Reflecting on Sylvia Allan's Visit

Reflect on what you learned about creating community in your classroom from our visitor, Sylvia Allan.

Sylvia Allan said that every time you speak you are creating the culture of your classroom. I had never thought about this before, but it is absolutely true. The way I look at the students, respond to the crazy things they say, laugh with them and never at them, and so forth - make up the feeling of community in my room. I really liked her ideas about how to teach things like memorizing and then making it meaningful in their lives in and out of the classroom. Categorizing problems like storms while learning "Good Timber" is absolutely genius. I'm working on it at home with my own kids.

I am definatly sold on the idea of Morning Meetings and I look forward to making them viable in my future classroom. If I can create an atmosphere of safety, calm, respect and support, my students will be able to do anything!

The things I noticed most in the text this time were - one teacher had a basket she would hold as the students walked into her class each day. The basket was meant to hold their worries - anything they brought with them that was troubling to them they would pantomime putting in the basket. I loved that idea! Being able to physically separate our outside life from our learning time at school would be extremely beneficial.

Another teacher had the students help schedule tests and time for upcoming projects and the like.

One way to assess students' understanding was presented that I adored - windshields. After presenting info, before sending them off to work, one teacher would ask the students how their windshields were looking - clear, some bugs, muddy, whatever. This way the students have a fun, positive way of telling the teacher "I don't get it" with out having to use that awful phrase. Also, the students learned to use the terms often to assess their own understanding and express it clearly.