Belonging - why it is so important for our students

What does it mean to belong? To feel like you are connected with other individuals? To make those deep meaningful connections? To be a part of something that is larger than yourself? These are deep and profound questions that everyone wrestles with and seeks answers to during their lifetime.  Our students that walk into our schools and into our classrooms are asking the same questions. They are wondering if they will fit in with their classmates. They hope their teacher will be able to relate to them. They desire to have teachers that believe in them and push them to be better.

Some of what I remember most as a young student, is the unfortunate times where I felt like I didn’t quite belong. When I was in kindergarten I really struggled with school readiness. I was constantly behind, confused, and at times overwhelmed with following the directions. I don’t ever remember my teacher connecting with me, letting me know it was going to be okay, or even recognizing any of my strengths. I also remember having a challenging time in third grade. My teacher wasn’t very warm or welcoming. Her classroom management consisted of berating students when they made a mistake or didn’t follow a direction. I will always remember being scared going into her class. One time when I was a fourth grade student, I was told to go to her class and ask for some supplies. As I crossed the hall to go into her class I felt an anxiousness come over me. As I inquired about the supplies, I was immediately confused by her direction.  All of those feelings of intimidation and fear came rushing back, as she loudly and aggressively repeated her direction.  These two stories are simple examples of educators not creating safe and caring classroom cultures.  I think these examples highlight how damaging it can be for our students if we don’t create schools and classrooms where students feel like they belong.  

I am blessed to have entered into my twenty first year in education. I started my career as a classroom teacher in Tempe, Arizona. I will always remember my first class. I took over for a third grade teacher who retired early. It was late February and I was all of twenty two years old, and ready to take on the world! This particular class was housed in a portable classroom and was the farthest class from the office. I had heard rumors of about how out of control this class was and they had no or little respect for teachers. My first day with the students was a blur. Even as a brand new teacher, I immediately identified that there was no evidence of classroom routines;  students either sprinted back to class from our time in the computer lab or stayed behind and hid under the tables. For the remainder of that school year I spent time trying to figure out how to create positive relationships with the students in order to gain their trust. I learned very quickly that many of these students lived in an impoverished housing project in Phoenix.  They had parents who were incarcerated or addicted to drugs. These students were often left alone to fend for themselves. In fact this particular housing project was cut off from the rest of south Phoenix by an expressway on one side and a busy street on another. Many of these kids didn’t have that sense of belonging in their families and being cut off physically from the rest of the city didn’t create a sense of belonging to the community. My job for the rest of that year  was to build a class community, and perhaps the one place, where students felt like they belonged. In order to do that I played with the students at recess, I celebrated their learning of academics and behaviors, we played music in class, and we created a class t-shirt that each student was proud to wear.

I often wonder what happened to my students as I moved to back to Illinois a few years later. I learned more in the few months that I had that class than my four years at pre service teacher at ASU. I learned what it meant to build up a student's confidence, to believe in a student, to find out the awesomeness that each student possess. Most of all I learned how important it is for our students to feel like they belong. To feel like they matter. To have a place they can call home.