What Counts Episode 3: But how do I build relationships?
[Transcript]
Danielle LeCourt
Before we recorded episode three, we did something unusual. We shared the first two episodes of what counts with a group of math teachers, then we listened to them. After the first two episodes, many teachers told us the same thing. We believe this. Relationships matter.
Teacher 1
Relationships change the way things are taught and the way students learn. And I think that is so true, I have to always find that balance.
Teacher 2
Making that time like putting that time aside no matter what, like pausing in the middle class. Okay, let's time out for a second. Let's, let's have a convo. Let's, let's talk a little bit. Let's regroup. Let's see how we're doing.
Teacher 3
I've always wondered, well, gosh, I don't have time to develop relationships with 142 kids, you know, but they mentioned that here, and I think that I overthink what building relationship is.
Danielle LeCourt
But as Claire Riddell points out, believing in relationships and knowing how to build and practice them are two separate things.
Claire Riddell
What I think is very prevalent is that there's an assumption that we just inherently know how to build relationships and that we don't intentionally practice and learn how to build relationships, especially with adolescents.
Danielle LeCourt
That question, the "how." is where we're going next. Because this work isn't just about new techniques, it's about a worldview. One that centers relationships at the heart of learning math. When we see teaching through that lens, everything shifts how we plan, how we listen and how we decide what matters most.
Danielle LeCourt
This is What Counts, a podcast presented by Impact Florida and produced by De LeCourt as part of the Math Narrative Project. I'm Danielle LeCourt. Over the last two episodes, we've explored why math is so emotional, and how quickly those emotions can compound into bigger blocks to learning. In this episode, we'll move from understanding why relationships matter to exploring how they're built, and we'll show what it looks like to turn this worldview into action.
Claire Riddell
When we think about what the messaging teachers receive around relationship building, it's either, and it was said to me when I started teaching, don't smile until December, get the class under control, or at some point in your own experience or in your professional learning, you've bought in, like, wow, relationships with students matter, and they're helpful.
Danielle LeCourt
When I asked teachers about this, their answers came quickly. Relationship Building was not something they'd ever been taught.
Anna Stewart
Absolutely not. No. You don't have classes like that. And when you're in college and you're taking the classes, it's like this wonderful classroom. It's not like that. In the real world.
Celena Crews
I've had principals talk about like the "it factor," like whether you have the it factor for the classroom or not, and whether or not that can be taught.
Danielle LeCourt
For most teachers, relationship building isn't something you learn in a methods class. It's something you build through experience. And at the core of all this is belief, a belief that every student can learn math and that relationships are what make that possible.
Claire Riddell
Is there a core belief that they can learn the mathematics? I think this idea of affirming competence and potential is critical like and we have to, as teachers, believe it deeply, because students can see through that in a minute, if you they if they don't think you actually believe that they can do the work, they can smell that a mile away. That has to come first, and that's internal work. And I think that you have to believe that first and foremost.
Celena Crews
It's a mental game. They just need someone to believe in them. They need some teachers. They need a teacher who believes in them and supports them and sees them as a person.
Danielle LeCourt
And belief isn't always easy. It takes courage to keep seeing potential and to hold that beliefsteady long enough for students to start believing it too. But what if you don't?
Danielle LeCourt
What if somebody doesn't have that core belief that they can do it? I can imagine that being a difficult thing to confront and be honest with yourself about and look at and not feel terrible like how does one come to that belief?
Claire Riddell
Well, this idea that, like, you have an experience like, where a student shares something or is vulnerable and you you're like, Oh, you reframe who you like who you thought they were and how they were going to show up.
Adrienne Baytops Paul
Let them speak, and you're going to get to know something about them that you wouldn't if you just stood in front of your class. And spewed information every day you just are. You're going to get to know these different personalities.
Danielle LeCourt
Listening opens the door to knowing who students are as people and also who they are as learners, because sometimes seeing a student differently means realizing what you've been missing all along. Claire had a story about this.
