The 2/10 Strategy

I just finished the second webinar on learning to teach better via distance.  Thanks to the series of classes, I'm learning more.  My district is still having classes in person but two schools had to go totally virtual due to an increase in Covid-19 cases.  Somewhere during the webinar, the question came up on how to build relationships with students, especially the students who display avoidance behaviors.

Someone mentioned the 2/10 strategy which I'd never heard of before.   The idea is that you spend 2 minutes a day for 10 days in a row getting to know a student and at the end of the time, you'll have a relationship with the student.

The time should be spent talking about general topics like sports, fashion, or what ever the at risk student wants to talk about.  These short interactions are designed to build relationships because it allows the students to see the teacher cares about them.  When a student sees the teacher cares they are more willing to work and their behavior improves.

At the end of the explanation on the 2/10 strategy, questions rolled in on how to do it when everything is distance.  Good question because it's easy to implement it in person but a lot harder when it has to be done via some sort of device.  People made several suggestions which created additional discussion on the topic. 

One person suggested they ask one or two students to check in about 5 minutes early to just chat or arrange for them to stay a bit later to have the conversations.  This only works if your students have access to enough internet for either google meet or zoom.  Another suggestion, one I like a lot is to make calls to individual students later in the day so they don't feel like they might be in trouble.  

There are however a couple of issues that might arise if you try to implement this strategy.  For instance, a student might not want to talk to you, it might be better to have general conversations with small groups of students.  Let that one child see you talking to others on a variety of topics that are not on school work, or anything.  Sometimes, you might need to suggest a topic to get the student talking to you such as if you overhear them talking about a particular team, read up on them and be willing to discuss stats with them.

Don't worry if the student doesn't want to talk for two minutes but do try for at least one non-academic interaction a day and keep interacting and eventually, those interactions will turn into a full two minute conversation and you'll have had 10 days worth of conversations.

Sometimes, as a teacher, it's hard for us to find time to talk to students individually especially if we feel as if we have to "make" time to do it.  Why not just take a couple minutes during class to stop and talk to students for a few minutes off topic rather than stopping class to address a disruption.  If taking time to build relationships during class helps decrease the amount of misbehavior, why not? 

The other day, I took time to ask students who watched the last game of the World Series.  I had one of my challenging students tell me the Dodgers won.  I let out a bit of a cheer and told him I was born in Los Angles. Then I asked him if he'd heard the 3rd baseman was taken out due to having tested positive to the coronavirus and another student shared that the guy was out on the baseball field celebrating.  After that short interchange, they went back to work.

Finally, teachers don't always know how to begin a conversation with a student.  It is suggested the teacher listen in on conversations students has with others for ideas of conversation starters.  Last year, I had a senior who had trouble settling down when class started because he wanted to talk politics, so I began learning about politics and discovered that if I spend 30 seconds to a minute talking about the latest in politics, he'd immediately settle down and work.  

Another way is to commiserate with the student over something such as when something happens at home and they don't get enough sleep the night before, or how they missed a basket at the last game.  Conversations don't always have to begin with a question.

Although many interactions will be done virtually, they can still be done and as a teacher, you can spend two minutes with the at-risk student every day for 10 days.  Give them a call and check up on them.  It is worth two minutes of your time to help a student become a better learner and less at risk.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.