Blog #7: Classroom Community
A classroom seeming like a community, like a family, is one of the most important things that we can provide to our students. Near the very beginning of the year I always found myself continually surprised by how much my students seemed to genuinely care for and about one another. We hadn’t been in school for very long so it seemed strange to me that they’d be so concerned about an absent student or wanting to help my CT or I comfort a child who was crying or upset. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. What I’ve come to learn over the last weeks and months is that I shouldn’t find this type of kindness and caring surprising. Kids are, generally, much nicer than adults. They can notice when things are wrong with each other and more apt to do something about it, rather than ignore it. Because of the work that my CT, my students, and I have put into making our classroom feel like a community, I am no longer surprised by the good I see every day. Instead, I have come to hold my students to the high expectations that we have set for them, and that they have set for themselves. Our classroom is like a little family and we show that off in all different ways.
This past week I have been in charge of redecorating the bulletin board in the hallway just outside our room. It’s closing in on Thanksgiving so I thought making a board about all the things we are thankful for would be appropriate. My CT brought in the stuffed turkey from home and we printed out the heading “We Are Thankful For…” on the computer. Then I gave each of my students a sentence strip so that could write their own sentence about something(s) for which they are thankful. My CT and I filled out some too. After they had written their sentence (and I had checked for spelling) I let them decorate and color. The sentences the kids wrote were cute, sweet, and funny all rolled into one. My heart melted reading sentences my students had written about being thankful for their teachers and for going to school. I laughed aloud later that day, when I was putting the final touches on the board, at how one of my students said she was thankful for strawberries. But a theme that I noticed on many of the strips was that my students were thankful for their families, their moms and dads and sisters and brothers.
Family is something that is very important to students from collectivist backgrounds, as many of my students are. Rothstein-Fisch and Trumball (2008) write in Managing Diverse Classrooms how collectivist cultures place greater value on the group as a whole than they do on individuals. They write about how family should be brought into the classroom in the work that the students do (Rothstein-Fisch & Trumball, 2008). This allows the classroom to feel and work like a community, and be respectful of the background of students. This is something that my CT and I have tried to do with our new bulletin board, and with other aspects of the classroom and the day that build community like Morning Meetings.
We don’t always have time for a Morning Meeting in the morning, because having a little time for Social Studies is important too, but we have at least two every week on Mondays and Fridays. My students love getting to talk about what they’ve done over the weekend or what their plans for the next weekend are. They also love getting to answer the questions of their teachers and their classmates about the stories they’ve told. If a student tells a story that involves one of their siblings, the other kids always want to know that siblings name and how old he or she is.
Charles and Senter provided an overview of Alfie Kohn’s work about classroom discipline in Building Classroom Discipline. Kohn has a unique view on discipline, in that he doesn’t really believe in int. He instead says that if classrooms can act as communities that discipline will not be necessary. Kohn believes that class meetings (like Morning Meetings) can be used to address any issues that a class may be having. Then everyone can be involved in making a decision about what should happen next (Charles & Senter, pg. 198).
This is something that I would like to try during the Morning Meetings that take place in my classroom. I need to draw upon the high expectations I have already set for my students and trust that they can handle it. My students will continue to get the chance to talk about their families, because that is incredibly important, but I would also like for them to have more of an opportunity to give their opinions about some things that go on in the classroom. We don’t have a huge discipline problem, they’re all great kids, but there are some little things, like calling out and wandering around the room when it’s time to work, that could be discussed as a class. The students, according to Kohn, will be more willing to follow and help enforce any solution that is come up with if they have a part in creating it.
I love that I get to learn so much about my students during our Morning Meetings and I love that I got to know even more about them when creating our Thanksgiving bulletin board. We expect more than ever more our students academically these days and what I’ve learned is that we also have to have high expectations for them socially. To me, it is just as important that they are learning to become kind and caring little people as they are learning to become good writers and mathematicians. I expect the very best for my community of students in both aspects for the rest of the year and know that they all have bright futures ahead of them too. I am very thankful for all of them.
Addresses FEAPS 2 c, d, and f
References
Charles, C., & Senter, G. (n.d.). Alfie Kohn's Beyond Discipline. In Building Classroom Discipline (7th ed., pp. 189-201). Allyn and Bacon.
Rothstein-Fisch C. & Trumball E. (2009). Managing diverse classrooms: How to build on students cultural strengths. Virginia: ASCD.
