How to Establish a Positive Classroom Climate?

How to Establish a Positive Classroom Climate?

Why is it important?

The world we live in is full of challenges, from social and economic shifts that are taking place to the technological innovations and environmental crisis that is imposing as the new change to our lifestyle. Consequently, all of us need to participate in overcoming them and making the transition into a safe and smooth one. That is why we, as teachers, own a huge amount of responsibility for making them less painful and devastating. We must keep in mind that in our schools we are creating a culture that will later reflect on our society and the way social structures are seen and used. Our priority has to become providing a positive classroom climate that makes every child feel safe and comfortable to express himself. That is why the biggest emphasis I put on while teaching is understanding others and respecting where they come from and who they are.

Teaching in a different cultural background

One of the important sentences I have read in a book related to education says: “To understand is to forgive” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005. P. 98). This clearly explains that, in order to have a better understanding of our students, our teaching profession, and eventually ourselves as human beings, we have to acknowledge the existence of different perspectives and backgrounds students come from. As a Serbian teacher who’s been working in an international education for years, even though I’ve been perceived as a westerner, I’m actually coming from the geographical and cultural area between the East and West. Eastern European culture is definitely very different from the Chinese one, but with many more views and perspectives being shared with the Far East in contrast to the western cultures. I believe that this enables me to understand my students better since the majority of them come from China. However, teaching in China often means working in the teaching environment challenging for anyone coming from a different cultural matrix. It becomes necessary to learn about the ways Chinese culture works and see what the potential threats students may face are. Some of the questions to consider are:

• How does their non-verbal communication look like?
• What learning styles are they used to in the public schools?
• How do they deal with the conflict?
• How does their culture perceive differences?

Retrieved from: //grandriverchineseschool.com/aboutus_files/imgp3473c.jpg

These questions helped me understand my students better. I realized that they avoided confronting they opinion in public. I’ve noticed that many of them were shy and liked to wait for the end of the class to ask a question or write it down on the exit card. I started understanding their body language. I’ve learned that they’re not used to collaborative learning, teamwork, nor differentiation. Instead, they come from the system with uniformed assignments, homework enforcing memorizing through repetition and the model promoting competition and grade comparison. This helped me find the best way to slowly start adapting the learning environment to create the culture my students enjoy today.

Who are my students?

Understanding my students’ culture is the condition number one to be able to approach them, justify their reactions and understand the signals they send out. Although all of them are Chinese, they still have different personalities, experiences, interests I need to discover to be able to inspire them each time we learn and explore. What do I wish to know about my students? The information I find very useful is: what are their hobbies, which are their interests, who are their idols, how is their family/social life… Yes, it might seem to be almost impossible to gather all of this information, but it’s very easy to learn more about the students from a variety of sources such as:

• Parents - Meeting them during the Parent-Teacher Conferences or communicating through the Parent-Relations Office can make you very well informed about their family and social life, any issues they are experiencing and support that they enjoy.

• Core/form class sharing – Core class is a time for connecting with the students. We enjoy sharing our highs-lows of the day, videos we find interesting, talking about future studies, concerns, challenges etc.

• Ice break activities at the beginning of the school year – Some of my favorite Ice-break activities are Name-Chain Games, Truth or Lie, and Name That Person. They are helpful not only in learning more about our students but also for them to learn more about us, which makes are more connected.

• Student assembly – Which student bodies do they represent? What are their announcements about? Do they perform? Which talents do they show?

• School activities – Which clubs, extracurricular activities, sports teams, and/or competitions they participate in?

• Communication before and after the class – There is so much to learn from them just by asking “How’s your day?” and “How was your weekend?” 

Connect!

In order to trust the teacher, they need to know who their teacher is. At the very beginning of my teaching career, I felt very uncomfortable about sharing my life with the strangers. At some point I’ve realized – these young people are not the strangers, but an important part of your life, and, in a way, your family. Open up to them and you will receive much more back than you could ever imagine!

Once we knew a bit more about each other, we were able to understand each other better and offer our support, empathy, or just a smile. All of these make a huge difference in our lives, whoever we are - the teachers or the students. So, what can you do to connect with your students?

• Informal communication – Communicate with them outside of the classroom as well! Show your interest in their life, respect for their personality and choices, and demonstrate empathy. They have to see how important they are for you.

• Share similar experiences – At their age, they often feel alone and hopeless. My students are applying for universities abroad, and this of one of the most stressful periods of their student life. How to manage their emotions? How to handle stress? What are the ways to improve their time management? Sharing my own experience and showing understanding of what they have been through makes a difference in their perspective. Many of these topics could also be covered in their Character Development or Life Education classes where they learn about how to forgive each other, how to demonstrate a good character, and how to understand themselves and the others. Here's a great opportunity for the teachers to include these connections when planning their mainstream class lessons as well!

• Support struggling students – Differentiate, differentiate, and differentiate! Identify the students who are struggling and approach them in a way they can respond to. Some of the students might be too shy or not comfortable to ask you a question. Be available for them after school. Provide the exit cards at the end of each class. And make a Question Box for them! 

