Historically teachers have been very isolated in their profession, both from the outside community and from each other, each teacher having the mindset that they are the master of their domain and knowing best what  each student should learn. We have learned over the last decade that this is a very destructive course of thinking; it has led to stagnation and use of easy but poor teaching methodologies. This problem can be easily overcome but simply getting out of your classroom when you have the chance, during passing times step out into the hallway by your classroom door for a few minutes and greet students in the halls. Greet your students as they come into the door, say hello to other students you may have as they pass your class in the hallway. This simple task can do a couple of things, it can help you become more connected with the students in general, but more importantly, it helps you to build stronger connections with the students in your classes. This can lead to improved classroom discipline and decreases in student behavior problems, throughout the day. This connection can help to build your program as well, often-new teachers that are coming into programs that need a chance to build enrollment in the program. It does take a bit of effort on your part as the teacher to build connections with students, but these connections can be very beneficial and meaningful to the students.

As for creating connections with your colleagues and administration, these will take more time, in my experience though these can be very beneficial once they are formed, you often gain another teacher’s wisdom and experience for younger teachers and for older teachers you gain a fresh outlook on how you have been doing things. The key to building connections between teachers is two parts; one younger teacher must keep in mind that they are new and should be conscious to not “step on toes” of other teachers. We all started out somewhere with a fresh naïve look at our profession, while some will want to change the world we should wait to be asked for our help. This will make the change and ideas that we have hold more of an impact, rather going right to administration spouting off ideas of how to make things better. Simply let your colleagues know what type of skill set you have an offer to be of assistance if they need it. Most teachers will seek your advice out once you prove you know what you are doing. This can also give you the opportunity to get into some of the incentive pay programs that are becoming more and more popular in districts. Offer to your administrators to conduct a piece of professional development for your building or department, which is a great way to connect with both teachers and administrators.

Many older teachers see building relationships with administration as a slippery slope, countless administrators that have been self-serving and forced to make tough choices often at the expense of the teaching staff have burned them. Keep in mind that this is the past, more and more administrators are realizing that they cannot simply make demands and expect the teachers to fall into ranks around them. Schools and districts are changing philosophically, they are seen as a business and therefore while teachers are the bulk of the labor, they are seen as greater resources now. Since schools are being asked to do more with less, they are tapping into teacher’s knowledge to do projects, which can be an opportunity for those teachers that may be eyeing aspiration of advancing to a principal or directorship to gain some leadership experience. Additionally, if you have a relationship with your director or principal when times get tough and cuts are expected, it can save your job. Despite the commonly held belief, principles and directors have a good bit of discretion when it comes to staffing and whom they keep and whom they cut. They often can also help you to secure sources of project funding through grants and other state and federally funded assistance programs.

However, the most important connections to build are those connections with the community and parents. As long as there are students there will be at least some parents who are concerned how there students is doing in school. You can also play to the vanity that most people have in their profession, ask them what they do for a living, often there are at least a couple of parents in fields related to your subject matter. Most parents and their companies are glad to help out in the classroom, whether it is talking to the class about their career or helping to chaperone a trip/project or even the company donating materials or supplies for certain projects. These types’ activities can go great lengths to help the parents and the communities build a strong relationship with your class and subject matter, which in-turn can lead to greater support from the district. When you do build the relationships with parents and community businesses, the community and other parents know because this can continue the process to grow.

In the educational world, we must keep in mind that teachers can no longer afford to be islands of information, left to the solitude of their classrooms. We must go out and build relationships with students, parents, teachers, administrators and the community in order to gain opportunities to further our development as a profession and our programs.