3 More than 3
you could talk to if you had a problem?
How much would the following help you learn better?

Help a lot Help a little Not at all
41. More one-on-one from teachers
42. More examples of how the things I learn in school

matter in the real world
43. Classes that are more challenging
44. If other students were more accepting of me
45. Think of the most effective teachers you have had. List at least 2 charac-
teristics that made them effective.
Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following:
disagree Agree
46. Students should take responsibility for

their learning
47. Student-teacher relationships affect

academic achievement
48. Student-teacher relationships affect

overall school climate
49. What do you think are the most important issues that need to be ad-
dressed in your school?
50. What is your gender? Female Male
51. Is a language other than English spoken regularly at Yes No

home?
52. What grade are you in?
6 7 8 9 10 11
53. Indicate your race Alaska Native, Hispanic Asian Caucasian Other
American
Indian
Thank you for your honesty and participation!
This questionnaire has been adapted from the Students As Allies survey at www.whatkidscando.org
Appendix B
Student School Climate Questionnaire
Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly value
Disagree Agree
1. Students in my school treat one 0.5 7.5 0.5/8
another with respect.
2. Most of my teachers don’t 1 4 2 1 3/8
understand what my life is like
outside of school.
3. I feel emotionally safe in school. 1 6 1 1/8
4. My school disciplines students fairly. 7 1
5. Faculty and staff model respectful 6 2

behavior.
6. Faculty and staff value what students 1 5 2 1/8
have to say.
7. Classes in my school are challenging. 4 4 4/8
8. Students are involved in decisions 5 2

about things that affect them in
school.
9. Teachers are enthusiastic about 5 3
teaching.
10. I feel that I belong at school. 1 3 4 4/8
11. Teachers like me. 7 1
12. I respect my teachers. 4 4
13. Students in my school help one 2.5 5.5 1 2.5/8

another even if they are not friends.
14. I feel physically safe at school. 6 2
15. Students are encouraged to say what 6 2
they think.
16. I really want to learn. 2 5 1 2/8
17. I can motivate myself to learn. 1 2 5 3/8
18. I participate regularly in class. 8
19. I often need extra help with 1 6 1 1/8

schoolwork.
20. While doing schoolwork, I am able to 3 5 3/8
stay focused.

Disagree Agree
21. While hearing what others are 6 2 2/8
saying, I become easily distracted.
22. It’s often hard to pay attention in 3 2.5 2.5 2.5/8
class because I’m worried about
problems outside of school.
23. I can calm myself in challenging 2.5 5.5 2.5/8
situations.
24. Have you ever skipped class? Yes- 1 No- 7 1/8
25. Have you ever thought about Yes- 3 No- 5 3/8

dropping out of school?
If you answered yes to either 24 or 25, indicate how often you did due to
any of the following reasons. If you answered no to both, skip to question
32.
Never Once or A few More than
Twice times a three times a
year year
26. You did not feel prepared for class. 1 1 2
27. You were feeling bullied or 3 1

harassed by other students.
28. You were not getting along with a 2 1 1

teacher.
29. You did not feel safe at school. 4
30. School was boring. 2 2
31. You had family responsibilities. 1 1 1 1
32. When do you find yourself most easily distracted? Choose up to 3.

In conversations- 4 During class Doing homework-2 Any time I’m bored- 5
When I’m stressed out or If I’m overly tired- 6 When I’ve had a ton of sugar, caffeine, or junk food
overwhelmed- 3
33. What distracts you the most? Choose all that apply
My phone- 1 Noises-3 Technology- Friends- 4
3
Family- 1 My own thoughts about :Duuuuuu, Randomness Other: Boredom
How often do your teachers talk to you about the following?

Never Once or A few times a More than

twice year three times a
year
34. Disrupting class 2 4 1 1
35. Good academic performance 2 4 2
36. Not completing assignments 1 5 1 1
37. Poor academic performance 4 3 1
38. Your interests and things important to 1 2 4 1

you
39. Your worries 3 1 1 1
40. At school , how many adults do you feel 0 1-2: 7 2-3 More than 3
you could talk to if you had a problem?
How much would the following help you learn better?

