Creating classroom community: why and what?

1. Creating classroom community: why and what? If we teach today’s students the way we did yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow. John Dewey

2. Creating Community in the Classroom MMSD Class: Winter 2013 Carla Hacker: chacker@madison.k12.wi.us Kathy Hellenbrand: khellenbrand@madison.k12.wi.us Laurie Frank Lsfrank@mac.com

4. Flow • Foundations • Creating Conditions/Tools • Facilitator Knowledge • Application

5. Foundations • Welcome/Introductions • Intentional Community Building • Ground Rules/Protocols/Non-Negotiables • Connections • Norms – Best Workshop Ever! • Create Base Teams • Why Create a Sense of Community? • Container Concept

6. Foundations • What is a Sense of Community? • Vision for our Students • Working Definition • Creating a Sense of Community… • Supports Learning • Fosters a Safe Environment • Is Experiential • Closing • Reflection • Next Class: Artifact & Question

7. Ground Rules/Protocols/Expectations/GoalsNon-Negotiables • External • Enforced • Safety • Respect

9. Protocols for CCC • Assume good intentions • Ouch/Oops (Spinach in the teeth rule) • Right to Pass • Confidentiality

10. Norms/Contracts/Agreements • Internal – Agreed upon • Ownership – Important to those in the group • Rights • Responsibilities

11. The Best Workshop EverFacilitators • Active and engaging forms of presentation and multiple ways of accessing information • Be able to move around and do things • Leave early if it makes sense • More experiential and varied activities • Purposeful work outside of class • Help to coordinate food • Ideas and materials useful for the classroom/setting

12. The Best Workshop EverEveryone • Sharing the air • Put ups – encouragement, acknowledgement • Look for the good and positive • Keep it light • Bring food • Positive energy • Make your learning needs known

13. The Best Workshop EverEveryone • Watching our humor – especially sarcastic humor • You can only volunteer yourself

18. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) • 2nd Step • Responsive Classroom • TRIBES • Above the Line • Restorative Practices (e.g. Peace Circles) • Social Emotional Learning (SEL) • Professional Learning Communities • Avid • Advisory • Freshman Academy • Individual Learning Plans (ILP) • RTI (Response to Intervention) • Bullying prevention programs (e.g. Olweus) • Disarming the Playground • Stress/Challenge

19. Why Create a Sense of Community in Schools? The Container Concept

20. The Container Concept

21. Not all Containers are Alike

23. We Have Choices…We have Influence… What are the qualities of your container at school?

24. What is Community?

27. From Group to Community “In genuine community there are no sides. It is not always easy but by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other. Sometimes consensus in community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But at other times it is arrived at only after lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is, however, a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is a group that can fight gracefully.” M. Scott Peck M.D. The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

28. Thomas Sergiovannistates that “the need for community is universal. A sense of belonging, of continuity, of being connected to others and to ideas and values that make our lives meaningful and significant -- these needs are shared by all of us.”

29. Sergiovanni goes on to say: “… Communities are collections of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and who are together binded to a set of shared ideas and ideals. This bonding and binding is tight enough to transform them from a collection of “I’s” into a collective “we.” As a “we,” members are part of a tightly knit web of meaningful relationships. This “we” usually shares a common place and over time comes to share common sentiments and traditions that are sustaining. When describing community it is helpful to speak of community kinship, of mind, of place, and of memory.”

30. “The people in one’s life are like the pillars on one’s porch you see life through. And sometimes they hold you up. And sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re standing by.” • Anonymous

31. Community is consciousness of connection, combining and comprising: Courtesy, communication, collaboration, cooperation, consideration, caring, compassion, curiosity, commonalities, common goals, confidence, creativity, courage, challenge, camaraderie, and conceivably chocolate. CTC Group, 2004

32. VISION • RESOURCEFUL • RESPECT • RESPONSIBLE     • SELF RESPECT     • SELF SUFFICIENT • SENSE OF HUMOR • SUCCESSFUL • WELL-INFORMED • AT PEACE • CARING • COMPASSIONATE • CONFIDENT     • CONTRIBUTER • CREATIVE • CRITICAL THINKER • EMPATHETIC     • EMPLOYED • FORGIVING • GET ALONG W/ OTHERS • GOOD COMMUNICATOR • GOOD PARENTS • GOOD SELF ESTEEM • HAPPY • HEALTHY • HONEST     • INDEPENDENT • INTEGRITY • LITERATE     • LOYAL • MOTIVATED • PATIENT • PERSEVERENCE • POSITIVE ATTITUDE • PROBLEM SOLVERS • PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS • RELIABLE • RESILIENT

33. Creating a sense of community… SUPPORTS LEARNING

34. Learning & emotions are intertwined(see amygdala)

35. Fight, Flight, Freeze inhibits learning

36. Fear, embarrassment, frustration, boredom……can trigger fight, flight, freeze

38. Supports Academic Learning •  Safe, caring, and orderly environments are conducive to learning. • Caring relations between teachers and students foster a desire to learn and a connection to school. • When students can self-manage their stress and motivations, and set goals and organize themselves, they do better. From: Zins, J.E., Weissberg, R.P., Wang, M.C., and Walberg, H.J, eds. (2004). Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What does the research say? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

39. CASEL Study* … four-year study confirming that school-based social and emotional learning programs that help students build positive relationships, develop empathy, and resolve conflicts respect-fully and cooperatively also have a positive effect on academic performance. (from article by International Institute for Restorative Practices:www.safersanerschools.org/library/caselstudy.html) http://www.casel.org/downloads/metaanalysissum.pdf * Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

40. Supports Social Emotional Learning (SEL) See www.CASEL.org

41. How SEL Supports Good Outcomes for Young People Safe, Caring, Challenging, Well- Managed , Participatory Learning Environments Greater Attachment, Engagement & Commitment to School Better Academic Performance and Success in School and Life • Teach SEL • Competencies • Self-awareness • Social awareness • Self-management • Relationship skills • Responsible • decision making Less Risky Behavior, More Assets, More Positive Development http://www.casel.org/downloads/Safe%20and%20Sound/2B_Performance.pdf

42. Creating a sense of community… FOSTERS A SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

43. Bullying – More than a label “A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more students.” ~ Dan Olweus

44. Social-Ecological Framework • Pain • Fear • Adult attitudes • School climate

45. Pre-Bullying Behavior that, if escalated, could become bullying. Norms that set the stage for bullying if the behavior becomes intentional, consistent, and abusive (e.g. sarcastic humor, put downs, unconscious use of derogatory terms – many times found in popular culture)

46. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Esteem Belonging Security Retrieved from: http://two.not2.org/psychosynthesis/articles/maslow.gif

47. PBIS Continuum and PII Approach* * Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports and Prevention, Intervention , Invention INVENTION INTERVENTION PREVENTION

48. INVITATIONAL EDUCATION

49. Creating a sense of community… IS EXPERIENTIAL

50. The importance of what [the teacher] does must consciously be defined. He [sic] must become passionately engaged in prompting younger people to take initiatives and to act mindfully. If they are to become self-conscious and responsible, the teacher must continually think about what he is doing as he teaches them. And part of this thinking must have to do with what he takes “knowing” to mean and what he considers the significance of enabling other’s to know. ~ Maxine Greene