May 16, 2022 2022-05-16
Professional Growth
Strategy for Building Safe, Positive, Caring Classrooms
Educators can use the Relationship Mapping Strategy from Harvard University’s Making Caring Common project to ensure that every learner feels known and supported.
For students, a positive connection to at least one school adult—whether a teacher, counselor, sports coach, or other school staff member—can have tremendous benefits that include reduced bullying, lower dropout rates, and improved social–emotional capacities. Rather than leave these connections to chance, relationship mapping invests time in making sure that every student is known by at least one adult. Using this strategy, school staff identify youth who do not currently have positive connections with school adults during a private meeting. Those students are then paired with a supportive adult mentor within the school. Throughout the year, mentors support each other through the successes and challenges of building relationships with students, and administrators routinely communicate with staff to determine how well the process is going.
Educators can download strategies and lesson plans for virtual relationship mapping at grades 6–12 and a how-to guide to relationship mapping from the project’s website. They will also find related resources—for example, a curriculum for expanding empathy and compassion to “others” and ways to build empathy and strengthen their school community.
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