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Building Community Within The Classroom

Creating A Trusting Environment In The Classroom

By Chandi PeardonPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Building Community Within The Classroom
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

"When the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable." - unknown.

Having worked within the public school systems for nearly four years, there are a couple of things I have learned.

For starters, many teachers strive their hardest to implement a sound structure within their classroom environment. They also do their best to make sure students are comfortable by providing them with food options throughout the day, choice of extra curricular activities, access to personal belongings. All of these things were implemented as part of helping the student have more freedom, but to also ease any learning anxieties.

I have also noticed teachers have flexibility within their schedule. If a project did not go as planned, or resources are not accessible that day many teachers will throw on a movie, play a group game, or give the class a study hall.

These are all great in theory, and they do contribute to a healthy learning environment. What I have found to be extremely lacking within the educational setting is empathy.

A teacher is not someone that simply hands out a lesson plan or teaches a concept. A great teacher is one that converses with students by building an empathetic rapport.

Most teachers shy away from this because they do not know how to have certain conversations with their classroom. It's okay not to know how to initiate, what's not okay is a refusal to learn. That is just pure ignorance.

An easy way to help create a classroom 'community' is by making real-life connections during lesson plans. And I don't mean the typical connections we hear so often, for example;

Story Problem: Jimmy has $5.42 and picks up milk and bread from the grocery store. The clerk gives him back $1.62 in change approx. how much were the milk and bread?

"How many of us go to the grocery store with mom & dad? What other items can you think of that we can use in this story problem?"

This is not a connection. I repeat this is not a connection!

Let's make a real-life connection and this time we are going to use the same story problem above that is used in math class.

Story Problem: Jimmy has $5.42 and picks up milk and bread from the grocery store. The clerk gives him back $1.62 in change approx. how much were the milk and bread?

"On a side note, a show of hands how many go to the grocery store? How many get our food delivered? Raise your hand if you know the average monthly grocery bill for a family? (if not, look it up as a class together and calculate the total cost of groceries for the entire year). So isn't that crazy that it is costing us X amount of money a year just to put food on the table? So the next time your parents buy you your favorite snack or beverage, let's be extra grateful because those purchases take away from what everyone can have at home.

Of course, this is just a minor example, and the way in which you make that connection primarily depends on the grade level, etc.

Planting small seeds like this will help you to gain more confidence as a teacher when making connections. This will aid you in your ability to communicate with the class during critical times and about sensitive current event topics.

It is important to always encourage open discussion and to begin each lesson with an open discussion. This helps to mentally prepare the class for what is about to be taught and it gets their mind thinking deeper.

Believe me when I say, just about everything we do within the classroom can be talked about on a deeper level.

The benefits of this? The students in your classroom will trust you and respect your openness and honesty. The students will take the initiative to come to you when they need guidance. Most importantly, you will have created a community within your room. You will have allowed kids to understand that teachers CAN and SHOULD respect their students and view them in the likeness of soon-to-be young adults.

We want our future society to be filled with those that are not afraid to learn and ask questions. We want them to be independent thinkers. Developing empathetic rapport will help to do just that.

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About the Creator

Chandi Peardon

Creative Writer.

My inspiration? Personal trauma, mental illness, and love.

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