Claire Riddell
I had a student who we were starting systems of linear equations, and he kind of, it looked very procedural to him, and kind of was not interested, and he was working in a group, and he's like, he's like, Well, the answers need to be around these numbers. And I overheard that, and I was like, can you tell me more? And his number sense of understanding, like the concept, he was like, Oh, well, I can just see, like, I can intuit that this would need to be around five, and this would need to be around seven to make sense in the context. And I was like, this is incredible. Like anybody can can do a procedure, but the fact that you can then like Intuit and like make sense of this in context will serve you, like in your whole life. Like this is brilliant. And I think he was so taken aback by someone like seeing that as valuable and not saying, like, Oh, you don't know how to do the thing. Like, here, let me just show you how to do the thing. And I just remember it being a really powerful moment for him and for me, and our relationship changed after that moment, like he was more willing to ask me a question, he was more willing to come to me on homework stuff because he I think he knew that I saw him as capable and smart and that I saw value into what he brought into our math classroom.
Danielle LeCourt
And belief isn't something static. It deepens every time a teacher slows down long enough to notice a student's thinking, to hear what's underneath a mistake and to connect what they believe with what they see. And that's where belief starts to meet practice in the everyday choices teachers make, even when certainty hasn't caught up yet.
Claire Riddell
So I don't think it's belief before action or action for belief. I think sometimes it can go both ways. And so sometimes just committing to doing something that feels relationship building can then build the belief that, like, wow, this is you feel such a reward when that happens that it then continues to kind of perpetuate both the belief and the actions
Danielle LeCourt
Once belief meets action, the next challenge is knowing which actions to take. Because there isn't one right way to build relationships. Each teacher will have their own way shaped by their personality, their students and the dynamic of each class they teach. So that's why we framed this next part around a few guiding questions that teachers can ask themselves as they teach. These aren't prescriptions, but prompts to help determine which actions feel effective and authentic to them, so their relationships can grow and adapt in real time. So let's start here with this question: how can I understand who my students are as math learners? Before we can build relationships, we have to understand the people sitting in front of us, not just who they are, but how they experience math learning specifically, because every student brings a story to math class. Florida math teacher Cody Braden shared an activity he uses during the first week of school to learn those stories, a math timeline.
Cody Braden
One of my activities that I give to them within the first week of school is to have my students do a math timeline, where they share their experiences in math, and they have to pick at least three to five points and kind of write a little snippet about like, why they felt how they felt about math. So I give them creative control. If they want to make it like a timeline, if they want to make it like a line graph or a bar graph, however they want to display their information. But what I really focus with the kids on is if I see if there's sharp changes in your graph, tell me why. Like if it was amazing. Tell me what made it amazing, if it was not amazing at all, if there were, if you're if you were doing well, and then all of a sudden there's a huge drop in math. What? What changed? Was it environmental factors? Was it something with the class? Was it what changed to make it make you feel that way in regards to math? So and I get a lot of information from that and a lot of helpful information. So it kind of kind of gives a little bit of why the kids feel the way they feel towards math.
Danielle LeCourt
Understanding who students are is never a one-time act. It's something that adapts and deepens over time. And with that understanding comes our next question: how can I make connection a routine part of my day? Because relationships aren't built just in grand gestures. They're built in small, consistent moments, the everyday choices that tell students you matter. Here, for some teachers, that means greeting every student in a unique way. And for others, it's checking in at the start of class, or noticing when something's off, and following up. These small actions build a rhythm of attention.
Joseph Yeboah
I have so many greetings that I have with my students. So when the students come before they enter, you are supposed to greet me before you enter. So whatever, because I've already taught them so many styles of greetings, which is fun and interesting. So you come, you do whatever you want to do. When I see it, I also do the same thing, and you just play around before you get to the class.
Anthony Velardocchia
Something that I try to do, and it's difficult with 140 something students, but trying to get to know something about them outside of the math classroom. Like this morning, for the first time, some kid mentioned, oh, I play baseball like, oh, there's something else I can ask him about now. And so just them knowing that I'm interested in them as people outside of the math and the algebra, I think that that helps build that connection.
