Creating A Community Within Your School

We know the names of each of our students and can recognize their handwriting with little more than a glance. Our ears have become perfectly attuned to their 150 individual voices; often hidden within the thick vines of sound that echo though busy hallways and murmur softly within the confines of our classrooms. We know whose dog is a homework eater, whose parent’s work late, which students have jobs, are involved in sports or other extracurricular activities. We think we know their insecurities, their hopes, their dreams, and perhaps we often do.

 

 

Because we are teachers, we are called to care for our students in ways that reach beyond the classroom activities and agendas. It is so important to remember that we are teaching people and not just students. Are we preparing the whole person for life when they leave each afternoon, or are we simply preparing them to hammer through that next lesson on our plan books? In order to answer this question effectively, we have to consider more than just what happens in our classrooms.

I recently came across a journal article regarding secondary institutions as communities, rather than just educational facilities. In her article, “The High School as Community: Contextual Influences and Consequences for Students and Teachers,” Mary E. Driscoll discusses the components by which a high school community is constructed from as well as the outcomes that such an environment has shown to have on both students and teachers. She explains that while we often blame negative progress in school on poor facilities, lack of materials, and even low socio-economic environments, these factors do not have to dictate the outcome of student success. Instead:
 

“...good schools are not defined solely in terms of material resources, programs and facilities. The quality of students' social relations with teachers and, teachers' relations with other staff all contribute to an enhanced school environment.” Driscoll defines a school as a community when the school becomes, “…a social organization consisting of cooperative relations among adults who share a common purpose and where daily life for both adults and students is organized in ways which foster commitment among its members.” She lists two major components that are required in creation of this social community environment:

1.      “This school community will exhibit a system of values which are shared and commonly understood among the members of the organization.” In other words, the school staff and adult supporters, e.g., parents, “must share a commitment to community.”

 

2.      “Communal school organizations have a distinctive pattern of social relations that embody what Noddings (1988) has called an "ethic of caring." In part, this ethic is reflected in the esteem which teachers hold for one another-- the personal respect accorded to colleagues who share an important mission. Another central feature of this relational ethic among teachers is a personal interest in students that reaches beyond the narrow confines of classroom performance.”

 

Activities and structures that encourage these environments include collaborative learning and teaching among education staff, as well as educator participation in extracurricular activities that provide for information interactions with students, parents, and other staff members. These factors increase job satisfaction and encourage personal development. Driscoll states that, “In terms of consequences for students, various forms of social misbehavior (class cutting, absenteeism, and classroom disorder) were all less prevalent in schools with a communal organization. School dropout rates were also lower, students’ interest in schooling higher, and the gains in mathematics achievement from sophomore to senior year were greater.”

As a future educator, I will seek a school environment where cooperative learning and teaching is a fundamental part of the education plan, and am eager to find ways that I can directly become a participating member of this kind of a team. I will not be the teacher that is packed up and ready to escape the madness one minute after the bell strikes 3:10, and I hope that I can find a community in which I can feel supported in this philosophy as well.

I am so excited to provide informal, academically based activates that will encourage students to grow and socialize! Some of the ideas that I have considered introducing to my future school or volunteering to be a part of are: staring a book club, holding a poetry club, community service projects like reading to young children and creating mentoring relationships between older students and younger students, debate club, literacy workshops for parents and family of students in my high school community, and family night out. What ideas have you considered as part of your classroom or future classroom that will encourage a community environment for your students? Or, what have you observed in your own school communities that have worked well?

Source Link to Full Journal Article PDF: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED302539