Submitted by: Nick Kempski

Relationships come first; everything else comes second. This is the mindset I’ve had since I first saw Patrick Briggs doing high kicks and crumpling up dollar bills at the AVID National Conference. If you are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, do yourself a favor and look up “Patrick Briggs AVID National Conference 2016.” Later, I heard Rita Pierson say, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Relationships are the single most important thing a teacher can build to positively impact student learning. Here is a story that has absolutely nothing to do with incorporating best practices or amazing strategies, but it did more for me in an AVID classroom than just about anything else I’ve tried.

It was late fall of 2022. The men’s World Cup was being played in November and December because the blistering heat of Dubai did not allow the event to take place in the summer. What did this mean for me? Well, my students love soccer, and the World Cup is a massive event that is important to them, their families, and their culture. The games were aired throughout the school day. To say that getting their attention for 50 straight minutes, while an important game was on, was hard is a massive understatement. I had two options: Fight the World Cup, or embrace it. I chose to embrace it. We had students take notes on the World Cup, they asked tutorial questions about soccer, and I found ways to reward them by showing some of the games in class. The students were watching the games on their devices regardless if I allowed it or not, so I decided to incorporate something that means a lot to them into what we did in the classroom.

One day, we were watching the Mexico game, which became a schoolwide event. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, had this game on. You could hear kids cheering throughout the hallways. Kids were watching it on their phones as they took an extended bathroom break from the classes that did not allow this sort of educational practice. My thought was that students were going to stay home and watch the game if they couldn’t watch it at school, so again, I embraced what was happening. As we were watching the game, I noticed a lot of shots missing the goal. Shots were going over the net, left and right of the net, and nowhere near the net. I questioned the students, “Are they not being taught to actually shoot it at the net? Like, are they unaware that the object is to put the ball in the net?” The students all laughed and said that it was harder than it looked. I took this as a challenge—a very literal challenge. It just so happened that the girls’ varsity goalie was in my AVID class. I said, “I bet I can make 8 out of 10 shots just by kicking it at the net.” The students all laughed and said I was crazy. The competition was on, and a day was set for me to kick soccer balls against our varsity goalie.

It was too cold to go outside to do this competition in the winter, and our soccer nets were not set up. This challenge built up until the spring. On the first nice day, I took the kids outside for the AVID soccer shoot-out. I ended up completely missing the goal multiple times, and I only made 2 out of 10 shots. The kids all laughed, razzed me, and talked about it the rest of the year. There are videos floating around of me making a fool of myself. What is the point of all this? The students did anything I asked of them from there on out. Parents came to conferences thanking me for valuing their culture and connecting with the students. By simply finding something that my students were interested in and embracing it, even though it was not something I was initially interested in, I was able to build relationships that led to increased student involvement and a positive learning environment. I am not suggesting that you cancel class, start watching sports in school, and embarrass yourself on a soccer field. What I am suggesting is that you take time to learn what your students value and embrace it. Find ways to incorporate it into the classroom. Build relationships and earn trust. The result will be increased student involvement, a positive classroom environment, and increased learning.

More About Nick:

Nick Kempski is an AVID Elective Teacher and Site Coordinator at West Chicago Community High School in West Chicago, IL. He is a first-generation college student, who graduated from Illinois State University in 2007 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Education, and has a Master’s Degree from Aurora University in Educational Administration. Nick works as an AVID Staff Developer certified to train AVID Implementation: High School and Culturally Relevant Teaching: Transforming Educators.