Danielle LeCourt
And often it's easier to focus on connection at the start of the school year, when names are new, and energy is high. But as this teacher points out, relationship building isn't just a first week activity, it's a year round adventure.
Derrick Frazier
Building relationships, it goes beyond, you know, the first two weeks of school. It's like, usually we just set aside some time and we do do these team building exercise and then week three, week four, we get into the heart of the content, but that shouldn't be the case. Relationship building is an ongoing adventure. I was talking with two students this afternoon, or more or less this morning, and one of the students had been out, her dog had been like sick, and she had taken the dog to the vet, and so she brought me pictures, showing me Hey, the dog is better. And then she went on to say that she has like, 30 plus dogs. The dogs that she have are like, used for, like, hunting. She probably would not have told me about this, probably during the first couple weeks of school, but now we're at the end of the nine weeks. So now I have another thing to build onto our positive relationship.
Danielle LeCourt
Teachers can't build deep relationships with dozens of students overnight, but students notice consistency, things like intentional greetings checking in or remembering small details about birthdays or challenges signal care over time, which leads to another question: how can I show students that their voices help shape my instruction? Because connection starts with listening. Not just hearing what students say, but taking it seriously enough to respond. When we act on what we hear, feedback turns into trust. Remember Michelle Knowles, the high school math teacher from last episode. Michelle told me a story about one of her ninth grade classes that just wasn't going well. Halfway through the year, their feedback scores were slipping, and the energy in the room felt off. As she dug into what was happening, she realized it came down to her seating chart, which made students feel like she was favoring some kids over others. So Michelle created an anonymous system where students could list three people they wanted to sit with and one person they didn't. And some of the suggestions for whom students didn't want to sit with surprised her.
Michele Knowles
And it was really nice that they could ask for people anonymously, because one of my little pair groups want best friends always together, but one of them is very distracting to the other one. When the one asked not to sit with her best friend, she said she's my best friend, but she distracts me, but because they were asking anonymously, her best friend didn't know she requested not to sit with her. So it kind of gave them a little freedom also in making academic choices, not just personal choices.
Danielle LeCourt
That gave the student freedom to make an academic choice instead of a social one, and it set the tone for the rest of class. From there, everything shifted. The room felt different. There was more energy. Students were more engaged, and yes, even some students' grades improved.
Michele Knowles
I had one student who the second nine weeks had like a 43 in my class, and that was how long it took us to get to this new seating arrangements, because we were still just trying to figure everything out. So when I changed them, he ended up at a table with another student who was very bright, and then another student who works really hard, and they chose each other, and at the end, he actually openly wrote that he liked working with those other two students, and it even increased his confidence, and he ended up the year with a B in my class.
Danielle LeCourt
These feedback and listening loops build trust. Listening communicates respect, and responding to feedback builds shared ownership of the classroom,
Claire Riddell
This is like a constant conversation that they get to come back to with their students. So that immediacy of the feedback and the ability to take it to the stakeholders in that moment and make sense of it provides an instant kind of cup filling ability to, just like, understand in the moment what that data means.
Danielle LeCourt
Michele's story shows what happens when we act on feedback in the moment, but listening can also change something deeper the way we plan, because once you start seeing your students' perspectives clearly, it's hard to go back to planning without them. So our last question becomes, how can I structure my lessons for both learning and relationships? Because when you plan with relationships at the center, you plan for connection, not control, and that changes how the structure works.
Sergio Luya
I used to be very obsessed with the calendar. I would make my calendar and I would say, I have to get to this topic by this day, and nothing's going to get in the way of that that mattered the most to me.
Danielle LeCourt
Remember Sergio Luya, whom we met in episode two? He began to realize that no amount of careful planning could account for the realities his students were living, the jobs they worked after school, the responsibilities they carried or the instability many of them faced outside the classroom.
