TPE 11: Social Environment

Creating order and accomplishing goals in a classroom filled with hormonally crazed teenagers can be quite a task. Maintaining that order takes determination, good planning, and a comfortable social environment. In my classroom, I maintain clear expectations for academic and social behavior through a plethora of methods, and do my best to make the learning environment positive and fruitful for each and every student.

On the spectrum of traditionalists to casualists (two terms I've just coined right now), I definitely fall towards the "casual" end. My classroom, while informal and somewhat relaxed, is well-run and seldom deviates into chaos. One of the first steps I took in order to create order in my classroom was to draw up a set of classroom rules very early in the year. I discussed with the students how we were all relatively mature, and how we'd all be spending alot of time together between mid-August and mid-June, and how having rules by which we could all abide would be beneficial to all. Through the raising of hands and the offering of suggestions, we were able to come up with a list of appropriate classroom rules, such as "don't talk out of turn," "stay in your seat," "respect each other," and various others. I called these my "common sense rules," in an attempt to get the students to buy into them and to appeal to their growing senses of community and pride in getting to be part of the planning process.

I followed the school's rules for discipline when said rules and regulations were ignored or disregarded: talking to the student, talking to the student after class, contacting the parent, changing the student's seat if that would be helpful, and finally writing a referral if the behavior continued. Egregious breakages of the classroom rules and regulations often resulted in an immediate skipping to the last step of the process. I enforced this rules equally amongst all students and did not "play favorites" or selectively enforce the regulations.

As for establishing rapport with students and their families, I pride myself on being an affable and approachable fellow, and the students seemed to pick up on that quite quickly. I had no problem bonding with many students, and they'd often hang out before or after class, before or after school, or during lunch, just chatting about music, movies, school, life, or whatever.

At the same time, I'm conscious of when students are having a particularly bad or just drama-filled day and need to not be joked with or maybe not even talked to. I remember those days well, and am careful to respond appropriately during sensitive times when my usual jovial attitude may not be welcomed or appreciated.

I also made myself available in person, via e-mail, and on the phone to parents. Between these three ways, I communicated with many students' parents over the course of the last school year. I answered e-mails promptly, talked on the phone during my prep period, and was never reluctant to meet face-to-face with parents after school or during my prep period.

Physically, my classroom is conducive to creating comfort. I have a large poster in the back that I created showing many of my interests: TV shows, films, music, movie, travel, reading, sports, etc. Next to that was a large portion of the wall on which I encouraged students to bring in representations of what they enjoyed. Before long, the collage that the students had created overflowed the boundaries I had set up with that puffy border creation rolled up paper stuff, and expanded in every direction. Not that that was a problem; I liked having the insight into the students' interests, and they liked looking at all the stuff on the wall.

I devoted large portions of two walls of my classroom to student work. One had a big section called "the WRITE stuff," on which I placed examples of superb student writing; the other section was filled with larger projects that students created throughout the year: masks, drawings, maps, dioramas, advertisements, etc. In this way, the students were able to see and be proud of their own work as it was on display.

The most popular decorations in the classroom, however, were the dozens of photographs I stapled up all over the back wall, showcasing my travels and other experiences over the years. I had pictures of me in various countries in front of various cool stuff, pictures of foods from other places, photos of my family and friends, all sorts of stuff from my past decade and a half on the road. I think the students' two favorite photos were of some bugs being cooked up in a big stir-fry pan in Cambodia and a yearbook photo of me from when I was a 16-year-old sophomore with a thick, rich, luxuriant head of hair.

Elsewhere, scattered here and there on the walls, are posters: Elvis, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jackie Robinson, an upside-down map of the world that I tell the students was printed that way in order to get them to change the way they look at the world. The most popular poster, however, shows like 200 characters from The Simpsons. The students love to look at that one and try to find various characters.

These classroom decorations and my relatively laid-back attitude help me create a good rapport with the student, something that was noted by administrators repeatedly as they observed my class throughout the year. They said I got along really well with the kids, and related to them really well without talking down to them or anything. I'd venture that this is because I remember those days -- and the accompanying thoughts and feelings -- so well, even though they were half a lifetime ago for me.