The article “Helping Troubled Students, One Relationship at a Time” by David Bulley validated my belief that there needs to be a trust relationship between teacher and student. Bulley wrote about the results of a survey that was given to students in a new school in Springfield, Massachusetts. The survey consisted of questions such as specifying how many teachers the students trusted, how many staff or teachers they felt they could go ask for help, and how many they felt they had a strong relationship with. Sadly, the results showed that 20% of the students trusted no one. The goal after the survey was to have every student establish a relationship with a staff or teacher. The teachers chose one student to get to know well through specific questions. The questions were specific to building trust. Some suggestions that were offered when developing questions to help build relationships with students were simple. Basically, you have to be a good listener, talk about the present, share things about yourself, and share food because that shows caring and thoughtfulness. The results were positive ones because teachers had less behavior issues, and students were not skipping class. I have found that the little bit of extra time that I spend getting to know our more challenging students will pay off in the end. They will trust you and work hard for you when they know you care and value them as a person. http://www.edutopia.org/article/helping-troubled-students-through-relationships-david-bulley Another article that sparked my interest was “Suspending Students from School: Does it Work?” I have always thought that a lot of the students that get in trouble are the ones that do not like to attend school. That means that they know that if they do something wrong their punishment of suspension does not seem so severe since they would rather not go to school. This article by Adam Gutierrez points out that students who are suspended double their chances of being retained which many times leads to the students dropping out. Gutierrez also adds that not only does the suspended student suffer consequences from suspension but so do the parents and other students. The parents have a loss of income if they have to stay home to look after the suspended student, and studies show that students who attend schools with a high percentage of suspensions do not score well in reading and math. Teachers are affected as well to the point that 12 % of them leave the profession because of discipline issues. The solution in the article is to put off suspensions and use positive interventions to improve the culture of schools. http://www.edudemic.com/suspending-students/