Teach the Brain Forums

Community building activites:

Actively cultivate respectful, supportive relationships among students, teachers, and parents. Supportive relationships are the heart of community. They enable students from diverse backgrounds to bring their personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences into the classroom. Supportive relationships help parents, especially those who would otherwise feel vulnerable or uncomfortable, take active roles in the school and in their children's education.

Emphasize common purposes and ideals. Along with academic achievement, schools with a strong sense of community stress the development of qualities essential to good character and citizenship, such as fairness, concern for others, and personal responsibility. Everyone shares an understanding of the school's values, which then shape daily interactions.

Provide regular opportunities for service and cooperation. Students learn the skills of collaboration, develop wider and richer relationships, and experience the many satisfactions of contributing to the welfare of others.

Provide developmentally appropriate opportunities for autonomy and influence. Having a say in establishing the agenda and climate for the classroom is intrinsically satisfying and helps prepare students for the complexities of citizenship in a democracy.

*From Schaps (2003), "Creating a School Community," Educational Leadership, 60(6): 31-33.


Based on your experience in the classroom, does this seem like an appropriate approach to you? What techniques do you use to build a sense of community in your classroom?

Best wishes,
Christina

Prominent community building programs include:

James Comer's School Development Program: http://info.med.yale.edu/comer/index.html

Eunice Shriver's Community of Caring program: http://www.communityofcaring.org

Northeast Foundation for Children's Responsive Classroom: http://www.responsiveclassroom.org

David Hawkins's Seattle Social Development Project: http://depts.washington.edu/ssdp

Developmental Studies Center's Child Development Project: http://www.devstu.org


Have you tried elements of these or other programs in your classroom? What did you do? How well did it work?

All the best,
Christina

thanks Christina for this helpful important information,

can add, in my experience, it was always exciting (and not easy, sometimes) to create ways for the kids to teach other kids, or what we called at my youth organisation, Youth-to-Youth Communication. With adults as a resource, young people teach other young people and learn from other young people. Kids listen to kids, really.
are there any examples from teachers out there about specific examples you use in the classroom?
i remember we used to have a student lead the classroom lesson (once every few weeks a different student), and before they did, we (as teachers) would tell them to observe their peers and notice:

1. the ones who were just plain shy and staying quiet
2. the ones who were the silent leaders, the shy ones who had A LOT to really say, but afraid to say it
3. and the ones who talked a lot, who were always open to participate

and as that student gave the lesson, they would try to ease into it and when asking questions to their peers, they would try to engage the shy people to talk (without demanding them to do so, of course), to try to get the silent leaders to express their views, and the ones who talked a lot to, to try to challenge them to listen to the shy kids, maybe to pull the more extraverted ones aside, and say "hey, what can we do to open up this shy kid in the back?"
i guess this was one way to develop leadership skills (which relates to community building)

anyway, would like to hear about what YOU do,
thanks
Stehpen