How To Improve Classroom Culture And Community With A Simple Positivity Tool
Build Classroom Community With One Simple Tool
Classroom teachers have faced challenges over the past two years we truly never could have imagined. Teaching from home, trying to connect with each student through a screen. Coming back into the classroom with new protocols for absolutely everything. Oh, and those students who spent nearly a year learning from home? Some of them forgot what it meant to be in a classroom.
Yes, teaching is still rewarding and wonderful and a calling many of us wouldn’t give up for the world. But the truth is, teachers are weary. Teachers are discouraged. Teachers are tired all the way to their bones.
All of this can make it difficult to focus on the positive. To do the hard work to establish and maintain a culture of positivity in our classrooms.
The truth?
It has never been more important - for teachers and students - to find and focus on the positive.
I’m reminded of a time when I had one of those classes. You know the ones. Full of clashing personalities, tattling, and even outright bullying. That year, I found myself struggling to see the positive. I felt my attitude suffering right along with my students.
Something needed to change. My outlook needed to change. I needed to rediscover the joy I felt for teaching. I owed it to my students – especially those who were doing the right thing – because no matter how challenging the class, there are always students working hard to do the right thing.
I embarked on a mission to get my positive back – and find it for the students, as well. I knew the fix needed to be engaging for students and easy to put into place. In other words, it couldn’t take too much time.
I also knew that if I could get some of my most difficult students to buy in, our classroom community could change.
And it did.
Here’s how I implemented this simple, but effective (and free!) tool.
“We Have Positive News”
I cleared a section of a bulletin board in my classroom and made a quick header – “We Have Positive News.” I quickly created a short form, copied it onto colorful paper, stacked them in a bin with some push pins and we were ready to go.
I started by creating a few posts myself and then modeled the process for the class.
As we talked about how to spread positive news in our classroom, I was honest about why we needed this. We remembered our bucket filling activities from the beginning of the year and talked about how we had somehow changed from being bucket fillers into bucket dippers.
Introducing The Form
I walked my students through the form. I knew it needed to be quick and easy for them to use!
The top part of the form simply asks for the reporting student’s name and the date.
The rest of the form is where the “news” is reported. Did you spot positive action in the classroom? Report it. Was a classmate particularly kind or helpful to you or another classmate? Report it.
Students learned that “He was nice” or “She was helpful” doesn’t make a positive news report. Like any good reporter, my students needed to tell the story!
Our News Reports Needed To Be Specific And FULL Of Descriptive Details
Good reporters explain the “why” and the “how” behind what they’re writing about in order to help readers understand why something is newsworthy. My student reporters learned they needed to do this, too!
Good News or Snooze News?
I wanted to make sure my students understood what made a good Positive News Story. We went through two examples that were “not quite” stories and worked together to make them newsworthy.
Lilly Crosses The Finish Line
Our first example simply read, “Lilly finished her book today.” We all agreed it wasn’t exactly newsworthy.
Together, we added details and specifics until we had, “Today, Lilly finished her chapter book. She had been working on it for almost two weeks and wasn’t sure she could finish it. She did! I’m so proud of her and can’t wait to hear all about it. If she likes it, I know I’ll like it, too.”
The first attempt didn’t tell me anything other than the fact that a student finished a book. We all agreed that wasn’t very newsworthy because students finish books in our class all the time. After we added details, the report now shows I’ve been paying attention to Lilly and that I care about her and her goals.
Christopher’s Kindness Multiplies
The other example we used started out as, “I saw Christopher helping Shamea yesterday.”
We turned that into, “I saw Christopher helping Shamea during math centers yesterday. Shamea was feeling frustrated because she couldn’t remember some multiplication facts, so Christopher reminded her where the multiplication charts are kept and stayed with her until she got the answer to the problem she was working on. Shamea had a big smile on her face when she got the right answer.”
In this second example, not only did we talk about how Christopher helped a classmate, but gave enough details that another student might be inspired to help a classmate in a similar way. Students are able to be examples to one another and model positive behaviors for each other.
Reporting “Rules” To Follow
At this point, we were almost ready to call ourselves reporters. But first, we needed to go over a couple of “rules.”
Students may only write about others. I explained to my students that our goal was to look for ways others are doing well, not to promote ourselves. If they wanted to see their names on the board, they realized what they needed to do was to model great behavior. That was a sure way to get noticed by their classmates.
Choose different people to feature in your “reports.” I challenged my students to write about people other than their best friends, even to write about classmates they don’t know very well. It was important to look for the good in everyone in our class, not a select few.
The First Headlines Appear
The first few posts to appear on our board were written by some of my most difficult students. Even though I had hoped for this result, I admit I was shocked at first!
Although those first posts were short and lacked the description I was looking for, they showed true thought and consideration. They proved that even these challenging students were looking for the good in others and noticing what was happening in our classroom.
Instead of focusing on what their posts lacked, I praised these students for noticing the positive and sharing it with our classroom community. It’s important to remember the “rules” I put in place were intended to encourage students to take their reporting responsibilities seriously, not to take away from the spirit of spreading positivity.
Before long, our board was covered with posts! And that made all of us feel more positive.
Ready to bring more positivity into your classroom? I’m sharing my FREE resource with you - We Have Positive News - available in The Treasury. I hope it brings you and your students as much joy as it brought to our classroom.
Interested in more support for character education and classroom management? I have developed a number of wonderful resources to support you. Check them out here.
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