[MUSIC] Hello. I'm Professor Tony Townsend, and Doctor Fawaz Shareef and myself, over the next six weeks are going to be talking with you and working with you in the area of how do we go about developing relationships. So, this is course eight. The first week of the course, we really want to focus on the importance of relationships and look at relationships in general. Later on, we'll be more specific. Looking at relationships with children in classrooms. Looking at relationships with colleagues and with administrators, with parents and with the community. But today, I want to think about, what are the things that promote growth in human beings? Well, if we look at human relations for a start, human relations seems to cover all of the activities that humans are involved in. This could be cooperative relationships. It could be people working in groups. It could be the conflicts that we have. So, human relations is essentially the study of our beliefs and our attitudes, the behaviours, and how we interact with other people. What we need to say right from the start is that relationships are very, very important. It's the relationships that hold everything else together. If you think about the other seven courses that you've undertaken, and then you think about how relationships play a role in things like curriculum, assessment, professional planning, personal development, relationships hold everything together. We could think of it as being the glue that happens with all of the things that happen in schools. So, relationships are very, very important. But it's not just the student-teacher relationship that we need to be considering. We need to think of the relationships that are occurring between you as a teacher, and everybody else that interacts with the school. So yes, the student-teacher relationship is incredibly important because this is where learning happens. However at various times, you also need to interact with other teachers, with your school leaders, with parents. Sometimes with the wider community. So, what we need to understand is that if relationships are so pervasive and they are so important, we can use them as a very powerful tool. But what we also need to recognise, is that quality relationships don't just happen. They are things that are developed, that they're nurtured, and that they're supported. Probably the most important relationship is the relationship that we have with students. So, why is a good student-teacher relationship important for students? Well, as you can see on this screen, good relationships actually improve the possibility of student success. Now, this is an important element, but there's a second element there that we also need to recognise. Good relationships actually lowers risky behaviour that students might involve themselves in. So for instance, if you have positive relationships in your classroom, students are less likely to smoke, they're less likely to drink or use drugs, they're less likely to be involved in dangerous situations or get themselves involved in violence. But at the same time, we know that if there are positive relationships between the student and the teacher, it's more likely to lead to students coming to school in the first place. To enjoy school in the second place. And then to actually learn something from school. So, really critical support is needed for developing that student-teacher relationship. This slide identifies some of the components we need to think about if we go to develop healthier relationships. We need to think about communication, about trust, about respect and about love. So, how do we do that? How do we foster these positive relationships? Well the most important way of doing it, is to be nice. Greet people, say hello when students come in. Smile at them, and you will find that even if you're walking down the street, if you smile at somebody, they generally smile back. Learn people's names. This is really important because it demonstrates that you care about them enough to know who they are. Be friendly. If you're friendly, they are too. Because in many cases the behaviour that other people display, is a reflection of the behaviour that we're showing. So, we really need to try and establish strategies to let students know, to let parents know, to let our colleagues know that we really do like them. That we enjoy their company and that we like doing things with them. In previous courses and in particular course five, we talked about mindsets, and what the mindset was. And one of the important aspects of mindset is whether or not we have a growth mindset. So, what are mindsets? Well, if you recall, mindsets are the assumptions that we make about other people. And it's the assumptions we make about ourselves. And these assumptions lead to certain types of behaviour that we display. You'll remember the work of Caril Dweck, where she talked about whether or not you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And the differences in the way in which we behave, depending on what we see ourselves as having. As you can see from the list here, a fixed mindset narrows the focus of what we can do and what we think about ourselves and other people. On the other hand, a growth mindset is something that allows us to embrace other people, to embrace challenges, to look beyond ourselves and to move in a way that assumes that we can get better if we do other things. So, do you feel smart? Well, when do you feel smart? And what we've identified here are some of the times when a fixed mindset person feels smart. It's when I don't make any mistakes. It's when I'm perfect. It's when I can do something that other people can't do. Then I feel smart. It's a very narrow focus. It's all about what we can already do. What we can already control. But you'll notice the person with a growth mindset, likes to expand themselves. When it's really hard, and I try, and I can do something that I couldn't do before. When I've learned something new. It's a growth mindset if we challenge ourselves. So, how do we promote a growth mindset in ourselves and in our students? Well, here's a list of things, and I don't intend to read them out. But what you can see there is that it is possible to promote an expansion of our students' minds. It's possible to emphasise that we enjoy what we do when we work with them. If we enjoy learning, we do it better. If we learn something new, we feel good about ourselves. And these are the sorts of things that we need to respond to as teachers in our classroom. So, there's an activity sheet that you will see in the website, for this particular week. And I'm asking you the question, what are some of the things that can promote growth in our students? Perhaps the first step is to say, let's think of human beings in general. What are some of the things that promote human beings to grow? What are some of the things that will support anybody? Doesn't matter what age they are, doesn't matter what country they come from, it doesn't matter what language they speak. If we can work out what it is that helps human beings to grow, then we can start to say how can we apply this in our schools and in our classrooms? So, what you can do, is you can fill out the worksheet which is called promoting growth as a human being. And we ask you there, for a number of different things. Does this promote growth well or not well? Is it something that is positive or not so positive? Having identified those things, we can then start talking about what can we do as teachers to develop growth in our students? In our next lecture, I want to take this understanding of relationships a little bit further. But I want to look at the various elements that make up human relationships, not only for students, but for everybody and then look at how they apply in the classroom. So, I will talk to you again soon. Thank you. [MUSIC]
