Building Trust and Connection: Nurturing Integrity in School Communities
Adam Rockenbach
I help schools promote student behavioral health while minimizing the impact on teachers' and staff workloads.
This week, we’re diving deeper into Integrity—a cornerstone for fostering trust and connection in schools. Learn practical tips for nurturing honesty in students, and explore inspiring resources like A Little Spot of Honesty and the Everybody Matters podcast. Plus, don’t miss out on actionable strategies for bullying prevention and an insightful read on balancing friendliness with firmness in middle school.
This month our focus is on Integrity and how it connects to the following indicators: Classroom Community and Student Well-Being.
There is no better way to build classroom community than the sociograms provided through Bloomsights. You will get a direct look at how your students are connected and what can be done to draw in those on the outermost rings. Listen to a 2-minute testimonial from a teacher about using sociograms in the classroom.?
Contact us at Hart Education?to start using Bloomsights in your building.
This series was developed to help children understand skills that are needed in everyday life. In this series, children are introduced to eight common actions: Respect, Responsibility, Kindness, Patience, Diversity, Organization, Honesty, and Safety. Each action is highlighted in its own book, which provides little readers with easy explanations and vivid examples.
There are talking points and questions along the way to give easy access to a conversation around the topic of honesty.
Talk to your children about what it means to be honest and why honesty is an important value. You can also encourage honesty by building trusting relationships with your children and helping them to develop self-awareness. Discuss the importance of being able to trust one another.?
Acknowledge that telling the truth may seem difficult sometimes. Sometimes we may not even notice when we are lying. While you should emphasize to your child that lying is wrong, it’s also important to note that occasionally, there are good reasons to lie or to not tell the entire truth and provide specific examples. If your child is given a gift that he/she does not really like, you might say to your child that it is better to say you like the gift and express thanks rather than reveal your true feelings.
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It’s been almost eight years since the publication of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family by Raj Sisodia, one of the founders of Conscious Capitalism and Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman.
It’s the story of Bob and Barry-Wehmiller’s journey from traditional business thinking to Truly Human Leadership. All these years later, people are still discovering the book and are touched by the story. Around the time of Everybody Matters’ release, Bob and Raj did a number of interviews talking about why they wrote the book and what they hoped to accomplish by writing it.?
Whether you have been teaching for 20 minutes or 20 years, it can be easy to fall into acting like a friend to your students. In my experience, I don’t realize it until students start to push boundaries.
Preteens and teens seem to have an uncanny talent for sensing when teachers are wavering in their stance. Once you shrug your shoulders or say “Well…” as you think about their request, they will pounce! This shows up in the form of attempts to get the lesson off-topic or bend the rules. “Come on, just let us have a free period today,” or “The other teachers let us listen to whatever music we want during class,” or “Can we sit wherever we want today? Pleeeeease!”
Every parent, teacher, and student knows the word “bullying.” However, its meaning is often misunderstood. Today, the term bullying is often overused, and because of this, the extent and impact of true bullying may be masked. It is critical that we accurately teach what true bullying looks like and what to do about it.
Students need to know that you are consistent with having zero tolerance for bullying in your classroom and in your school.? At meetings with other teachers, administrators, or intervention teams, be sure to discuss students who are showing signs of bullying or being bullied.? There should be a team plan on how to support these students and how to stop the bullying. Parents should also be informed when their children are showing signs of being bullied.