My name is Kelsey Linhart and I am currently a student at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee in the Middle Childhood – Early Adolescense program. I am originally from Brookfield, Wisconsin so it has been nice living not too far from the home where I grew up. This is my fifth years as a college student so I am definitely ready to start a new chapter. This coming year is going to be filled with a lot of hard work, new challenges and fun!
Through the years I have really enjoyed being in classrooms. I love making connections with students and seeing them grow academically as well as personally. One of the most important parts of teaching is building relationships with your students. If you don’t have a connection and mutual respect it is going to be tough for them to retain any academic information. I am excited for this year and look forward to reflecting on my experiences in this blog.
Education Nation 
Kelsey,
I could not agree with you more about the necessity to build relationships with your students. Either you want to hear what’s going on in their life, or you don’t. But when you do, you are able to see them as individuals who walk into your classroom eager to be accepted, included, reflected and consulted about issues they should have a voice in.
Thanks for sharing the image, I love that. Our students will meet our expectations, we share directly responsibility for their success or lack there of.
Amy
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Kelsey, your point about mutual respect is something I think many of us don’t necessarily think about when were working with students that belong to many different generations. One thing that I’ve heard some teachers say to their students is that- “you can do that when you get older” or “they’re not old enough to appreciate that”, or “they’re too young too understand”. Often times I think the generational privileges that we get with age don’t necessarily translate to obtaining mutual respect for your students-especially when you withhold activities for learning that could engage students on an entirely new level- which means giving them some faith and believing that they are actually able to handle those activities. Thus, Mutual respect means that even if you don’t think that your students can handle a particular activity- you are willing to give them the tools to try, before you withhold something that might actually help them to succeed in the classroom.
Megan
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