Relational Teaching and Learning After Loss: Evidence From Black Adolescent Male Students and Their Teachers Nora Gross University of Pennsylvania Cassandra Lo Georgian Court University Prior research shows that many teachers feel ill-equipped to deal with students experiencing loss, and teachers of Black male adolescents, in particular, sometimes mistake grieving for misbehavior. This multimethod case study investigated the way teachers and their Black male students at a single-sex school related around encounters with loss. We examined students’ and teachers’ grief experiences through stories that were shared during qualitative interviews and focus group meetings and by observing everyday interactions throughout the school building. Additionally, a survey was distributed to the senior class and school staff asking respondents to report their experiences with loss, grief, and relational support. We found that both groups shared a desire to forge relationships for grief support and that both students and teachers also felt their emotional needs were unacknowledged at times. We also documented many successful moments when the strength of a personal bond between student and teacher eased the pain of a significant personal loss. In this article, we argue that specific relational strategies, as outlined within the model of relational teaching and learning, can be effective for supporting students through periods of grief and can, in turn, also positively impacts teachers’ own recovery from loss. Furthermore, we propose that school psychologists can play a critical role in supporting the relationship building between students and teachers, particularly in under-resourced schools without enough mental health personnel. Impact and Implications This study suggests that relational teaching models greatly benefit students experiencing grief and loss, particularly Black male high school students who are often labeled as “problems.” Our findings show that school staff must be mindful and supportive in their interactions with grieving students, which can positively impact schooling experiences for Black males. We also echo prior literature calling for more professional training for teachers around grief support and discuss possibilities for school psychologists within the relational teaching model. Keywords: Black males, adolescents, relational teaching, grief support, loss Grief and loss linger below the surface of many interactions in schools (Ayers, 2014), particularly in low-income communities of color where students bear an “unequal burden” of deaths of family and friends due to the effects of structural racism and intergenera- tional poverty (Smith, 2015; Umberson et al., 2017). Although school-based mental health professionals are trained to support students in these situations, under-resourced urban schools are likely to lack these individuals in adequate numbers. This absence leaves classroom teachers, who interact with students more regu- larly, among the first to witness and respond to students’ loss and grief. Our multimethod case study of an all-male high school in a large urban school district examines practices of relational teach- ing and learning for and among Black male students after loss experiences. We seek to understand the desires of both students and their teachers for relationships that allow for healing, as well as the roadblocks that hinder these interactions. Through inter- views, focus groups, ethnographic observations, and surveys of both students and faculty, we investigated the daily interactions between teachers and students that promoted and restricted the well-being of grieving adolescent male students. Grief and Loss in Schools In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in studying the impact of trauma or loss in school contexts—such as the special issue of English Journal (November 2017, Volume 107, Issue 2) on death in the English classroom, the special issue of School Mental Health (March, 2016, Issue 1) on trauma-informed practices in schools, and this special section of School Psychology Quarterly. Researchers in education, psychology, and social work acknowledge the critical importance of understanding how stu- dents’ losses outside of school might impact their academic lives, Nora Gross, Graduate School of Education, and Department of Sociol- ogy, University of Pennsylvania; Cassandra Lo, Department of Teacher Education, School of Education, Georgian Court University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nora Gross, Graduate School of Education, and Department of Sociology, Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, McNeil #113, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: ngross@gse.upenn.edu This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. School Psychology Quarterly © 2018 American Psychological Association 2018, Vol. 33, No. 3, 381–389 1045-3830/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/spq0000285 381