Another week at Vanderhoof has flown by! I am beginning to feel less like a city girl from Vancouver and more like a country girl from Vanderhoof! This week at the school, I wanted to focus on building relationships with the students – something that I strive to do given any setting. Even though I am here for a short amount of time, I want to build relationships with the staff and students as much as possible. Through my observations and conversations with students, I have come to realize that many of the students face a range of problems that affect how they behave and learn within the classroom. These problems include divorced parents, neglect, or learning disabilities. Of course, this is experienced within any school setting, urban or rural. The only difference is that, especially within a small school, it is hard to find the right resources to support students who are at a high-risk. These students do get some support, but often times, students are not getting enough support because the resources are so limited.

This means that building relationships, especially with students who are at a high-risk, is so important. As one of my professors at UBC used to say, every child deserves an adult in their life who cares about them. I had the opportunity to sit down and speak one-on-one with some students this week. I began the conversation by talking to them about what they were working on. After a while, our conversations developed and I began to get a glimpse into their life, such as what they liked about school, what they wanted to be when they grow up, etc. Through these conversations, I learned just how powerful and quick making connections with students can be. For many of these students, they do not get many opportunities to share stories with someone else who is willing to sit and listen to them. As teachers, I realize that we do not always get the luxury of sitting down for an hour with each student to have a conversation with them. Nonetheless, it is still important that as teachers, we find those small opportunities throughout the day to have conversations with our students to find out how they are doing and hear their stories that they want to share with us.