Sergio Luya
We serve a very unique population. Hillsborough County is probably the I'm pretty sure it's the seventh largest district in the nation. So we're really big. We have about 28 high schools right now in Hillsborough County, Leto specifically, we serve about 2000 students, and we serve 82% Hispanics. So huge Hispanic population. We were the only school that was Renaissance like Renaissance school, in other words, like we always have over 90% free and reduced lunch. So the kinds of problems we see at Leto are not really the same kinds of problems that you see in other schools. For example, I have kids who they're working like jobs until 10 or 11pm just so that they can help their mom pay the bills. I was a Leto student. I remember I had to work part time jobs. I didn't want me and my mom to get evicted. So I think that's also helped me too, is that I get where these kids are coming from.
Danielle LeCourt
For Sergio understanding his students' lives reframed his definition of rigor, he began to see that relationships weren't separate from academic expectations. They were the structure that made learning possible, and when a hurricane hit his community, that understanding deepened in ways he didn't expect.
Sergio Luya
I even remembered this past year when we had the hurricane. I remember I told my kids, I'm like, oh my god, we're like, projected to lose 11 school days. And I said, Okay, well, just so that we don't fall too far behind, how about we do this assignment and this assignment and this assignment? And I assign things, and a lot of them are like, okay, sure. But then I had one kid just send me a message and say, "Hey, I'm gonna do my best, but I just want to show you kind of what I'm dealing with." And then he showed me how he's spending, like, 10 hours a day rolling up carpet and debris and just everything is ruined. And that killed me. In that moment, I just told the whole class, I'm like, listen, forget it. We'll figure it out. You know, take care of what you got to take care of, even if 80% of my students were in good shape and they can do the work. Just the fact that there's one or two that's going through, that destroyed me.
Danielle LeCourt
That moment shifted something for him.
Sergio Luya
I even sent them like a long letter, and I said that I've really gained perspective that I never thought of. I'm in a part of Tampa where I'm not in a flood zone or anything like that. So here I am in this high and mighty place without any damage to my place, and then I'm assigning things to these kids. And so I told them, I was like, hey, look to your neighbors, look to your friends. Reach out to all your friends and see if they're doing good. And why don't you go out and help? Don't ask them if they need help. Just offer the help. More kids even reached out to me and said, luya, I wasn't going to say anything, but you know what? Thank you. That was a big learning moment for me.
Danielle LeCourt
For Sergio, that experience redefined what it means to teach math.
Sergio Luya
Outside of those four walls in our classroom, they are human beings too. Inside those four walls, they're my math students. We're going to accomplish as much as we can mathematically, but outside of. That they're humans. We as teachers have to recognize that ever since I started shifting my mentality from hardcore curriculum has to be completed and shifting it more towards like building the culture of my classroom, I even enjoy my job as a teacher more. You know, I felt like before I was just dragging kids who didn't want to be there by their feet, and it was just always a constant battle. But now that I have them sort of more bought into the class, I have more fun going into going in there myself. I just I get so excited when I see all of them working so hard for me that they wouldn't have otherwise done had I not built those relationships.
Danielle LeCourt
Structuring for relationships isn't about lowering expectations, and it's not just about letting plans bend. It's about building plans that listen and adapt, plans that invite curiosity, conversation and the unexpected.
Claire Riddell
What I would love to see is school systems that celebrate the hard work that teachers do to form those 180 relationships teachers all the time get accolades for their test data and their achievement scores. And what I want to acknowledge is it's it's not easy work. It's hard work. You've got to learn names, you've got to create space for people across the day to participate meaningfully in mathematics.
Danielle LeCourt
At the heart of all of this is a worldview, one that centers relationships, not as extras, but as infrastructure. When we center connection, the work compounds. Small moves add up. Classrooms feel different. Kids stay. Teachers stay. But classrooms don't exist in isolation. Every student, teacher relationship lives within a wider web among students, colleagues and the culture of the school itself. When that web is strong, learning feels alive. In our next episode, we'll look at those other relationships and how they can either reinforce or unravel everything we've talked about so far. Because if relationships are at the heart of learning, then the real question becomes, how do we keep that rhythm when it depends on so many people moving together? This series is produced by De LeCourt. I'm Danielle LeCourt. Thanks for listening.
