Cycle 2: Challenges and Opportunities in Building Classroom Communities

I just responded elsewhere about the "levels" of community that come to mind when I think about communities in the school setting. My points of reference are at the campus level and begin with the community which is established to include the administrators and faculty and staff. I have worked on a campus where the rift is a tangible one. My next thought is that of the teachers in a grade-level. At that one particular campus, the community, the bond that the four of us formed helped us to get through some rough years. As I think back, I remember official grade-level meetings because they were required, but I couldn't count the times that we sat in each others' classrooms just to give each other a pat on the back or to take a deep breath together. Moving along to the classroom community, yes, as Kyle noted in his introduction to this cycle, I did use it to further my own agenda. I used it as a student management tool when my students were in other parts of campus, for example the gym for P.E. or the cafeteria at lunch. I would emphasize to my students that their behavior reflected on me, and that I did not want to be embarrassed by any reports of less-than-appropriate behavior. I know that I have a clear sense of what a classroom community should consist of, but other than typical classroom job assignments, I don't think I did anything, specifically, to build a community among the students.

I do believe it is possible for a classroom community to exist. I have seen it, believe it or not, through student tracking. "Many schools claim that they do not track students..." (Oakes, 2005, p. 1). For us, it begins with the Home-Language Survey that parents/guardians complete when enrolling students in school for the first time. If there is any indication that Spanish is spoken at home, either by the child or by those around him/her, the student is automatically tested through IPT (the full name of the test eludes me at the moment). If a student, usually a Pre-K student mind you, scores deficient in English, they are placed in a Spanish instruction classroom. And so as the years go by, these students continue in Spanish-instruction classrooms with the same classmates they started with in Pre-K. By the time they reach the upper elementary grades, why, they have already established family bonds. They defend each other from students in the all-English instruction classes, and they console each other through their trials and tribulations. What I have noticed most about these communities that they have built is that just like family, they are so loud when they are together. I don't mention it to insult, but more to show the ease and familiarity that they exhibit amongst each other. On the down side of this tracking, as I am sure occurs in schools across the country, is that students do not have much opportunity to interact with students in the same grade level in other classes. Oakes' statement, (2005, p. 3) "...how it both causes and supports differences in the lives of secondary students" couldn't describe this any better with the exception that I am talking about elementary students. This is not to say that sorting students by their spoken language is not an obvious route to take, but the bi-lingual program has such a negative connotation attached to it that some parents are willing to sign Denial Forms to keep their children out of these classes because they are perceived as classes in which their children will not learn anything.

In support of building a classroom community, I found the Johnson and Johnson (1986) chapter an excellent starting point with its discussion of Base Groups. The idea of "long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership...and (b) hold each other accountable for striving to learn" (p. 175) to be something to build upon as the school year progresses. I also agreed with their idea of the Informal Cooperative Learning Groups (p.170). I found many of the strategies and the suggestion for moving from lecture to small group at 12-15 minute intervals very similar to a Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) training that our faculty received throughout this past school year. It provided for us, much like Johnson and Johnson (1986) and the chapter by Parker (2003) did, different ways to pair off students so that they do not end up in a same-partner rut, and most importantly, a safe environment for our students to grow academically. As a result, I saw students throughout the elementary grades work within these strategies and share with their classmates. I loved the low-risk environment in which students were able to build some knowledge about whatever the topic was by working with their classmates. And of course, these small group assignments/activities could be in the form of writing something or illustrating their thoughts if they could not conjure the necessary written vocabulary. When a teacher walked around the room conducting informal assessments, she was also able to steer misguided students in the right direction without pointing out their mistakes in a threatening manner. In a second grade classroom, we had a non-responsive student. Her teacher noted that she was extremely shy and that we should move on to another student, but the trainer modeled an alternative. The trainer approached the student, turned her away from the class and asked her to whisper the answer to her. She then turned back to the class and said, "Myra just told me that...Is she correct, boys and girls?" The students were so excited that "Myra" had participated. It turns out that she never actually gave an answer, but that was the spring board for encouraging her to participate with her immediate group, her classroom community, for the remainder of that lesson. Much, if not most of the chapter, I could directly relate back to my experiences and observations this past school year.

In the Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) chapter, there is a section "Students need to know the learning goals of a unit or lesson and critera for successfully demonstrating proficiency with the goals," which again related to SIOP but also a book-study that our campus participated in The Fundamental Five (Cain and Laird, 2011). The Fundamental Five talked about providing a Lesson Objective and a Closing Task for every lesson, to "Frame the Lesson." This way, in much the same way that Tomlinson and McTighe stress, students are aware of what they are going to, or should, learn, and what they should be able to complete at the end of the lesson, whether it be a task, something spoken, or a product/project. Our SIOP training expressed the same concept through Content Objective and Linguistic Objective. The end product here, because SIOP more specifically addresses bi-lingual education, being something mostly spoken or written. Referring to The Fundamental Five, I experienced how communicating the objectives and outcomes to students gave them a reference point through-out the lesson. If they lost track of the objective, they could refer to its location on the white board. And of course, objectives and tasks were always written in student-friendly language..."I will...," or "We will..." Again, providing a connection for the student, sense of knowing that the writing on the wall was speaking directly to or about them. Also, the verbs listed in Figure 6.1 (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2006 p. 87) were a central part of both SIOP and The Fundamental Five. It turns out to be a great way to make students aware of they can be actively involved in their education for the day.

To end with a little humor, I loved the example (Johnson, Johnson 1986) of the teacher providing the explanation for a simplex algorithm. It reminded me of the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) when Rose tells Gregory that he's up there having a Math Party and didn't invite anyone else. We mustn't forget to invite the students!