Creating a Positive Classroom Environment.
School
is where students spend a large part of their lives. It is a place where a
significant part of intellectual and emotional development occurs, whether it
is from the curricula or from interactions with others. It is a place where a
large amount of socialization occurs. I see schools as a mirror into a society
that reflects how much the society cares for the individual. It is my belief
that building a safe nurturing society requires the building of a classroom
that is one of caring and concern for the students and teacher.
This
belief is based mainly on my last two years of High School and my time working
for an oil service company. I attended a
small International boarding school in Malta. The school had 165 students from
K-12th grade and had students from twenty-one nationalities. It was
a place where peer pressure was drastically less than in traditional American
high schools because having a peer group means having several people agreeing
about something that acts as a reference point for judgment. You had a hard
time finding enough students to agree on something in our school. It was
difficult to find more than a handful of students who had the same fashion
sense, musical taste, or passion for the same sports. There was overlap between
interests and students, but the fragmented nature of the student body meant
that being different from the student body was seen as being natural and
normal. I got the chance to mature in a way that allowed me space to be an
individual and to recognize that my areas of difference were just as much
strengths or weaknesses. The oil service company had two relevant policies at the time: all
Field engineers and Field Service Managers had to work at least five years of
their career in a country different then the one of their passport, and that all field locations could have no
more than two engineers of the same nationality working concurrently. The
thinking was that when everyone working an issue comes from a different culture
and educational background, the solutions that they come up with are more
comprehensive and robust than solutions from a group with the same education
and culture. The work of the office will be far more robust when the members
have diverse backgrounds. I worked in an office with Australians, Phillippinos, Malays, Burmese, Indonesians, Indians, Algerians, French, Dutch, and Venezuelans. Tolerance was essential for functioning n such an environment.
My
experiences in those environments helped me realize that diversity is vital to
solving the world’s problems, and that sound solutions require different points
of view be taken into account. After working through this module, I also
realized that there is a progression of feelings of safety and concern you need
to create in the minds of the students for them to feel they are in a safe and
positive environment. You need to establish the subject is one that is inherently
safe and positive, then establish that you, the teacher, are safe and want a
positive environment. Then establish the idea that a safe and positive
classroom is a collective effort. A teacher can set the stage, but the students
must all play their part. With respect to the subject, I try to create a
learning environment that welcomes different solutions and working paces, but does
have high expectations for what is considered quality work. I start by teaching
students an authentic problem-solving process (See picture below) that comes
from Engineering and Physics. 
Students realize it is complex enough to present difficulty for everyone in the class. Whether it is figuring out the given information, testing a solution’s validity, or writing up your final answer, everyone in the class has something to develop. The process equalizes the need for development and makes it harder for students to feel superior to classmates. I also take great pains to emphasize how the process is the same whether one is designing a computer network for a large company or solving a problem in class. This reminder sets the tone that the complex is possible; one just has to work their way to it. Teaching students Real-World Skills like problem solving processes helps establish connections to key themes in Anti-bias Education like Identity, Justice, and Action
This
is no longer solving x+4=9, there is a LOT more involved in creating a solution
to this, mistakes are guaranteed for most. Catching your mistakes before
presenting your work is the goal for all students, not making them. So students
feel it is safe to make mistakes in class. The next point I emphasize is that
this complexity means the chance of mistakes is far less when people work in
groups as more people can check the work, but group work requires more clarity
in the work and explanations of the group members. There is a responsibility on
the part of each student to explain their thinking clearly and in a way that
helps solve the problem, not feed/destroy egos. Again, I try and set the tone
that growth and differences are natural. Highlighting the real-world complexity
also establishes connections to the Anti-Bias education themes of Identity,
Justice, and Action ( Teaching Tolerance, 2016) .
With
respect to making students feel I am safe and positive, I spend a lot of time
before the school year starts getting information about the students and their
backgrounds from teachers, counselors, and staff including administrative assistants
and bus supervisors. If I am unfamiliar with the culture a student comes from,
I will research the culture on-line and try and ask friends I know from the
same country. If I know about the social groups, trends that kids follow, or
activities they do, I will try and learn enough about these to start a
conversation with a student when the moment arises. I consider these contacts
and research to help increase my engagement with the community surrounding the
school as many of the people asked are involved with the community surrounding
the school in different ways. In the event that the research or discussions
highlights a problem or issue, I will probe it further to get an idea of what I
can or cannot talk about with students. This further research helps reduce the chance
that I will be biased in my dealings with students, and it makes me more
sensitive to bullying or exclusionary behavior ( Teaching
Tolerance, 2016) .
