How to Win Over Students in the Classroom

The secret is in how teachers use their eyes and ears.

There are plenty of the unspoken rules when it comes to being an effective teacher in the classroom and I’ve shared some with you before.

I have shared that intuition is one of the unspoken rules in creating sustainable connections between you as the teacher and students because by tapping into teacher intuition, teachers can help solve problems before they even start.

I’ve also talked about ways teacher and students can build relationships that help improve classroom dynamics when it comes to teaching and learning.

And now I want to share with you another valuable rule that can help win your students over in terms of getting them to enjoy spending time with you in the classroom.

This valuable rule has to do with how you use your eyes and ears in the classroom.

The first chance you get in connecting with your students is through your eyes, and the second is with your ears.

As a teacher your eyes need to portray an attentive and approachable person so students, especially those in the younger grades, can begin to trust you as their teacher.

Your ears help students to know that you are aware of any implicit meaning hidden behind words spoken aloud.

Now I’m not advocating that you require all students to maintain strict eye contact with you as the teacher at all times since in some cultures it is not customary to keep eye contact for long periods of time.

What I am advocating for is in knowing how to use your eyes and ears in the classroom for a purpose I will explain later on.

A Classroom With No Walls

In my article entitled “What Teaching as a True Calling Looks Like” I detailed my first experience entering a classroom as a teacher candidate and how that led to my true calling of becoming a teacher.

In the article I mentioned that I came to teach at a particular private school after earning my B.Ed in education, and that I wanted to continue help grow the school that helped me discover my career as teacher.

By the time I was able to finish earning my degree in education, this small private school acquired a rather large but old public school in the city that was no longer in use.

This school was built in the time of the “open classroom” era of the 1970s where it was designed so that classrooms were in open spaces and were only separated by one tiny separation barrier that indicated where one classroom stopped and another began.

The intended purpose of this design was to encourage more collaborative teaching strategies among teachers.

New teachers could watch and listen to the more experienced teachers manage their classrooms and learn what works and what doesn’t when it comes to interacting with students.

Teachers didn’t need to feel like they were burdening other teachers by asking them to watch their classrooms while they stepped away to complete a last minute task because they were already doing it, whether they intended to or not.

My first official teaching career started in this school and the idea of classroom management and noise levels was all new to me.

And so one major downside to this open classroom design was that the teacher next door was constantly coming to my side of the “classroom” to tell me my class was too noisy. I needed to control the noise level.

Since I did not have the assistance of walls to help contain the noise level of my classroom, this open classroom concept forced me to heighten my senses of sight and sound so I could communicate with my students they were being too noisy using the minimal amount of verbal cues as possible.

Unagi — “Total Awareness”

Yes, unagi has another meaning besides “total awareness”— freshwater eel.

If you are a fan of the tv show “FRIENDS”, you’ll appreciate this, if not, I’m sorry.

Since I am a fan of “FRIENDS”, I’ll let one main character who loves the word unagi, Ross, explain through Google how he sees unagi.

According to Ross, Unagi is a state of total awareness, and only by achieving true Unagi, you can be prepared for any danger that may befall you.

The biggest danger teachers and students face in the classroom is that they are neither seen nor heard.

There is no better compliment a teacher or student can give to one another than to say I see you and I hear you.

When teachers role model to students that they have this sense of “total awareness” it presents the message to the students to do the same.

As teachers use facial expressions, gestures, and their posture as non-verbal cues, students can pick up on the need for their actions or behaviors in the classroom to change for the better.

But what if a teacher’s back is turned to the students, what then?

Well if you know “The One with Unagi” episode from “FRIENDS”, you know that this term failed Ross — because it wasn’t real in the first place.

Unagi really only is freshwater eel.

So will total awareness fail teachers if their back is turned to the class?

I’m here to tell it will not — and I know because I’ve used it as an unspoken rule.

This unspoken rule in teaching is to present “total awareness” as if you as the teacher also have “eyes in the back of your head”.

Withe the idea of “eyes in the back of your head” you as a teacher begin by tapping into your sense of sound, you have mastered the voice of each one of your students, even if it comes down to a whisper.

When you have mastered the sound of your students’ voices, you can show students you have a heightened sense of sight, by calling out their names when they are misbehaving, even if you are not directly looking at them.

And that’s enough to get any student to stop and look and listen — when you call out their name without even looking at them!

The faster you come to master this level of awareness — the faster you will be able to win over your students.

Winning Over Students

The idea of winning over students means to get them to agree with you when they may not have agreed with you before.

And the idea of you as the teacher having total awareness is one way you can win students over.

When students agree that you have this total awareness, they will be weary of how you will use it in connection with them.

Will it be safe or will it be scary to be in your classroom?

In building student — teacher relationships, I talked about firmness and kindness as important aspects of relationship building.

When students can see you hold firm in using your ears to call out students misbehaving even if your back is turned to them, they can see your kindness shine through when you are facing them in keeping the approachable and attentive looks in your eyes.

Students will respond ever more positively when they feel like your attention is personalized.

When you look at them, they will feel like you care that they are in the room, and will that you will help them in reaching their academic goals.

Winning over your students will benefit them as you continue to work together throughout the semester in building a sense of trust and appreciation towards each individual student’s personal and academic growth thanks to being in your classroom.

I hope this article has made you see that as teachers, our eyes and ears in the classroom are more powerful than we may actually realize. They are bridges to everlasting connections with students when used correctly.

If you enjoyed this article, I encourage you to read my other articles on teacher and student relationships in classroom.