Economics Question Box

• Project-based learning according to their interests – Give your students a choice when learning/creating/researching. Are they interested in Communism? Do they love football? Are they good at Arts? They should use their talents and explore the topics of their interest while reaching their learning objective! Make the assignments focused on the real-life problems so the students can understand the purpose and the importance of finding the solution! 

Analysis of a developing country

• Collaborative tasks - Positive classroom climate is built upon collaboration and mutual respect. We learn the best when we learn from each other, and students do enjoy group activities and projects. Everything can be created in collaboration, even some assignments traditionally seen as individual tasks (e.g. essay writing).  
  
  
  
  

Collaborative essay writing

• Classroom set-up should be student-centered – This includes not only the sit arrangement which supports collaboration but also Assessment As Learning, a lot of self-reflection, projects based on the student interests and open communication with the rest of the group and the teacher

• Be passionate about your subject – Not all the things we teach our students are interesting and fun. Unless we make them exciting! Make sure you always show your positive attitude and energy and this excitement has to be reflected on your students!

A student's feedback on one of the less exciting topics 

• Classroom rules – At the very beginning of the year, have a class brainstorming the acceptable and non-acceptable behavior. Once agreed upon, all the students should follow the rules they created, and accept the consequences of not doing so.

• Model acceptable behavior in the class – Whatever the class rules are, and however the school policies look like, the teacher models a student behavior. Our role is much more important than to help students master the content! Make sure that you're promoting a desirable behavior in and outside of your classroom. 

• Debates – In an Economics class, there are many opportunities for discussions, debates, and an exchange of different opinions. It’s important to enforce the acceptance of different points of view, without attacking somebody else’s opinion.

• Make intercultural connections and promote diversity – The modern education is shaping the global citizens of the 21st century. Open-mindedness and awareness of the differences are in the heart of the holistic education.

There is so much more to learn

As I stated before, many challenges are happening on this journey and require proper actions from the side of the teaching staff to ensure a positive climate in and outside of the classroom. We are facing a variety of the forms of bullying in the high school environment – physical, verbal, emotional and, more and more common, cyberbullying. All of these are happening on different bases: cultural, sexual, transgender changes… High-school years are particularly significant since this is when the students start identifying themselves as individuals. They experience many physical and mental changes which are reflected in the way they perceive themselves and the ways the others perceive them. Our school has been developing a set of policies and measures to be followed by the teaching and non-teaching staff, administration, and students, with a close cooperation with the parents. Our students do need our full support in these critical years of their personal development.

As a teacher, I’ve been adopting new practice and routines and I am working more on my own understanding of the culture that surrounds me. By learning more about the Chinese traditional values and core beliefs such as Confucianism (which is still governing a lot how the modern Chinese society works), I will be able to understand how students communicate with each other and what are the different social and economic backgrounds and contexts that they come from. The other goal I set is to try to work more on learning Chinese language and to use it to approach the students who are facing difficulties in their learning and emotional development.

Obviously, the teachers need to be able to develop a certain sense of the main ethos Shapiro and Stefkovich (2011) mention, which is the ethos of a profession. The ethos of care, justice, and critique become complementary and very significant if the teachers are to address the four domains of social justice. One of the strategies which inspired me to think about in my own classroom practice is the comparison between the “Zero Tolerance” and “Zero Indifference” approaches (Scharf. p.13). While both of them incorporate the ethos of justice, care, and critique, they are still different in terms of how the problem is being approached. By adopting the strategy of “Zero Indifference” I will be able to see what are the issues that need to be addressed. Moreover, I will have a chance to show my students the ways they could approach the problems they may encounter and I will create an environment in which collaboration will not be seen as a way of cheating but as of genuine learning and prosperity. For this reason, the professional ethos standard is something I am aspiring to from the very beginning of each school year and which is making me work on adopting different behavior management skills. Not only do my strategies now look at the immediate learning environment but they also help the students understand the importance of having a continuous awareness of the social and emotional aspects that follow them in their academic achievements.

Final thoughts

By understanding the value of the background of each student, we are able to approach education using a different paradigm. Teaching students to become more self-aware of the things and of the people that surround them makes them see the importance and connections between their own environment and the learning objectives. This, in turn, makes them adopt the ethos of care, justice, and critique with more awareness. Each of the students comes to the school with their own problems and issues that may reflect on their learning and our priority is to make the learning environment safe for everyone through collaboration, empathy, and care. By adopting such strategies as contracts and essential agreements not only will the students have a clear view of what to expect in their classrooms, but they will also take more responsibility in creating a safe and inviting learning environment for all.  After all, we are responsible to make learning interesting and meaningful with the projects created in the line with their interests. Sharing our excitement and energy with the students helps in creating and maintaining a positive classroom climate.

How do you establish a positive classroom climate? 

References

Building social justice starting in the classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.teachingforchange.org/

Connect With Kids and Parents of Different Cultures. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/connect-kids-and-parents-different-cultures-0/

Pratt-Johnson, Y. (n.d.). Communicating Cross-Culturally: What Teachers Should Know. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Pratt-Johnson-CrossCultural.html

Scharf, A. (n.d.). Critical practices for anti-bias education. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/PDA%20Critical%20Practices_0.pdf

Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2011). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.