Keeping It Real and Relevant: Building Authentic Relationships in Your Diverse Classroom

by Ignacio López

How can we ensure that all students, regardless of cultural background or socioeconomic status, are granted equitable opportunities to succeed in the classroom and beyond? In Keeping It Real and Building Authentic Relationships in Your Diverse Classroom , author and veteran educator Ignacio Lopez offers hard-won lessons that educators at all levels can apply to teaching, assessing, counseling, and designing interventions for learners from all walks of life. These insights are all rooted in the same core building deep and meaningful relationships with students is the key driver of their success. In addition to examining the pivotal role of relationship-building among teachers and students in preparing the latter to perform at the highest level, this book offers Many teachers find balancing the needs of increasingly diverse classrooms made up of learners from increasingly diverse backgrounds to be a difficult and often thankless task—and one that takes precious time away from instructional planning. Here, Lopez outlines simple but ingenious steps for addressing these needs holistically, in a way that takes no extra time yet amply enhances the learning experience for students. Clear, practical, and much-needed, Keeping It Real and Relevant is the ultimate blueprint for creating a harmonious and successful classroom for kids of all colors, creeds, and cultures.

78 pages, Paperback

Published August 23, 2017

Reviews

[Jacob Runyon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought Dr. Lopez gave critical advice to teachers and administrators wanting to begin or improve Social Emotional Learning and restorative practice techniques. First, teachers must become self-aware of how their actions look to students and change the philosophy of “this is my classroom” to “this our classroom.” SEL starts with teachers and Dr. Lopez is quick to point this out. I also enjoyed reading about some of the different practice ranging from teaching kids Duckworth’s growth mindset to having students practice the Coveys seven habits to remembering that classes shouldn’t only be about content but also the relationship built with students.

Still, this book fell short in many areas, especially considering teacher boundaries. Granted this is a short book, literally, and I expect that it is used to serve as a manageable guide for educators to read and discuss. As a teacher, I would have liked to see where exactly my responsibility begins and ends. Saying that I must teach the whole child is 1 vague and 2 unrealistic. I specifically remember the example of a student who scored a 30 on the ACT but wasn’t motivated enough to move out of his parents basement, and the parent is quoted saying “I guess the school only taught him how to pass a damned test.” This example is used to show how schools fall short. But I couldn’t disagree more. While schools could invest in more project based learning and using relevant examples, motivation to get off your parents couch and do something with your life should come from... the parents! I highly doubt that the student did not encounter a single teacher who didn’t try to push him further in life, but I could believe that the child had a parent who was either too busy (or lazy) to care. He also uses an example of correcting a teacher in front of the students after observing a bad practice of the teacher’s, which, ironically, is a terrible leadership strategy.

While Dr. Lopez brings up excellent strategies, many that I have used since reading this book such as walking students into epiphanies, many of his real life examples serve to discredit his argument rather than further.

[Natalie Nolt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an easy read that challenges educators to reflect on their own biases in order to become more culturally responsive in their pedagogy.

“Creating successful and equitable learning environments for our students means committing to the fact that every learner has a compelling life story worth getting to know.” (P. 1)

Every student has the potential to become an expert and to succeed. If teachers aren’t working to help students discover their full potential, they should leave the classroom. Educators ought to become better students of their own students in order to embrace each learner and meet them in their individual needs.

“The best way to intervene with regard to students’ behavior or academic performance is to learn about who our students really are. As teachers, we have to shed our biases to gain an understanding of our students, their cultures, the communities in which they live, and their living situations.” (P. 40)

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Education/Non-Fiction) Dr. Ignacio Lopez shares useful and applicable strategies for developing student-teacher relationsihps, self-awareness, student success, ownership of learning, and no-punishiment discipline techniques. The book is a quick read (2-3 HRs) with several applications to be used immediately. “To become the best teachers possible, we must take action to discover for ourselves what we need to get better at—and to get better, we need to practice with purpose" (Lopez, 2017, p. 44). If this quote interests you, then you will enjoy reading this book. Excellent read for teachers and administrators (especially ones who deal with discipline).

[Gretchen Roche · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a lot of good advice