Kioni Carter is a master teacher who wears many hats of education and writing. As a former NYC public school educator, she became a “teacher of life,” and went on to graduate from The Institute for Professional Empowerment Coaching. Now, as a Certified Empowerment Coach, she has been able to realize her mission by creating Tru Transformation Coaching, a company that caters to the urban school community, and the urban community at large, with the express and sole purpose of taking them to a new plateau of thinking and creating in their schools and in their lives.

Kioni works with many different non-profit organizations, and she currently writes a column with the Teachers.net Gazette entitled Coaching the Urban Educator. Kioni is also the creator of My Classroom Rules, a resource rich for new teachers which focuses on building positive student-teacher relationships.

For more information, go to https://www.myclassroomrules.com/public/78.cfm and join the new member’s only site for FREE, to gain access to all the articles, quizzes and private discussions to help you to take your students to the next level of success, and start feeling appreciated for the hard work you do!

Here are a few of Kioni’s secrets on how you can motivate your students.

1.) Build a real relationship with your students. Just being their teacher is not enough, especially when you deal with a tough population of kids. They need to know, like, and trust you in order to feel safe enough to take risks and feel comfortable learning from you.

2.) Learn to listen. Listening is an extremely important skill, and most of us DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT! Listening to a child without giving them advice that they didn’t ask for is key. Most people don’t want others just telling them what to do, and kids are no different. Make sure you can re-phrase what they said and validate their points. They will love you for it, and listen to you in return!

3.) Create win-win situations in the classroom. Make sure the students are clear on what you want to teach them and relate it to what is personal for them. Let them know what they are going to get from learning what you want to share with them. The worst thing a teacher can do is just start teaching something with no context, and then get mad when the children don’t seem interested.

4.) Understand your students’ natural gifts, whether they are a natural “talker” or extremely determined and focused, find what you love about EACH AND EVERY student and make sure you let them know how you feel about them and the value they bring to the class regularly. That way, they feel a sense of belonging in your class and a willingness to live up to what you expect from them.

5.) Just what do you expect? Speaking of which, make sure that you are conveying to your students what you expect from them. I’m not talking about saying “now boys and girls I expect you to do your homework.” NO! I’m talking about letting kids know that you do see the best in them already…even if they don’t, and share it with them…speaking to them all the time as if they have already reached your expectations.

6.) Point out every success. Make sure that whenever a child does something that shows growth in any area whether personally or academically, that you let it be known. This works particularly well for those students who demonstrate low self esteem or feel they can’t do well in a subject. Congratulate, champion, and stimulate them by letting them know you notice their achievements no matter how “small” they seem. Let them know that to you, it’s a HUGE deal.

7.) Lastly, respond rather than react. Most of us react to “negative” things that our students do, but that comes from a human need to make things “about us.” When we figure out that what the child did is “about them” and come from that place (in a loving way) we are more able to respond and empathize with the child and help make a better decision on how to handle the situation.