Teaching Students How to Converse - 5 Tips for Drawing Them In

In preparation for my first year as director of our small alternative high school, having known there was a definite "climate" issue, I had put a great deal of time and effort into creating a pleasant, welcoming environment for the students, including a break area especially for the students, complete with lots of wall posters, as well as sofas and chairs from Goodwill, all of which I knew the kids would like because they were "totally ghetto!"

However, during the first week of school, it became apparent to me that the issue was much worse than I had thought. Before school, during break, and during lunch period, I noticed that the two teachers and two para-educators were rarely in the same room where the students were. To put it another way, the students were not using the break area and were choosing the make-shift library, which had no windows and only straight-back chairs and folding tables, rather than gather in the break area I had created for their enjoyment.

When I mentioned to one of the teachers that we needed to have a supervisory presence in the same room where the kids are during these times, she quickly and breathlessly informed me that the students "do not want us in there, so we give them their space." She indicated that the students became verbally hostile toward adults who encroached upon their "private conversations" during these times. So, basically, the kids were actively moving from room to room to be wherever the adults weren't, and they were successfully making the environment less than pleasant for any adults present.

This information disturbed me on three levels: 1) We had a responsibility to supervise properly; 2) The staff had evidently resigned to this bullying behavior; and 3) I had always enjoyed interacting with students during such times as breaks and class changes and could not imagine working in a climate where that was not possible.

The first concern was dealt with easily enough. I simply issued a mandate that at least one adult be present in any room where kids were located -- not only during class, but also before school, between classes, during breaks, and during lunch period. I also made myself available as much as possible during these times to show my administrative support for this new practice. And we did have to explain, reiterate, and explain again why we were there and would not "leave them alone" -- because they wanted to know why we were "spying on them." So this is how the year began, and it was not okay with me.

Through further observation of the environment and conversation with the staff, it became apparent that these young men and women, in their minds, had only ever experienced negative interactions with adults at school -- and, furthermore, that regular, casual, non-threatening, positive interactions with adults had most likely not been a part of their home lives. Even with the adults right there in the room, the students avoided interacting with us whenever possible.

In our team meetings (consisting of two teachers, two para-educators, and me), we discussed this issue in relation to our desire for a positive change in climate. We determined that we needed to model the kind of casual conversations that are appropriate in our environment -- at school, during the school day, between adults and students. We decided that we would all be present as much as possible during the out-of-class minutes of the day, and that we would converse with each other in the presence of the students. We talked about books we were reading, current events, music we liked, our favorite shops and restaurants, recipes, home projects, and so forth.

An interesting thing started to happen. Every so often, a student would connect something we were discussing with a person, place, or experience from their own lives, and they'd speak up and share. We continued in this manner until we were noticing a definite increase in students sharing, and then we "kicked it up a notch," as famous chef Emeril Lagasse would say: we started actively addressing questions to the students.

To make a long story a bit shorter, we continued to be present (in force) in the room, converse with each other, and invite students to join our conversation, and by the end of the year, the minutes outside of class, which the staff had previously dreaded, became the adults' favorite times of the day. We suspect the students enjoyed those times, too, as more of them arrived at school earlier as the year went on, and the break area furniture's capacity was stretched daily as they all claimed their favorite spots, as humans habitually do.

I am sure there is actual research out there, official guides and curricula designed to teach the art of conversation, but this article describes what we did -- and it worked. I am also sure that our small number of students (fewer than 20) and our small facility (really only four rooms and the break area) were factors in the way this worked out for us. But it did work.  Our "5 Tips for Drawing Them In" would have to be as follows:

1. Be present among the students.
2. Be insistent about where students are allowed to be and where adults must be (where the students are) during out-of-class times. If the area is large, insist that the adults circulate and interact with students. Model this. Be a part of it.
3. Go out of your way to learn as much about the students' lives and interests as possible.
4. Converse in their presence, with or without their participation. Use the "stuff" you learned about them in step 2 as subject matter. Share about your life and interests so that they can know you are human and have human dreams, frustrations, problems, faults, joys, and pain. They are listening, whether they are participating or not.
5. The students who are the most difficult to approach are the ones who need it the most. Find a way to be persistent about drawing them in. Devise reasons and topics for seeking them out and starting a conversation with them/their group.