Class Culture and What You Allow

 We are back this week for more unlike inspiration from Beartown. 

"What about culture, then?" Sune looked more serious, choosing his words carefully. In the end he said: "For me culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit."

David asked what he meant by that, and Sune replied: "That most people don't do what we them to. They do what we let them get away with."

The book is talking about the culture of a hocky team. Sune the older coach felt culture was one of the most important parts of the team. Without a focus on the culture you don't have a team who will work together as a team. Instead you have a group of individuals only focused on themselves. 

This sticks out to me for school as well. The idea that the culture of our classrooms is not simply the rules we give but what we then allow, what we let them get away with.

As I began to research building positive classroom cultures one things stood out the most.

Relationships.

The website thehighlyeffectiveteacher.com list six things to ensure you are setting up a positive classroom culture. 3 of the 6 things focus on relationships.

1. Teacher relationship to students

2. Teacher relationship to parents

3. Teacher encouraging students relationships with other students

As we have talked about before, when we are building relationships with students, students are more likely to want to be in class and want to do well for us.

Relationship building is also about boundary setting. This connects to our book quote. The culture in our relationships, classrooms, and school is built on what we allow students to do at school.

On the website edutopia.org it says that one innovative way to built a positive culture in your classroom is to practice mindfulness with your students.

Our mindfulness practices are a wonderful way to come alongside our students, participating together in learning ways to build inner calm and resilience. 

Edutopia also suggests doing check ins with students.

Often times we do not check in with students until they become a "problem" student and we write into a BSP that a social worker or ABSS will do daily check ins.

You can do your own. You can do a quick check in with all students. You can also pick a different student each day and check in a little extra. Rotate students and you will be able to check in with all students monthly or more for younger grades. Older grades could focus on homeroom for in-depth check ins and still do quick checks with other students.

As you work to build relationships begin to ask yourself:

 What do I encourage? 

What do I allow?

Building relationships doesn't mean allowing unwanted behaviors to go unaddressed. A relationship means you are better able address the concerns in a calm and compassionate way.

Build relationships.

Build community.

Build culture.