A teacher’s outward communication style, markers of identity, and views about children and their families can play a major role in their capacity to connect with and instruct others—and also influence others’ connections to them. When interacting with students and families, teachers attend to the ways their identities, habitual patterns of talk and behavior, and expressive communication styles (e.g., tone of voice, body language, etc.) show up. They think critically about how they and their communication styles are “read” by students or their families. Teachers then make adjustments so that the impact they have on others is positive and strategic, and conveys appropriate feelings of respect, welcome, and engagement.
Teachers’ identities and the ways those identities manifest in their everyday interactions with students and families can play a crucial role in their capacity to connect with, motivate, instruct, and engage students (and their families). But teachers’ identities and interactional styles can also impede those connections. Because teachers and children do not always share a common understanding of unstated norms and rules of communication and interaction in the classroom, misunderstandings of one another can be common. To that end, teachers should attend carefully to the self and how it is read by others, and consider ways to make adjustments to how they show up in interactions.