Establishing a Positive Classroom Climate

“Skinny Bones Jones!” “Four eyes!” “Cross-eyed!” Those were a few of the names I was called as a child. Sometimes I had the misfortune of wearing a patch over one eye to try to strengthen my lazy eye. It didn’t work. It just made it very difficult to see and function. And made me look like a silly, skinny little pirate girl, more odd than I already was, as a biracial child who didn’t look like anyone else I knew. Not in my Southern California neighborhood, not in magazines, not on TV. (My parents were married in 1967, not long after it became legal for blacks and whites to marry.) I did somewhat resemble the Latinas, with my olive skin, dark eyes and dark hair. So I clung to them. Tried to be like them, talk like them. All while secretly wishing I wasn’t so “ugly,” that I could have the nose, eyes, skin and hair of Farrah Fawcett. I did love the R&B music on Soul Train which we watched every Saturday morning. And I loved the soul food my dad cooked. But I was one hot mess of cultural confusion! When I was 13, I saw my first Broadway show and fell in love with theatre. I started acting, singing and dancing. I had finally found a place where I belonged, where my looks didn’t matter. I could be anyone I wanted to be. Later, I lived in France and became fluent in French (and more fluent in “outsider”). Speaking French added to my exotic appeal. (“Exotic” is a word I heard often in reference to my unique look. Meant to be kind, it emphasized the fact that I was different.) I wonder if I would be a less insecure person, less prone to stress-inducing perfectionism, if my teachers had made even the slightest attempt to create a safe, inclusive environment that acknowledged and celebrated diversity and helped me find my place. I will say that unlike some kids who don’t perform well when feeling like an outsider, I pushed hard to prove myself and carve my niche. In high school, I joined every club possible, held offices, had a high GPA and performed in all the school shows. But I was a nervous wreck trying to prove my worth, prove that I belonged. Again, I wonder, could my teachers have made a difference?

I don’t blame my teachers in the least for my pain and confusion, but I hope that my experiences will help me create a climate of caring and concern in my high school classroom so students can reach their full potential without becoming suicidal! My experiences have made me a naturally empathetic person, and already, when I work with students, I am concerned first and foremost with who they are as people. I strongly believe that students perform best when they feel seen, heard and understood. The bulk of my work currently is providing one-on-one academic support. I try not to push the students too hard until they have had a chance to share what they want to share, about their weekend, about the current tunes their listening to, whatever. And they are eager to share, eager to have an adult listen and care. When there are conflicts in the classroom, I will often take students aside one at a time to allow them to share what happened from their own perspective and offer my counsel, often citing my own personal experiences, which they seem to appreciate. They get that I get them! I’m also the high school dance coach and have begun adding Hispanic pop songs to our playlist for the enjoyment of the many Hispanic girls on the team. But these are things that, for the most part, I do intuitively rather than intentionally. Now I have to think about intentional ways to foster an atmosphere of comfort, safety, inclusion and relevance.

In my Prezi, Setting the Stage for Success, I outlined ideas for building positive relationships with students, which extends to building a positive classroom environment. Here are some of the ideas I presented, more fleshed out.

Know Your Audience (or in this case, your students!)
At the start of each term, when I receive my class rosters, I hope to find out as much as I can about students I don’t already know, by using the online student-teacher portal and talking to fellow coaches, SPED teachers, general ed teachers, and guidance counselors. I will have a confidential file for each student to record what I learn and add to it as time goes by. This will allow me to figure out in advance what accommodations I will need to make, as well as how to add culturally relevant elements to my curriculum. I am seeking endorsements to my secondary teaching license in Special Education, Drama and French. If I get hired in my current district, I know I will be working with a lot of Hispanic students. If teaching drama, I can have students analyze and do scene work from plays written by and about the experiences of Hispanic-Americans. If teaching French, I might have a unit of study that compares and contrasts French and Spanish vocabulary and grammar. Understanding the many linguistic similarities (and the handful of differences) will help Spanish speakers appreciate and more easily pick up the French language. This will also create a bridge of understanding between the Spanish and non-Spanish speaking students.

Foster a Sense of Family

Although every family has its share of dysfunction, they generally care about, protect and support one another. I would like that sense of family in my classroom, a sense that because we know each other we are less likely to be insensitive to one another especially as concerns our unique attributes. To get to know each other better, I would like to have a “family” calendar in my classroom where students can write their birthdays and significant life events, such as their Quinceanera, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, and holidays they like to celebrate, like Day of the Dead, Chinese New Year or Mardi Gras. Once or twice a month, we would appoint a day to observe these occasions. I can work these into the curriculum, having students work in groups to create multimedia presentations. One group might make a documentary about the students celebrating birthdays that month. Another group might document the history of a particular holiday.

Rules for Improv/Rules for Life

Another thing I am keen to try is having the students, rather than just myself, create a class contract with rules of conduct and constructive consequences for breaking the rules. As I pointed out on our Cohort’s Wiki page, in “Bullying G: A Case Study from South Korea,” it is important that a class contract be largely student-generated rather than teacher dictated. This will allow them a sense of ownership and a feeling that they are accountable to each other. By constructive consequences, I mean going beyond punishment to consequences that result in fences being mended (greater empathy and understanding) and bridge building (new alliances being formed). Regardless of the subject I am teaching, I would kick off the process by sharing my experiences as an actor (students love these stories), particularly the “Yes and” improv game/rule and the “applause” rule. “Yes and” requires that you respect and support your scene partner by accepting whatever wacky ideas they throw out and adding your own ideas to the mix. You don’t deny, change or control, but rather go with the flow. That honors both partners’ contributions and allows for new, exciting things to come about. It’s a rule that is applicable to all areas of life. The “applause” rule asks that every game, scene or improv ends with a big round of applause, acknowledging everyone’s efforts regardless of how successful it was (or wasn’t). After introducing these concepts, I would break students up into small groups and ask them to discuss what feels like honor, respect, affirmation, etc. and what doesn’t, with some concrete examples. Out of that discussion, we would write and sign our contract.

Pair and Share Interviews

I have often used this activity to get students acquainted with each other, having students interview each other in pairs then introducing their partner to the class. But my list of questions was rather generic and did not allow much room for diversity to be addressed. Here is the list of questions I am currently compiling:

1. What is your full name?
2. What does your name mean?
3. Does your name have a story behind it?
4. Where were you born? (city, state, country)
5. Do you speak any languages other than English?
6. Who makes up your family?
7. Do you have favorite foods that are specific to your race, culture or ethnicity?
8. What are your favorite holidays? How do you celebrate?
9. What is your favorite style of music/favorite artists?
10. Favorite TV shows/movies?
11. Favorite books/magazines?
12. Who do you look up to in your family or circle of friends, and why?
13. What other countries have you lived in or visited?
14. What other countries would you like to visit?
15. What future careers are you interested in?

I would tell students that they may skip questions they don’t feel comfortable answering, but that they must answer at least 10 of them.

These four activities would be the springboard for creating an atmosphere in which students feel free to be themselves and contribute positively to our school community. From there, I would have to continually strive to learn more about the students and the cultures and subcultures they come from, and how I can acknowledge, affirm and incorporate their unique backgrounds into my classroom and curriculum.

Sources:

A Breakthrough in Social and Emotional Learning (video). January 2010. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXy2V1JmJUs

Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education. 2014. Teaching Tolerance. Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/PDA%20Critical%20Practices_0.pdf

Marzano, Robert J. The Art and Science of Teaching. 2007. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). Retrieved from https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/platform-user-content/prod-copy/get_help_resources/activity_resources/module4/The_Art_and_Science_of_Teaching.pdf