While some might believe that you can’t have great relationships with students while consistently holding them accountable, I wholeheartedly disagree.
For the last six years, I was one of the administrators on my previous campus responsible for holding students accountable to high expectations and assigning consequences. At the same time, I worked to establish strong relationships with the students I served. This has sometimes led to uncomfortable situations (both for the student and for me), where I had to suspend students with whom I had great relationships.
Alejandra Mendoza is one of those students. We’ve had great conversations, shared hilarious jokes, and had an overall positive relationship. Nevertheless, I consistently made sure to hold her accountable when she wasn’t meeting expectations. Alejandra never appreciated it in the moment, but I could always count on her follow up letters to read that she learned something from the experience.
Here’s the last letter she wrote me which helped reaffirm the power in holding students accountable and let me see that Alejandra was truly listening.
Dear Mr. Romano,
I’m giving you my last letter, and I’m going to put my whole heart into it. We’ve had our rough times but mostly fun and exciting times. I’m really going to miss you and honestly you were a great father and brother figure for me. You were a great father figure because of the way you gave me consequences and how you would try to help me control myself. You were also a great brother figure to me because you would mess around with me a lot and you would try to make me laugh, we would also argue a lot for example about glitter lol. I really do appreciate you and I won’t be able to replace you even though you already replaced me ?. But it’s fine because I know your messing with me. Well Romano I guess this is really a goodbye, I will miss you ??.
Sincerely, Alejandra Mendoza
Alejandra says it herself. “You were a great father figure because of the way you gave me consequences and how you would try to help me control myself.” She mentioned it because she recognized how important that was for her. She was able to grow and learn from her mistakes because I held her accountable. If I would have ignored her actions and avoided consequences, I would have deprived her of those learning opportunities.
At the same time, remember that students shouldn’t always be receiving consequences. Just as you appreciate positivity in your life, so do our students.
*The student’s name has been changed to protect his/her privacy.
