Establishing a Positive Classroom Climate

Establishing A Positive Classroom Climate

                                                                                                                                Jindan Wang-Bodling

                                                                                                                                       11/ 14/2017

    Before we emphasized the importance of a positive classroom, we need to define what is classroom climate? Classroom climate refers to the prevailing mood, attitudes, standards, and tone that teacher and students feel when they are in the classroom. A negative classroom climate is hostile and chaotic, while a positive classroom climate is safe, welcoming, respectful, and supportive of student learning.

A positive classroom climate is important not only for teachers' s teaching but also vital for students' academic and mental needs. An open and caring classroom climate allows teachers to have more time to teach. Teachers won't be bothered with discipline problems. In addition, in a safe and supportive class, students won't be worried about peer pressure or bullying problems. Instead, with social and emotional safety in a positive classroom climate, students will be more willing to learn and collaborate with peers, which is important for their future successful education development. 

    A positive classroom climate won't just happen! It should be created! In my opinion, to create a positive classroom climate, you need to focus on the following three "pieces" of the classroom "pie": emotional environment, physical environment, and respectable environment. 

Emotional environment:
A positive emotional environment makes students flourish all areas of their developments. With the emotional and social security, students will have a positive disposition to learning, sharing and collaborating. 

To create a positive emotional environment in the classroom, teachers need to develop positive relationships with students and promote positive peer relationships between students. 

1. How to develop positive relationships with students?

There are many useful strategies to build up positive relationships with students, for example, teachers can show their affections for each student by some  physical behavior: 

•  Smile to each student at appropriate times

• Place a hand on a student’s shoulder as a form of encouragement when students get frustrated

•  Constant eye contact when talking with students.

•   Stand close enough when talking with students

•   Look interested in what students say.

 In order to maintain a healthy relationship with students, I  think it is important to clarify and reinforce classroom rules. Classroom rules help your students to clearly understand what are "positive and negative behaviors and the related consequence". When students know the rules, they will more self-disciplined and self-regulation, so the classroom will be more safe and respected.  

2. How to promote positive peer relationships between students? 

Every teacher wants his/her students to support each other and are kind to one another. Therefore, we plan and organize all kinds of relationship-building activities and games that encourage positive interactions. However, we still see unhappy things happening-bullying. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to point out the bullying's harmfulness and anti-bullying strategy to every student. Here are the detailed anti-bullying strategies: 

• Hold class meetings and explain the concept of bullying. Discuss what is and is not working in the classroom/hallways/cafeteria/school bus. Have students participate in role-playing or drama workshop to practice appropriate behaviors and encourage student's empathy for each other. 
• Encourage students to create anti-bullying posters and put up posters at every corner at school, or have students create an anti-bullying video and showcase it to the school to remind students to step-in when they see a bullying incident. 
• Teach students to report any bullying incidents when they cannot handle, and make sure to take every report seriously. Considering students might feel uncomfortable reporting it in person, teachers should tell students that they can anonymously report it online, or in a note.

Physical environment:

Constructing the physical environment of a classroom means to set up classroom strategically, for example: 
1. Arrange desks in a circle to encourage students to share and collaborate. 
2.Put a sofa and chairs in the classroom as a comfortable and share zone for students to have reading workshops. 

A well-setup classroom is able to accommodate various learning styles and create a comfortable and welcoming atmosphere for students to study and collaborate. 

Respectable environment:

A positive classroom should be a place where students feel respected and feel their contributions matters. Students who have different cultural backgrounds should not be singled in the classroom.  Cultivating a respectable environment for students who have different cultural backgrounds is very important for supporting positive mental health and reducing racism and bullying. 

As a Chinese student, I had unhappy experience when I was studying in Belgium. The master major I was learning was Western Literature, so there were only two Asian students ( Another Chinese girl and Me). We had lectures in a big classroom and seldom had collaborations. What was worse, my classmates liked to talk to each other in Dutch so I could not understand them. Therefore, I only talked to the other Chinese girl. I still remember one Belgium boy asked me "why you Chinese only hang out with Chinese?" I felt very embarrassed and could not answer him. Now as a teacher, I feel strong sympathy if one student feels excluded in class because of his cultural background, so I will never let culture discriminations happen in my class. Here are my attitudes and strategies to create a respectable environment for students who have diverse cultural backgrounds:
Attitudes:

• a humble, open and respectable sense of unfamiliar culture
  
• a commitment to avoiding and challenging stereotypes(Anti-bias Education, p8)
• A willingness to let students define their own identities (Anti-bias Education, p8)

Strategies:

 1.Do research and get familiar with the local culture of students, including:

• Knowing popular recording artists and their works

• Knowing popular places where students like to gather

• Knowing about local events significant to students
• Knowing about rivalries between different groups of students 
• Knowing popular terms and phrases used by students (The Art &Science of Teaching, p154)

2. Identify potential “hot spots” on key topics and applied on the curriculums.
3.Share and discuss with students about the selected culture topic in class. 
4. Promote the awareness, understanding, interests of the culture 

References:

Key Factors In Creating A Positive Classroom Climate. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.cfchildren.org/blog/2012/08/key-factors-in-creating-a-positive-classroom-climate/

The Emotional Environment. (2012). Retrieved from https://app.croneri.co.uk/feature-articles/emotional-environment

Marzano, Robert J. The Art, and Science of Teaching. Retrieved from 

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/platform-user-content/prod-copy/get_help_resources/activity_resources/module4/The_Art_and_Science_of_Teaching.pdf

Critical Practices For Anti-bias Education. Retrived from http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/PDA%20Critical%20Practices_0.pdf