Every Connection Matters: How to Build, Maintain, and Restore Relationships Inside the Classroom and Out

by Michael Creekmore, Nita Creekmore

A practical guide to the ins and outs of building, maintaining, and restoring positive and productive relationships in schools.

Relationships are at the core of education. When teachers are intentional about all of their relationships, they can address burnout, increase their own effectiveness, and improve the learning environment for their students.

In this thoughtful book, educators Michael Creekmore and Nita Creekmore introduce the build, maintain, and restore approach to relationships, focusing on six key types of relationships that K–12 teachers need to navigate in a

* Teacher-to-self, highlighting the importance of self-care to ensure mental, emotional, and physical well-being.* Teacher-to-student, focusing on how strong student-teacher relationships can change the trajectory of a student's path.* Teacher-to-family, showing how a teacher's relationship with a student's family is essential to the student's school experience.* Teacher-to-teacher, addressing the critical and complex nature of relationships between teachers in teams.* Teacher-to-administrator, emphasizing the need for authentic relationships with those who are charged with observing and guiding teachers' growth in the profession.* Teacher-to-staff, discussing the value of relationships with support staff and ways these relationships can be built.

Each chapter includes helpful guidance, tools, reflective questions, and ways you can build, maintain, and restore your relationships. Every Connection Matters will help you improve your daily connections and interactions at school—both in person and virtually—to build, maintain, and restore meaningful relationships that make a difference for you and your students.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction

136 pages, Paperback

Published January 29, 2024

Reviews

[Michael Loveless · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every Connection Matters wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't very enlightening. The two authors make the point that connections matter in schools - faculty/administrators, faculty/faculty, faculty/students, school/home. They make a good case for the importance of each of these relationships, although the argument is fairly self-evident. Each chapter describes one of these relationships - why it's important and what to do to improve it. These chapters have quite a bit of overlap, but they do contain some good ideas. All in all, the book has information that's worth reading. It's short and an easy read. It just has a limited amount of new ideas.

[Christina Hull · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Parking Lot to the Classroom and every where in between

Every connection, every day matters! This was a very helpful tool to guide my staff PLCs. Understanding how we connect every minute of everyday through verbal, para verbal, and nonverbal communication is essential. Providing the tools to help build, maintain, and restore those connections is paramount. I definitely recommend this resource to school leaders!

[Becky Barstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great staple if you are starting off in your role or you are looking to revisit core principles of relationship building in schools. Mike and Nita bring a host of knowledge and expertise and offer their experiences from the educator, coach, leader and counselor point of view.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid and practical without anything revelatory.