I'm going to step on my "teacher soap box" for this post because this whole chapter is the reason I wanted to go into Education. The classroom climate is a huge factor in student learning that is so often overlooked. If a student dreads going to your class, I can almost guarantee they will not listen to your lesson, they will not be engaged in the subject material, and they WILL NOT LEARN what you are trying to teach them. If a student does not feel safe contributing to classroom discussions, or feel comfortable stepping outside of their comfort zone (which is vital to learning new skills and subject matter) their capacity to learn will be drastically diminished.
The classroom climate all begins with the teacher-- they 100% are responsible for that. Teachers who belittle their students, disrespect their students, and do not share the power distribution in the classroom are not creating a classroom that is conducive for creating the ideal "community of learners" that this chapter describes. The goal of any teacher should be to have their students love their subject as much as they do. Teachers can do this by being a "champion" for their students (the embedded TEDTalk describes what that is), treating their students as people, not kids that need to be controlled while they are in your classroom, and certainly seen as life long learners. A successful teacher is one that can spark a students interest in their subject matter. If I can convince a 7th grader that algebra is cooler than something they saw on Instagram, I would be the happiest teacher ever.
(word count: 270)
Sarah! I love this sentence: "The classroom climate all begins with the teacher--they 100% are responsible for that." (The English teacher in my REALLY likes the dash usage, in particular.) And you're right, teachers must recognize the importance of the social to their classroom and work to develop a community of supportive learners. Ironically, many teachers avoid that kind of thing because they think it will create more work, but in my experience, teachers who wield power with an iron fist are often--but not only--the ones with the most behavior problems. On the other hand, teachers who sincerely demonstrate to their students that they respect them often have fewer behavior problems. That fact is, we're less likely to annoy people we want to like/respect us, mostly because we like/respect them.
ReplyDelete