Teacher-Student Relationships And The Law Of Reciprocity

To be an effective teacher, you must be able to build positive relationships with your students—because it causes them to want to listen to you, behave for you, and please you.

It gives you the leverage you need to influence their behavior and work habits. It helps make your classroom management plan matter to them.

In previous articles, we’ve covered how simply being pleasant is the easiest, most predictable way to build those relationships.

It works no matter your age or personality, what grade level you teach, or whether your favorite color is blue or burlywood. It even works while distance learning (which we’ll cover in an upcoming article).

What makes consistent pleasantness easy is that you don’t have to go to your students. You don’t have to try and make small talk, look for commonalities, or build rapport one at a time.

When you’re pleasant, and nothing more, they’ll come to you.

They’ll find you likable and interesting and will want to get to know you better. Oddly, even students with shy personalities, who tend to keep their distance from teachers, will like and feel comfortable around you.

How can this be? How can the easiest way to build relationships with students also be the most effective?

Because of the Law of Reciprocity.

The Law of Reciprocity states that when someone is nice to you, you’ll naturally want to be nice to them right back. It’s a deep-seated psychological urge that is embedded into our DNA.

It’s the reason we exchange birthday and holiday cards with certain friends and not others and why the friendliest restaurant servers make the most tips. We like to feel even-Steven.

We like to repay kindness with kindness.

There is a danger lurking, however. And this is the big caveat: The inverse is also true. When someone is mean to us or treats us with callousness it takes willpower not to want to get even. It also immediately weakens their influence in our life.

It can even make us want to avoid ever being around them.

Students are no different, which underscores the importance of consistent pleasantness. If ever you glare, lecture, or use sarcasm, it can be hard to work your way back into their good graces. Privately, they’ll knock you down a few pegs in their trust book.

Taking advantage of the Law of Reciprocity is more important than ever before. You see, students today are more appreciative of simple kindness and pleasantness than in generations past.

Maybe it’s the sheer coldness of social media or ubiquity of crass entertainment.

But in the midst of a society that no longer views politeness as a virtue, your refusal to hold grudges, get revenge, or be anything other than kind to your students is a superpower.

It’s a countercultural force that provides powerful, behavior-changing influence.

It makes being that one teacher students most admire and respect easier than it’s ever been. Again, you don’t have to go to them, which in many cases makes students more uncomfortable.

Your calm, smiling face is a hug from afar, a balm to strained minds and emotions, a warm cabin in a frozen wasteland.

It’s funny, though, and ironic. If you think of The Law of Reciprocity as a strategy to employ, it’s not as effective. Children have a finely tuned BS meter. They can tell if you’re being inauthentic or manipulative.

The giving of your kindness must come from the joy it brings to you. It must be a free gift without strings attached.

For when you give without expecting anything in return, which feels awesome, your students will bend over backwards to pay you back.

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24 thoughts on “Teacher-Student Relationships And The Law Of Reciprocity”

  1. A delightful expression of positive ways to connect with students (with staff members,too). A printout needs to go wherever I go to review my foundational goal for each day. One of your best! Tom

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  2. Thank you, Michael. This is such a daily challenge especially when you are repeatedly disrespected by students, their parents, and admin. My teaching partner and I talk each other off the ledge all the time to keep our “pleasantness” in check. A timely reminder as we begin the process of planning for an uncertain fall.

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  3. A fundamental which we all need to remember and review.
    I’ve been reading SCM and teaching for three years now and sometimes in trying to learn and improve I lose sight of this basic yet essential aspect.
    (I think it’s ingrained but still important to refresh)

    Thanks Michael 🙂

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  4. Being pleasant is always the happiest way to be! The pleasant teacher, however, needs to be EXTRA vigilant about enforcing boundaries! Sadly, many kids (and older people) see niceness as weakness or permissiveness.

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      • It is! When I first started implementing Michael’s strategies and advice, it was hard not to get sucked into a student’s justification for why they did a particular behavior, and argue with them. I just smiled and thanked them for explaining, then told them “I just wanted to let you know why you lost the daily points that you did so that you weren’t surprised when you saw the gradebook.” Really quickly they saw that I was pleasant but firm. It helped a ton!

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  5. Thank you for the insight, Michael. I think helping students feel welcome and safe will be more important this fall than ever before, as we experienced such a strange end to last school year.

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  6. Thanks for the reminder! Wondering if you might do an article for those of us who ARE going back to school (private school decision) and how we might discuss the stress that these young ones might be bringing with them due to covid and community issues.

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  7. This totally vindicates my teaching style. My ethos into make the classroom friendly, fun and fair. It must be a safe haven for them and one where they can destress.

    Some warm tonit and do work. Others take advantage and try to spoil it for the rest.

    However, our top form pupils clubbed together for me even despite lockdown and wanted that end of year class photo with me in the middle.

    I got a lot of personal “thank you’s” so, somewhere along the way, I must be doing something right.

    I follow and subscribe. A lot of this shapes and informs my style.

    Thanks.