Help a lot Help a little Not at all
41. More one-on-one from teachers 2 5 1
42. More examples of how the things I learn in school 2 5 1

matter in the real world
43. Classes that are more challenging 1 2 5
44. If other students were more accepting of me 1 7
45. Think of the most effective teachers you have had. List at least 2 charac-
teristics that made them effective.
High energy, but not pushy / Likes to teach / Friendly, not too strict / Conversations about sub-
jects in class / kind/ nice / caring / funny / serious / nice / funny / helps with math / tried to
connect with us / didn’t try to push their own beliefs on us
disagree Agree
46. Students should take responsibility for 5 2

their learning
47. Student-teacher relationships affect 1.5 3.5 2

academic achievement
48. Student-teacher relationships affect 1.5 3.5 2

overall school climate
49. What do you think are the most important issues that need to be ad-
dressed in your school?
student population / fun activities outside school / opportunities to get exercise / an actual teacher in class
/ number of teachers
50. What is your gender? Female- 5 Male- 2
51. Is a language other than English spoken regularly at Yes No- 7

home?
52. What grade are you in?
6- 1 7-1 8- 1 9 10- 1 11- 2
53. Indicate your race Alaska Native, Hispanic Asian Caucasian Other- 2
American -4
Indian- 3
This questionnaire has been adapted from the Students As Allies survey at www.whatkidscando.org
Appendix C
School Climate Program Activities
Empathy-Enhancing
Cultural Suitcase Empathy Scenario
10/30- 11/8 Discussion
11/8
Mindfulness
Mindful Moments Awareness of Thought Emotion Check-Ins
10/26 10/30 10/25,10/26, 10/30,
11/9
Team-Building
2 truths and a lie Social Values No-Hands Cup
10/25 Brainstorm Pyramids
11/9 11/9
Empathy-enhancing Activities
Cultural Suitcase
Following a discussion about culture and exit ticket reflections on why learning more
about one another can improve relationships, students were paired with classmates they may
not have know a lot about. They interviewed one another about their cultural values and traits
and filled in a table will spaces for characteristics of family, foods, traditions, values, heritage,
family mottos, what brings them joy, and what is most important to them. Following the inter-
view, students introduced the culture of their partners to the class. Students that were not able
to be introduced due to classmate absence were interviewed publicly by myself.

Empathy Scenario Discussion
Students had responded to the culminating question from the cultural suitcase activity,
Can learning more about each other helps us get along better?, with “it depends”. After prodded
to explain what it depends on, they gave responses that alluded to the fact that learning more
about people means that some disagreements and negative traits and past decisions can
change your feelings about people. Some students said that sometimes it was best the less you
know. I wanted students to explore an instance in which learning more about a person can re-
veal surprising discoveries that alter impressions.
I designed a scenario in which a new student joins their small class. I deliberately gave
the new male student no physical characteristics except that he was “just normal looking”. He
was a reserved kid who kept to himself and the only thing they learned about him during intro-
ductions was his age, where he came from, and his interests. Through rumors, they learned
why he was here and some details that gave him a reputation. They were asked to imagine be-
ing paired with him to conduct cultural suitcase interviews, and learned the story behind the ru-
mors. Throughout the discussion, students were asked for their impressions of the new student
and what they wondered about him.
Mindfulness Practices:
Mindful Moments
Students were asked to take a moment to pay attention to themselves. They were asked
to close their eyes and try to become aware of their bodies, their thoughts, their feelings for
about thirty seconds.
Emotion Check-Ins
Students were welcomed to class and invited to share about how they were feeling.
Each student was given the opportunity to respond in a round-robin fashion. During the first
check-in, students were seated as they would normally sit during class, facing forward at their
tables. The second time the class participated in this activity, they were asked to swivel around
in their seats or sit on the opposite side of their table in order to face one another. For the third
and forth check-ins, the table arrangement had been modified to offer a more circular formation
in which students faced one another.
Awareness of Thought
Building on the mindful moments exercise, students were asked to relax, close their
eyes, and focus on the spot directly above the space between their eyes, commonly called the
third eye. They were encouraged to pay attention to their thoughts, acknowledge each as it en-
tered, but then letting each one go, attempting to empty the mind of all thoughts.
Team Building Exercises:
2 Truths and a Lie
In this icebreaking game for people who already know a few things about one another,
each student is asked to write 2 truths and one lie about themselves on a slip of paper. Then
they were instructed to crumple up their papers, and all at once the class threw their “snow-
balls” into the air. Students then retrieved one snowball each and took turns reading out loud
each paper and trying to first guess who wrote it, followed by guessing which statement of the
three on the paper is a lie. Students were surprised at some of the things they learned about
classmates many have know their whole lives.
Social Values Brainstorm
Students in teams of four were given a list of possible social values to choose from or
were encouraged to collaborate and determine a social value not listed. Teams were instructed
to involved all team members in choosing the social value most important to them as a team,
and provide their collective reflections about what the social value means to them, why it’s the
most important to them, examples of it in and outside of school, and what the world would be
like if not one valued it in society. They were given approximately 15 minutes to complete a
team worksheet.
No-Hands Cup Pyramids
The same teams that were student-chosen for the Social Values Brainstorm were invited
to play a game in which rubber bands are connected in such a way that four rubber bands con-
nected to a main middle one allowed all four team members to work together to pull open the
rubber band and use it to lift, move and stack paper cups. Each team had 18 cups on one side
of the room that they were instructed to pick up with only the use of the rubber bands, transport
to a table on the other side of the room, and stack the cups in a pyramid. The team that con-
structed the highest pyramid at the end of 15 minutes wins!

