The Climate of the
Classroom: Creating an atmosphere conducive to learning requires hard work, but
pays big dividends.
My favorite time of year is late spring after everything
has budded and burst into bloom, as the winter winds march into April breezes.
This is the season when I feel revitalized and productive.
Early in my teaching career, I realized that young people
like springtime too. They must deal with the winter of their lives through
conflicts at home and in the desperate struggle for equilibrium amidst their
peers.
I knew then, as I know now, that I could help my students
most by creating a climate in my classroom, which would enable them to blossom
and bloom to their full potential. Of course, I have occasionally had little
control over the physical climate—sometimes having to teach in rooms with no
air-conditioning or heat—and often no windows to let in the sunshine; but then,
that is not the climate of which I speak.
No, I mean the emotional climate—the feeling of peace, of
order, of discipline, of caring and love that I freely offer to every child I
teach. It is the climate that says, “Welcome, come on in; I’m so happy you're
here.”
For I truly believe that learning can best occur in an
atmosphere in which there are
boundaries of behavior. One in which there are no
teacher’s pets or class clowns: a place where no one yells or uses unkind
words. The most important traits a teacher can cultivate are those of kindness,
patience, and the ability to discipline fairly. I spend as much time as
necessary preparing for each day in the classroom, so that my focus can be on
the students. I am firm, yet fair. I am consistent in my expectations, and I
will not accept anything less than polite, respectful behavior.
Students in my classes speak up freely, offering their
opinions, questions, and comments,
confident in the fact that they will never be ridiculed
by me or by a classmate. They quickly learn that I will give them all the
positive attention they need, which eliminates their need for misbehaving.
Creating
such an environment in the classroom requires careful planning and hard work.
From
the first day of school, students must be aware of the expectations I have for
their conduct. Once they know that I require them to behave in a mature,
polite, respectful manner, we can begin to work together in harmony. I do not
find it necessary to send students to the office to be disciplined. If a
student’s behavior needs correction, I talk to them in private, and I am in
close contact with the parents of the students I teach.
I
believe that the process by which students learn is much more important than
the actual content data they acquire. If an information base were all that was
required to be successful in life, the library and the Internet could satisfy
that requirement, and students wouldn’t need teachers at all.
My goal is to teach students to work together in harmony
in cooperative groups. I organize the lessons into projects where students
function as part of a team and have an interest in each other’s progress.
This process mirrors the world of work in which they will
spend the better part of their adult lives. It is obvious to me that students
who work together become more accepting of others and feel better about themselves
in the process. It helps to break down prejudices, and students often form
friendships with peers who otherwise would have remained strangers. The key is
learning to cooperate and share ideas and materials.
I require students to read literature that will enrich
their lives. We read novels, plays, and poetry with themes that depict man’s
inhumanity to man, racial prejudice, and bias against women, the elderly, and
the infirm. I require them to challenge the stereotypes of our society and to
discuss these important issues and write critical essays about them.
Such lessons require careful planning on my part, as I
must design projects that involve critical thinking skills. I must delineate
specific roles, carefully organize the make-up of the groups, and constantly
monitor to see that each individual is pulling his or her own weight.
More often than not, after the groups have completed
their assigned projects, I give the students individual assignments to assess
their progress. I love to see students lost in thought as they process the
ideas generated in the work group. They look up from their papers, pens poised
in hand and gaze out into space. I see their ideas dancing in their eyes, and
then they begin to write again, hurriedly trying to get their ideas on paper
before they escape.
At such times, and later, as I listen to a group
presentation while students proudly present what they have learned and listen
to the applause of their classmates, I bask in the warm, inviting climate in my
classroom and sit back and let my students shine.
Thanks for reading,
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