In the months before I decided to transition careers and move into teaching full time, I started reading various books on parenting and education, books like Carol Dweck's "Mindset," John Holt's "How Children Learn," and Chip Wood's "Yardsticks." I had just given birth to my daughter and was excited to learn as much as possible about her development and any ways I could support her growth.
As I read up on some of the practices of the greatest teachers of our time, I fondly recalled my own favorite teachers and the unique class traditions we held. As I became more and more solidified in my decision to pursue this calling, I’d dreamily imagine what my own classroom would look like. Students would be independent and collaborative; even 6 year olds would seek out constructive criticism from each other. Parents would marvel at the intricate and beautiful projects my students would make. If my class were an elective, the seats would fill within the first few hours of enrollment. My reputation for humor and thought-provoking lessons would have students arriving already anticipating the fun and learning about to unfold.
Of course, the realities of teacher life aren’t always as rosy as we might imagine them, and I quickly discovered that being an excellent teacher is not just a matter of having great intentions. 2016-17 marked my first full year teaching in the classroom at a “high-needs” public school where 24% of the population were students with special needs, more than half were below the national poverty line, and the vast majority were not performing on grade level. So many friends and family members and even fellow teachers have wrongly assumed that because I was teaching art -and we all know “Kids love art!”- that I would not encounter the same problems a "regular" teacher might. But the art room, just like the cafeteria or the playground, was a place where students could socialize while they worked and played, and where new social dynamics and relationships could unfold. My class was also a place where students' struggles with fatalism and perfectionism could also emerge. Like most first year teachers, creating the classroom climate I had envisioned was far more difficult than I could have ever anticipated.
In the beginning, I didn’t even have my own classroom. I “pushed-in” with some supplies on a cart to different homerooms for the first half of the year. This limited the supplies I could use and forced me to adapt to different desk-formations and varied classroom cultures. In some spaces, students could get up and sharpen their pencil whenever they needed to, and in others they could not. Some classes had students whose desks had been singled out and moved away from their peers and in others, excluding students from the group was absolutely forbidden.
While navigating these different classroom environments was difficult, one benefit was that it exposed me to all sorts of classroom management styles and layouts. I saw some very specific things I knew I wanted to incorporate in my own space, as well as many things I quickly discovered did not suit my style or belong in my "toolkit." I saw classrooms where students had rotating classroom jobs which I loved, and classes where students had different stickers on their desks that the teacher could simply point to when a student needed a reminder to stay on task. I loved the idea of filling the walls and hallways of my school with student works, and decorating my desk area with pieces students had made from home and given to me as gifts. Whenever I acquired my own room, I knew I wanted to make it a safe and relaxing space, where my students and I could feel free to take risks in our creative work and share it with our peers.
And there was one major thing I saw often at my last school that I absolutely wanted to avoid having in my classroom: an angry dictator.
If I asked all of my peers in Teach-Now how they want to behave in their classroom, I strongly doubt anyone would say they’d like to be a cold and steely drill sergeant. But in moments of great distress, when lesson plans aren’t going as planned, when we’re exceptionally tired and find ourselves at wits end, that nasty dragon/teacher we see in children’s books and on TV might emerge. We may raise our voices or say things we later regret. We may invalidate a student’s feelings, or not treat individual incidents with the care and attention they rightly deserve.
I'm an amateur meditator, and have lately been reading several books on the subject. On the bus-ride to school the other morning, with the topics of classroom culture and bullying swirling around in my mind, I was particularly struck this passage from Sharon Salzberg's, "Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness." Salzberg writes:
"A friend of mine once traveled to Sikkim, hoping to see His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, a great Tibetan lama. The trip to Sikkim was quite arduous, demanding the crossing of great mountain passes and the fording of rivers. Having made this effort, my friend was delighted to be actually granted an audience with His Holiness. He was amazed to find that the Karmapa, an eminent spiritual leader known the world over, treated him as though his visit were one of the most important things that had ever happened to the Karmapa in his life. This treatment did not manifest through grandiose gestures or ceremony, but rather through the simplicity and completeness of the Karmapa's presence, which offered my friend an experience of being completely loved."[1]
Reading this passage, I thought about the hundreds or even thousands of opportunities to provide a different child my attention each day, and the different messages my attention could send them. Would I choose to make them feel loved or loathed? Would my face convey joy or contempt? Was I sending the message to them that their voices and their feelings mattered to me, or that I could not be bothered, that I was already too busy worrying about the next lesson, or eager for my lunch? Was I trying to bend students to my will, or actually helping them build the character and qualities they needed to make positive choices outside of my presence?
I love this quote from the late Haim Ginott, a famous school teacher and child psychologist. He states,
"I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.” [2]
In constructing my own classroom environment, I of course think about strategically placing the pencil sharpener so that it is easily accessible, and making space to hang student work. But my biggest focus and biggest challenge is centered around preparing myself to be a calm and collected leader, mentally, emotionally and physically. In this way, creating a warm classroom environment requires my daily practice and reflection. I’ve been practicing taking a moment for myself before I discuss a difficult conversation with a student. I’m practicing asking the question, “What happened?” instead of the accusatory, “Why did you do that?!” After difficult conversations with students, I practice asking them, “Would you like a hug?” It’s crazy just how much this simple gesture has transformed some of the relationships I have with my students.
When i've made a mistake, I'm practicing openly admitting it to my students, and asking for their forgiveness. But often I find that my own inner-critic that has the most difficult time forgiving! At the end of a difficult day, I have to remind myself that no one is perfect and renew my faith in myself. I've learned that this kind of self-compassion is as essential to my ability to function in my classroom as the pencils and the paper are. (That's why I'm reading books like "Loving-Kindness," as cheesy as the title might be!)
I recognize that creating a classroom culture of equity, of kindness, and of mutual respect, begins with my own presence. So in my quest to cultivate the climate I'd like to see in my room, I begin and end with cultivating myself.
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[1] Salzberg, S., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2008). Lovingkindness: the revolutionary art of happiness. Boston: Shambhala.
[2] A quote by Haim G. Ginott. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2017, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/81938-i-ve-come-to-a-frightening-conclusion-that-i-am-the