Appendix D:
Exit Tickets
Curriculum/Learning Relationships Empathy Mindfulness Emotions/Feelings
1. 10/24 : Why does school climate matter?
If the school climate was bad then it would be harder to learn and be successfull in life
because no one would want to be at school.
Good school climate helps students feel more comfortable in their setting.
It would be boring. No one would be successful
All of things we wrote on the board mean to me because there all true.
School climate matters because, you can learn in a fun way & it sticks with you.
I think you need a school with a good climate to truly succeed. You need a good educa-
tion to get in a good school.
2. 10/26 : How does learning more about each other impact school climate?
By learning about eachother, we can get along more, and improve our relationships with
our friends and our school.
The way that you treat people.
Because when you meet and learn more about eachother they can help you with your
work.
When you know more about one student, it can help you relate to them and be more
responsive. When someone knows a lot and can relate to them and work better with
them.
You can think differently about them & then act differently when your around them
maybe.
It brings us closer together and makes it more fun
Brings everyone closer maybe in a friendly way or in a mean way it can bring up maybe
drama in school or like maybe a good impact on yourself. *
When learning about each other it can affect the schools climate either negatively or
positively. We could have HUGE differences that could cause arguments or it could help
us get along.*
I talk a lot so I can start certain conversations but I can also distract the other students*
*these responses were made by students who were not present for the team-building
game.
3. 11/7: What was difficult about the mindfulness exercises?
I don’t know man I just sat there and didn’t think about anything like, that’s what I do all
the time
It was hard to push things out of my head.
Hard to focus.
It was difficult to focus with small sounds around.
There were too many noises going on in the room (laughing, talking, and this huge
heater thing)
Thoughts were racing through my head.
It was very difficult to keep all thoughts from my head. Noises didn’t seem to distract
me too much.
I couldn’t get rid of my thoughts
How did you feel afterwards?
When we were done I felt calmer.
I felt the same afterward. Tired.
I didn’t feel different afterward, maybe a wee bit tired
I felt normal like nothing happened.
Nothing really changed.
Afterward, I felt normal like nothing really changed
After we finished I felt relaxed but thoughts were still in my head
4. 11/9: What is the best way to improve school climate?
laid back = good school climate
The best way to improve school climate is to improve our relationships with our fellow
students and teachers.
group activities
The best way to improve school climate is to respect and realize peoples beliefs and
point of view
Having friendly relationships between students & teachers
Students can be kind and school can be flexible
Working together & kindness
Students and teachers should cooperate to make the climate better. Being nice and
working together makes everything better.
Appendix E:
Condensed Student School Climate Questionnaire and Student Responses
Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly valu