I have found relations with the school counselors and whoever has experience in
disciplining students to be especially useful in gathering information that
helps one approach a given student better. I will regularly talk with the
counselors and assistant principals as the year progresses to update them and keep informed
about students and trends in the school community.
One
of the other things I do to help create a feeling that I am a safe person to
talk to is that I also give time during class for some side discussions if the
topic will help the students or myself gain understanding about how the topic
creates or overcomes bias. Sometimes it can be a remark a student makes while
working, sometimes a word problem in a resource might trigger a remark or
question that seems off topic but isn’t when looked at from the standpoint of
bias. A student asking a question means a student is thinking about something
and trying to make his/her way through the topic. If it is a topic that really affects or concerns him/her it will simmer to the surface in the form of a question.
Sometimes it will be asked at an appropriate time, other times it won’t.
Dismissing the question out of hand means dismissing the thinking that is
behind it. I have found it is always good to probe a bit before dismissing a
question that seems out of the blue. When one does give the question some
thought, it cultivates an environment where students feel less likely to hide
their behavior and it creates an environment of trust. While I tolerate some
impulsive questioning, I also spend a lot of effort emphasizing that students
need to learn appropriate timing to be successful adults. Many remarks students
make are not bad in and of themselves, but the timing, place, and context in
which they are made can make a neutral remark quite negative. While addressing
the impulsive questions, I often answer it partially and say I will answer
fully at a better time and/or place. When students see the behavior modeled,
they start to nudge each other towards finding better times and places for
discussions. If the school I work at allows it, I will try and sit with
students at lunch to try and give them time and place for asking questions they
can’t in class. All these things help model Social Emotional Intelligence and contribute to the development of a bias free environment ( Teaching Tolerance, 2016).
Once
the students see that the subject and the teacher encourage safety and concern,
it becomes easy to create a culture of concern for others and one where feeling
safe is valued as a goal to collectively work for. One technique that works is the careful selection and matching question difficulty with the strengths and weaknesses of
the students. Specifically, choosing questions that will present difficulty for different
students at different points in the unit or school year allows all to see that
everyone struggles with something. I also encourage students share successful strategies
that help the class improve on a particular skill or area. There is also a
constant reminder about the fairness of Mathematics; it “provides plenty of
moments to be an idiot and a genius, often in rapid succession”… This statement
makes it easier for students to accept that everyone has an off moment and
shrug them off and get on with the work that needs to be done. This explicit focus on understanding and appreciating differences also helps develop student Social and Emotional Intelligence which again contributes to anti-bias education ( Teaching Tolerance, 2016).
In
working through this unit and reading the resources for this lesson, I realize
now that a lot of what made my teaching feel safe and positive for students was
due to a ecosystem of structures, assumptions and policies present in the schools I taught at. The policies, rubrics, and structure of the schools I
worked were created to establish safe and positive environments in many subtle ways. So
many of these factors were implicit; the use of rubrics, the writing of
policies, the relations with the parents, the creation of a school community,
and many others all contribute to the creation of a safe and positive environment.
What I also realized is that I have never really been challenged in this area
as the private International schools that I have worked at have a much more accommodating
environment and surrounding community than most public schools in the USA. I imagine
a lot of what I write may seem naïve or pithy for those teaching in American public
education, but it what I have seen so far. I believe that I would have quite an
adjustment to teaching in the USA, as I don’t think I would be given the latitude
to do the things that I am able to do in my teaching so far. But I do believe
that the things I have outlined create an environment that is not biased
towards any one culture or background. It is biased towards creating people who
are problem solvers. I guess I try and bias every student towards that as a
diversion from the other biases in their lives. Giving them a unifying positive bias shows them there is something better that can unite people then the other biases that afflict their lives. Is this better or correct? I don't really know, but the students I have taught this way seem to lead much more positive lives than those taught by more traditional teachers. As I
typed the last sentence, it occurred to me that homeroom teachers play a huge
part in addressing bias and creating safety and positivity in a school. I think
that a goal for me would be to become a homeroom teacher to place myself in a
role where I have to develop this area more.
Works Cited
Teaching Tolerance. (2016). CRITICAL PRACTICES FOR
ANTI-BIAS EDUCATION. Montgomery AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.
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