Yesterday, I wrote a piece about assuming students have collaboration skills and building class culture. These vital learning pieces were greatly deemphasized and cut (even ridiculed as a waste of time) during the last 15 years or so of school “reform.” I meant to include a paragraph or so about how time consuming building class culture and group dynamics is (what tends to be called “Social Emotional Learning” today) … which is one of the reasons they were vilified, since making sure every piece of every “researched based” ELA, math, intervention and writing program must be implemented with absolute fidelity, and that took up the whole day … no time for anything else (even apparently science, art, social studies, PE …..).
I was fortunate to be part of a staff long ago that was told in no uncertain terms before school started, that we should take 4 to 8 weeks to focus on building a supportive, collaborative culture in our classrooms. The principal was looking for that happening from the first day of school and the staff worked together on lessons and activities and literacy pieces and projects all designed to foster and build that culture. I remember my first year at that school wondering how that would take 4 to 8 weeks (with follow ups throughout the year). BTW it wasn’t like we didn’t teach reading and math and science and everything else … its just that we took some of the time for those subjects, especially early on to teach whole lessons and discussions and talk about what we were reading (Crow Boy, Maniac Magee, and others were favorites) that centered on respect, collaboration skills and more.
My students even produced some award winning video projects that sprang up around our work in these areas: Don’t Laugh At Me and Being Different come to mind as student initiated projects. And these took a lot of class time for students to produce. But the language and discussion and writing and creativity they spawned were incredible. And if we had problems come up later in the year it wasn’t unusual that we would watch and discuss these videos and revisit discussions about books and activities we’d experienced. IT TOOK TIME! Valuable time, but valuable time well spent (and note the arts and hands-on technology use … and when I run into these students from time to time (now past college graduate age whether they went to college or not) these projects and others are what they want to talk about.
So my message here is it shouldn’t just be that you have a Social Emotional Learning program at your school with siloed lessons …. we should be spending the time to make this kind of learning and work part of the culture at school and in our communities. I think we are currently experiencing the results first hand of cutting these experiences because ELA and math were more important.
Learning is messy!
I really like the idea of taking time out of the day to talk about respecting others and building that cultural connection in the classroom. I am going into student teaching in the next year and 4 to 8 weeks to establish that culture sounds like a long time but I could see how it could be time consuming. I plan on spending time every morning or before the students leave, getting to know them.
Nice piece of information and writing. I too strive to make this part of the classroom especially at the start of the year.
I was just talking to our school tutors and they were telling me how the first 2 weeks of school were so important. They have all these fun group activities to assist with building classroom dynamics. It’s nice to see others feel the same.
Thanks Dee – yes, and there should be a constant focus on the culture of the classroom and hopefully the school too!
Hey Dee,
I am fortunate enough to have a principal that requires the first two weeks to be all about expectations and relationship building. My first year working at my school, I remember thinking that it was such a waste of time. Afterward, I realized how amazing it was to see the difference in having those two weeks to get to know each other. The students felt more comfortable are much more willing to partake in risktaking activities. The students will feel more invested and valued. It is time-consuming but it is definitely worth it.
I really enjoyed the Being Different video. I think it is beneficial to teach kids about how to treat one another and to celebrate each others differences. I also think it was clever to mix this with art and technology.
Hi Brian!
I am an aspiring educator, finishing my last year at Colorado State Universtiy.
I couldn’t agree more with what you have to say about creating a culture in the classroom. The most important thing is building relationships with your students and the learning will then follow.
Do you have any other examples of how you would go about building a culture and classroom dynamics?
Thank you, Brian, I really enjoy your blog.
Hi Kim – Thanks! Here are a few favorites … I have so many posts, hard to remember where they all are – but these should get you started:
http://www.learningismessy.com/change/never-assume-your-students-know-how-to-work-together-on-a-project/
http://www.learningismessy.com/11/skyping-celest-day-one-the-whole-story/
http://www.learningismessy.com/11/leaving-their-mark-redux-redux/
http://www.learningismessy.com/uncategorized/repost-a-forgotten-best-practice-making-a-difference-in-students-lives/
Brian
The idea of fostering an emotionally safe culture within your classroom makes me jump for joy. Learning is worlds easier when you feel emotionally safe with the people around you.
I really like this idea for schools to incorporate into the beginning of their school year. I guess one of the problems would be time constraints in terms of getting through curriculum, especially with all the class time we now lose to state testing. I think the benefits of this are worth districts going in this direction, especially with the climate of the country today. The idea of centering lessons on respect and collaboration really allows students to get to know each other and the cultures they come from as well as allowing the teachers to really get to know their students which is integral to the learning process.