Disagree Agree e
1. Students in my school treat one another with 6 2
respect.
2. Most of my teachers don’t understand what my 1.5 1.5 4 4/8
life is like outside of school.
3. I feel emotionally safe in school. 0.5 6.5 1 .5/8
6. Faculty and staff value what students have to say. 5 2
7. Classes in my school are challenging. 3.5 4.5 3.5/8
10. I feel that I belong at school. 2 6 2/8
13. Students in my school help one another even if 1 5.5 1.5 1/8
they are not friends.
16. I really want to learn. 1 2 5 3/8
17. I can motivate myself to learn. 2.5 4.5 1 2.5/8
19. I often need extra help with schoolwork. 6.5 1.5 1.5/8
20. While doing schoolwork, I am able to stay focused. 3 5 3/8
21. While hearing what others are saying, I become 6 2 2/8

easily distracted.
22. It’s often hard to pay attention in class because 1 5 2 2/8
I’m worried about problems outside of school.
23. I can calm myself in challenging situations. 8
disagree Agree
46. Students should take 0.5 6.5 1 .5/8

responsibility for their learning
47. Student-teacher relationships 2.5 2.5 3 2.5/8

affect academic achievement
48. Student-teacher relationships 2.5 1.5 4 2.5/8

affect overall school climate
Thank you for your honesty and participation!

181208research Paper Aem

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

181208research Paper Aem

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Running Head: TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS

Student perceptions of teacher-student relationships:

Examining the effects of self-awareness and community-building exercises

ED 626 Classroom Research

University of Alaska Southeast

tional learning in broader contexts.

My experiences as a pre-service educator in classrooms where I volunteered and have

thoritative discipline focused on compliance, to friendly relationships with students in which

about school in general.

practices in building positive effective relationships are necessary.

Implications for students

achievement (Crosnoe, Johnson, & Elder, 2004).

tive relationships and disengaged behaviors.

Implications for teachers

compromising emotional integrity are explored.

to “conserve precious motivational and self-regulatory resources for investment in relationships

16). MT or mindfulness education (ME) can be characterized by incorporating strategies such as

2013; Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010).

Restorative Practices. Restorative approaches to maintaining relationships focus on

approach to building positive relationships with students characterized by warmth as expressed

tations and academic engagement (Bondy, 2013).

the cycle of unhealthy reciprocity and realigning relationships.

closeness and community while drawing clear and consistent boundaries.

Three overlapping strategies have been identified to enhance teacher-student relationships

Figure 1. Relationship concept web

ability, community building, affective communication, self-regulation, and high expectations.

Social Development Theory and Teacher-Student Relationships (TSRs)

The Ethic of Care

incorporating the ethic of care into educational practices (Noddings, 2005).

Emotional Geographies of Teaching

Andy Hargreaves’ (2001) concept of emotional geographies considers the distance or

standing in their relationships with students.

Emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. Necessarily embedded in the

“a psychological syndrome in response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job” (Maslach,

Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001, p. 399).

detrimental emotional consequences for teachers.

How will student perceptions of teacher-student relationships be affected by the imple-

small rural Alaskan middle school classroom?

In this exploration of relationships in a small rural Alaskan secondary classroom using a

tion of a three-week community-building and self-awareness program during morning home-

am & Tisdell, 2016).

was reduced to a single day of the program due to researcher illness.

As Allies questionnaire, developed by www.whatkidscando.org, was designed and administered

questions focusing on school climate, teacher-student relationships, teaching styles, academic

hybridized questionnaire (Appendix A), succinctly addresses student perceptions of relationships

tionnaire over the course of two days.

some of which raised safety concerns.

mand of student effort and engagement.

haviors and comments to guide future discussions and activities.

patterns and trends.

mined for this study.

and affected the research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

to determine summative implications for this study.

agreement), self-motivation (37.5% disagreement), and the ability to focus (37.5%

class, and because they had family responsibilities.

dimension of school climate.

relationships overrepresented negative ones, and references to the curriculum dimension of

Dimension of School Climate

student response/behavior referred to

room, curriculum and learning concerns, and mindfulness, as shown in Table 2.

Dimension of School Climate

student response/behavior referred to

slightly more negative than positive. See Table 3.