[0:09]Hello, my name is Eric Langhorst, and I am the lead learner at North Harrison Middle School. And I just wanted to share with you a few of my thoughts on the importance of building positive relationships with students in your classroom. I truly believe that if you want to have a successful school year, if you want to enjoy your job, if you want to have a passion for what you do, and if you want to have students that are engaged and excited about learning, it all starts with building those positive relationships. And there are a lot of ways that you can do that, and I think one of the most important ways is just by greeting students as they come into your classroom every single day. Make sure you're at your door, make sure you're shaking hands, giving high fives, fist bumps, doing whatever it takes to connect with those kids. Make sure you're using their names, make sure that you're just acknowledging their presence in your room. And I truly believe that that will help you tremendously throughout the school year. Another thing that I think is really important when it comes to building relationships with kids is just learning about what they do outside of school. I think it's important to find out what are their hobbies, what are their interests, what are their passions, what do they like to do for fun, what sports are they involved in, what activities are they involved in. And when you do that, you'll find out that when you go into your content areas, whether it be math or science or social studies or English or whatever your content area is, you can actually connect your content to their passions. So if you have a child that's really interested in a particular type of sport, maybe there's a math problem that you can find that's related to that sport. Or maybe there's an English essay you can have them write that's related to that sport. If you have a child that's into video games, maybe you can find a way to connect that content to those video games, whatever it is. Make sure that you're connecting your content to their passions, and I truly believe you'll have more engaged students in your classroom. Another way that I think it's important to build relationships with kids is just by letting kids know that you're a human being too. Make sure you're sharing with them some of your passions and your interests, some of the things that you like to do for fun. I think it's important that you also share some of your weaknesses. You know, one of the best activities I did this year with my seventh grade social studies class was I told them what my five biggest failures were in my life. And the kids were just mesmerized and amazed by the things that I was sharing with them. And then I actually had them do an activity where they had to share some of their failures with their classmates. And I truly believe that that really helped us build a stronger community in the classroom. I also think it's really important that you make sure you're letting kids know that you love your job. I truly believe if you're not passionate about what you do, if you don't love what you do, then you shouldn't be doing it. And I truly believe that when you show students that you are excited about being in the classroom, that you are excited about teaching, that you are excited about learning, that they'll be more engaged. They'll be more excited about learning in your classroom, and it'll help you tremendously. Finally, I think it's important to make sure that you're building a community in your classroom. Make sure you're building a community where all students feel safe, all students feel respected, all students feel like they can take risks, and all students feel like they can be themselves. And I truly believe when you do that, you'll have a tremendous, tremendous year. And I truly believe that when you put those relationships first, when you put those relationships at the forefront of everything you do, everything else will fall into place. So I truly believe that building relationships is the most important thing you can do as an educator. Thank you very much. I wish you the best of luck this school year.