The readings this week made me feel more relaxed and hopeful because my passions lie with community building and relationships between students and teachers and students to students. I may have questions as to how I am going to build safe and nurturing communities, but I know it can be done and I am hopeful that I will remain conscientious of environmental issues amongst the classroom experience.
Not all environments are equal, even if you have the same people. I think it really takes some hard constructive energy to create a safe and inviting atmosphere for many individuals, no matter the age of the individuals. It also takes time. From my own experience, it usually takes about six weeks to start to feel comfortable in the classroom- where you can feel safe to say and talk about anything. But then the quarter is just about over and you have to move onto other classrooms and restart the whole process.
In an elementary school classroom, I would think it would still take a few weeks for the kids to feel safe with one another and with the teacher, but you have the rest of the year to work on the progress; that feels hopeful. I am storing away many ideas on how to connect with my students.
Games to get to know one another are always promising and fun and what kid doesn’t like a fun game?
Depending on the grade level, the method can be adjusted. I find it appropriate to have a constant daily or weekly dialogue going back and forth, similar to how two professors that I have had used folders or a piece of paper to write back and forth. The content can be on anything that is going on with me in or outside of class. I can ask a question or just comment on any random thing. The significance lies within building a relationship between the communications itself. I don’t think that this would be hard for any teacher to do, but I guess I could always be wrong.
A colleague wrote about a teacher having “coffee breaks” with her students in order to carve out some one-on-one time with each student while other students were working on an activity. I thought that this was a great idea to make you available as a teacher and could be a simple reward for the student.
I think that is one key aspect to always remember: simplicity. What may seem so simple and small to an adult could be gigantic to a child. We should never assume that a child wouldn’t appreciate a simple gesture such as stickers, a smile, congratulation, or a meeting time carved out. These things are important to children. It shows that they are cared for, which is crucial in a learning environment. Being cared for is a main ingredient in building a safe and nurturing community.
Each child will need to be cared for. This seems to be a very large task for so many people in such a short time span. Nonetheless, each child must be cared for and they must feel it. As discussed in blackboard, these feeling of being cared for can result from having direct communication with each child, bringing differences and similarities into focus, connecting with parents, and making time to do the little things that will add up.
Reflecting back on my own experience, I do not remember feeling “special” or cared for by my teachers. I liked school and never had any problems at school, but I don’t remember my classrooms feeling as a community. Could it be that as a child, you just go through the motions of the school day and never really think about how it impacts you. Obviously, I didn’t know how community affected me until college…my latter attempts at completing my college voyage. I wonder what kids think and feel about their school experience now?
In observing my daughter’s third grade classroom, I have seen classroom meetings take place, which seem to strengthen the environment, but that is from my first perspective. In these class meetings the teacher tells the students to sit in the front of the room on the floor in a circle. One part of the meeting is discussing any issues as a group. The second part of the meeting is each child has to turn to the child on their left or right and tell them what it is that makes them grateful or happy for that person. This happens all the way through the circle- and the teacher participates as well.
The third portion of this meeting is the teacher reads messages that the children have written about someone else on pieces of paper. I do not know if these pieces of paper or read off daily or weekly. The first couple of times I witnessed this occasion, I was very warmed by the process and activity with the kids.
However, I also felt that the purpose or meaning behind doing this exercise was lost because it was something they did every day. There answers that they were giving each other weren’t said with sincerity or thoughtfulness. I felt as if they were just spitting out what sounded good to the teacher so they could get this exercise done with. I really think that they lost touch with the process and meaning because they did this too much. I wonder if it might be better to do this kind of activity on a weekly basis or if it is something that should be done every day. Can too much of something work against your best intentions?
I guess I question how you strike a balance. I have walked into one room and literally almost tripped over my own feet at the sheer feeling of what complete silence felt from second graders. It was a horrid feeling. They were doing a worksheet, each child at their own desk that was lined in single file rows. The worksheet was not a test and there was no discipline problem that surfaced for the reason behind such silence. The teacher just liked it that way. It felt so out of place and inappropriate.
Now, I know there is a time for silence, conversation, chatter, and play, but this silence was just painful. How could a teacher feel that this environment was nurturing to the kids? I don’t want to assume more than what I felt or saw, but I made a note that I do not want to ever feel like that again from walking into a classroom and sure wouldn’t want to have a parent, another teacher, or a student feel what I felt. So, where is the balance? I would assume that the answer to this question comes with the practice of having your own classroom filled with live and active little bodies.
I really feel that Green hits the spot: “our classrooms ought to be nurturing and thoughtful and just all at once; they ought to pulsate with multiple conceptions of what it is to be human and alive”. To be aligned in straight rows with heads down saturated in an uncomfortable silence is not what I picture to be nurturing, thoughtful, or just, nor is forcing a well-intended activity of bonding and respect very nurturing, thoughtful, or just.
So how does a teacher strike a balance? I think the answer lies in being conscientious of the children and what they are saying with their eyes, ears, mouths, and bodies as a whole: Reading and hearing what they are telling you without necessarily having the need for verbal words to do so.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Great examples and questions here. I think that you raise an important point: You witnessed something that became something more of a ritual than something that actually represented kids' voices and concerns,so I'm not clear that such things are at the core of commmunity.
And no, kids all seated silently creates situations where it's all between the student and the teacher and anything possibly learned from the classroom community is minimized.
WHich leads me to my last point: You speak here of kids and how they're perceived by their teachers and how they're acknowledged by their teachers. Yes, all true.
And these chapters are also very much about child-to-child affirmation and safety and support, not through required "say nice things" but through very deliberate collaboration in one another's learning.
That can be very powerful.
Post a Comment