    R

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  8. This a great reminder and very true. It’s not easy to do though. I have a dry sense of humour and so I tend to get sarcastic. I sometimes get called out for it by my own students. But I am not a “mean” sarcastic but “funny” sarcastic if that is even a thing. Still sarcasm is not a nice trait and to his article was a nice reminder to “kill’em with kindness”. 😉

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  9. I found that pleasantness really worked well over distance learning. I teach grade five math. I used my teaching time to teach, review homework, and test. I did not ask students if they completed homework. Rather, I used one on one, email correspondence to keep students’ work in check. I only addressed the class as a whole, stating positively, that I was glad to see that most kids were submitting their assignments. This was very effective because the students who did not hand in assignments did so because of the peer pressure of knowing most kids complied. This observation of only keeping the classroom environment positive was a real eye opener for me. It gets me thinking how I could apply this to the regular classroom. How can I have the time to address each student individually and hold them accountable if needed in a departmental environment?

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  10. I’m grateful for this reminder. In my early career I heard bad advice that ran counter to your advice here. I know now from using both strategies that this works and that doesn’t. If I’m tired or for whatever reason not thinking I might revert to giving mean looks, etc. Thank you. I need reminders.

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  11. Hi Michael,

    could you have a print-friendly button on your web page which when used offers just a small heading and your article without the extraneous matter on the side bar and comments. Some articles, like this one are so important and I find them so easy to forget that I would love to print them out to re-read monthly.

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    • You can always copy and paste to a Word document and then eliminate the things you don’t want for a “clean” copy. I do this all the time and it only takes a minute or two.

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  12. Hello Michael, I’m really looking forward to articles on classroom management during distant learning. Thanks for all that you do.

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  13. This is one of the major areas of your teaching philosophy I disagree about the most. I’m also certainly not an advocate for glaring at, disrespecting, and lecturing to students. I agree that pleasantness helps when it is applicable, but this is not always the case with certain classes. What I mean to say is that being nice can be seen as a sign of weakness, not just to students, but with parents and administrators as well. In my experience, students are more likely to test you and see what they can get away with if they sense you’re not in charge, or afraid to enforce consequences because you want to “be liked” by students. You’re also more likely to encounter “bully” parents who sense the same qualities of your personality. I prefer the “firm but fair” approach instead. You can still maintain boundaries and build relationships with students; however, students will sense there are lines they don’t cross. Being nice to them can make them try to be your friend instead of a hard-working student. I’m not saying you have to act like a robot with no personality, but you must make it clear to students early on there is a responsible adult in the room holding them accountable, not an adult peer who looks the other way when students misbehave. Ironically, I’ve noticed the more fair you are within the context of a well-organized classroom management plan, the more they respect you. I’ve noticed that teachers who are too nice are secretly not respected by many students.

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    • Hi Dan,
      I’d like to respectfully disagree with your take on kindness and the SCM method. I’m not an expert, but I have read all Michael’s books and every blog entry. I have used his methods for years. I teach high school history.
      Michael would never every endorse “an adult peer who looks the other way when students misbehave.” Conversely, he would entirely agree with your statement, “the more fair you are within the context of a well-organized classroom management plan, the more they respect you.”
      In fact, this is one of the key concepts of SCM: rigorous fairness and consistency with the classroom management plan. No excuses.
      I think perhaps some have mistaken a pleasant attitude and friendliness with weakness, being “friends” with students, and/or being a pushover. Michael does not advocate any of these things, and has written on numerous occasions about the dangers of trying to be friends or peers with students.
      You can have a pleasant demeanor and a happy spirit and still enforce a classroom management plan fairly and consistently. I do it all the time. I will admit it was a learned skill! By nature, I am a happy, content, smiling, joking, fun person. But my students also know exactly what I will or will not tolerate. I don’t have a lot of classroom rules (I used to, but came around to Michael’s way of thinking on that) but I am ruthless in enforcing the ones I do have.
      I have actually won over “difficult” students this way. Last year, I sent the captain of the football team, most popular boy in school, to ISS (in school suspension) the first week of school. He just would not stop talking. He later let it be known far and wide that he was not upset at all because he “deserved it and she was so nice about it, I couldn’t be mad at her!” He is not the only example.
      My students are not my friends. I don’t “hang out” with them outside of school. When I go to after school events I always bring another adult with me so there is no mistake about anyone thinking I’m hanging out with students. I not only live in a different city, but in a different state, lol. Yet my students know they can count on me. I am VERY nice AND I am universally respected by students, parents. and administration. AND I wake up happy every morning, and love my job!
      Anyway, these were a few of my thoughts. Be fair, consistent, be in charge, lead, but be nice. 🙂 I hope you have a great day!

      Reply
  14. This is absolutely true. In my early years of teaching i did exactly the opposite so in return they became resentful, they hate me. There was even a student who drew my face with fangs. I was like that then, because i didnt like teaching. It was a choice made by my mother. However, as time passed by and with the seminars that I attended especially joys in teaching, I started liking my work. How I wish I could turn back time and undo everything that I did. Now, even before reading this article I’ve already shown kindness to everyone. I’m always pleasant to them and I respect them too. It”s really true that kindness begets kindness. When you give it, it will come right back to you. It’s the law of reciprocity that Michael is sharing here.
    Now, whenever there’s holiday or during weekend my students aren’t that excited they wanted to have class or be in school, saying they love to be in my class. I couldn’t believe I have that kind of impact on them. Thank you so much Michael, I applied what I learned here. I want to read more of your articles.

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