Creating Community in the Classroom

During the Spring quarter, my cohort did their first Observation Week. I had the opportunity to observe in a fantastic elementary school with an amazing fourth grade teacher. I learned a lot that week: about creating lessons, discipline, and dedication. One of the most significant things I learned that week, however, was how important it is to create a sense of community in the classroom. Without it, teachers and students are just going through the prescribed motions. By creating a classroom community, the teacher is ensuring that students feel safe, validated, and important. It can be argued that more learning takes place in a class that is comfortable and a class in which the students feel safe. My observation teacher recommended an excellent series of texts which deal with the idea of building a classroom community. The first text in the series: Teaching Children to Care by Ruth Sidney Charney, gives a broad overview of different ways to build a community in the classroom. Each section is geared toward giving teachers the tools the need to incorporate a different component of community into their class.

After a brief introduction, the first section, entitled "Building a Learning Community" stresses the importance of the first six weeks of school. This section discusses practical ways to make and teach rules in the first six weeks, how to gradually open up the classroom to students, and how to develop a critical contract with students and parents that states the student's goals for the year. This section also deals with the idea of starting the morning with a designated Meeting Time to touch base with students. It also discusses teaching expectations to students and working out a system of rules as a class.  In addition, the first section discusses creating a "Critical Contract" between students, the parents, and the teacher.  This contract outlines the goals that each have for the student. 

The next section, "Making the Community Work", discusses rules and rule making.  This section goes in-depth about how to make rules as a class, using logical consequences when rules are broken, time out, what to do with the "five percent", and how the community can work together to support the rules.  Charney mentions that this rule-making process may take several weeks.  It is a process of collaboration and revision.  The goal is to make a set of rules that both teacher and students can agree upon that provide guidelines for the class and reinforce the idea of community.

Next time: Sections Three and Four: The Voices of Teaching and Further Strategies for Difficult Classroom Behaviors.