Friday, June 28, 2013
This is the year for "Community!"
I have to admit that although I feel that in the past I have had positive relationships with the students in my classroom... personal connections etc. I am not sure that my students truly had a community. I have learned in the past year that the true idea of community is not just for ME as the teacher to build connections, but for the students to connect with each other. Before masters I guess I assumed that in a small school that the students already knew each other. But I have come to realize that this is simply not true. I am excited to treat building community as an intentional goal from the get go. I did try to use some of the ideas and strategies throughout the year as we experienced them in masters but now I get to do the real deal. It is worth the investment in the beginning of the year to work and focus on community. Really if you don't establish that... what do you have? 30 students working independently, as they sit next to one another. I have always felt that my "beginning of the school year" was missing something and now I know what is was. True community building activities. Perfect Classroom is really a good reflective piece for these thoughts to be cemented and better yet steps and action taken to avoid similar habits from repeating over and over again. I celebrated by 34th birthday this week and I cant believe how fast time flies. I'm half of 70. Older and wiser... at least about community!
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Happy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteHappy belated birthday!
ReplyDeleteI use to assume a lot of things before this masters class so I feel you there. It is so much fun to watch the kids get to know each other or learn something knew about the kids they thought they knew. That game "two truths and and lie" would be fun, Jen does that with her kids and she said it's a great discussion starter!
Well at least you're not half of 80!!! haha - Happy Birthday
ReplyDeleteGood luck building your communities in your classes. It's gotta be a lot harder when you have 5-6 different sets of kids. I think it's easier for elementary teachers because we have our kids with us all day.
I also have thought of community as me having personal connections with my students. I also assumed that they new each other already and that a community was already established. I am excited to try some new ideas this school year to try to establish the levels of communities that we have discussed. I am also a little nervous about it as I have never designed such activities intentionally. Happy belated birthday. I thought you were 28. :)
ReplyDeleteI feel like I am telling everyone about this book, but in my research I really liked a chapter that I read from a book called Spirit Whisperers:
ReplyDeleteMoorman, C. (2001). Chapter 4: The Principle of Personal Responsibility . Spirit whisperers: teachers who nurture a child's spirit (pp. 97 - 126). Merill, MI: Personal Power Press.
He really focuses on putting the choice and responsibility in the classroom on the students. He talks in the chapter about how we need to teach our students the behaviors that we want to see, we can't just assume that they know how to do it, no matter how simple of a task it might be.
Great message! He's right. Never ASSUME. Keep giving out those great resources!
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