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To foster a relationship with this three-pronged approach in mind (Howard, 2020), I as a teacher should understand the day-to-day challenges the student faces from various factors like their race, ethnicity, socio-economic circumstance, or familial structure. If I know more about my students, I can build lessons around them, to promote connectedness. Through establishing an empathetic relationship with my students, the student will feel like they have a place in the classroom. Upon having a positive relationship with the teacher by feeling accepted and validated, students can open up about their culture and themself with their peers, fostering a deeper connection with them.

Part of relationship building is to humanize my students. They make mistakes, just as I do. They have bad days, just as I do. Part of promoting a relationship with my students is for them feel at ease with being confused about a lesson, needing space from other students, or making mistakes. This is how growth is made, collectively and individually.

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Apart from establishing expected behaviors together, I want to inform my students of expectations through modeling procedures. I will model the expected procedure for the class, then together, we will practice the procedure. For example, after lunch the procedure is that all students to go their seats and engage in  "heads down, cool down". We will practice this verbally and physically before lunch time, and talk about what went well and what can improve for next time.

"When procedures are thoroughly taught, children are more on task and exhibit less misbehavior" (Casetta & Sawyer, 2015). This adds to France's (2018) point that children need expectation and boundaries to follow and to grow from them. Modeling procedures also come in the form of explicit instruction. I have found that instruction works best when the I let the class know I am going to give the instruction, repeat the instruction twice, then have a student share the instructions / expectations for the third time.

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Purpose: To establish a sense of respect and duty to ourselves and to others. Part of En Lak Ech, or respecting others, is mindfully listening, and assuming well of others and their intentions etc.
We all have this mantra in our languages in one way or another. In English we say "respect others the way you want to be treated" or in Farsi I say something else, but the meanings and implications are all the same. Respect and love for others and ourselves is synonymous; it is coexisting and tied to each other.

This also ties into my teaching philosophy of building relationships in the class.

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Cassetta, G., Sawyer, B., Classroom Management Matters: the Social-Emotional Learning Approach Children Deserve. Chapter 3., Langara College, 2019.

France, P., "A Healthy Ecosystem for Classroom Management", Educational Leadership, 2018, volume 76

Howard, J. Howard, T and McCall, T., “No More Teaching Without Positive Relationships”, 2020.

Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.

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Instilling a leadership role in my students as well as a sense of ownership in the class.

- Student Jobs: Students will have rotating jobs to help out around their classroom. For example, a  student job could entail making sure the room is clean and in order at them end of the day (name of the job is TBD).

-Student Led Review: Students should be producers of their learning, not passive consumers (France, 2018).  Students can learn by teaching their peers and by learning from them. I've seen this with math classes, where a few students are selected to reteach a concept to the class in groups. This engages everyone in their  learning, reinforces the subject matter, and cultivates a sense of belonging in the class.

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A few things I want to implement for my classroom community

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A few things I want to implement for my classroom community

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I understand that everyday isn't a good day. I acknowledge my students' humanity by allowing them to take care of themselves, mind and body, before their academics.  Part of my classroom community is that we take care of each other, and ourselves.

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Community

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Inspiration

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1. Transitions: When transitioning from one activity to another, I will model what the expected transition looks like to my students and have the class practice too. For example when transitioning from group work to individual work, students are expected to transition on time and with low classroom volume. I will have a quicksand timer for them to understand how long the transitions should be. Often times, transitions can cause a lot of distractions in the class and it can take a long time to refocus everyone's energy. By implementing this procedure, students will know what is expected of them, and will make the transition process faster.

2. When wanting to grab the attention of my students, in the middle of an activity or assignment,  I will call to my students: "If you can hear me-touch your shoulders, if you can hear me- touch your nose- if you can hear me, touch your head"
As I call out, I lower my voice with each phrase. This focuses their attention away from their work and to my words. Instead of a call-and answer, I find this procedure to work better with me because it calms the students as they hear words for directions. If a student doesn't hear me asking them to touch their shoulders, they will notice their classmates doing so. I will do this a lot in first couple week to enforce this practice with my students.

3. Morning routine: I will model to my students the correct procedure on coming in the class in the mornings. After finding their seats, students will take our their books, and pencils and will go straight to answering a journal question to jumpstart their day. Like previous procedures, I will model multiple times during the first week for the students to understand, and will watch them practice.

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Part of gardening a harmonious classroom is to set expectations that must be met, and to allow student autonomy within the expected boundaries. The purpose of these expectations will "cultivate awareness around what good decision making looks like, sounds like, and feels like".  (France, 2018)

Since I hope to be with older elementary school students, we will create expectations of the classroom environment together. A mistake I have learned from is to hold firm on my expectations at the beginning of the year. The first couple weeks will determine the tone for the rest of the year.

Rather than to focus on rules like, "don't speak when someone else is speaking", I want to focus on building a community and character in my classroom.

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When considering classroom community, I think of how I want my students to feel. I want them to feel like they want to be in class, with their teacher and classmates.
Often, the role of a teacher can be perceived as a highly authoritative and opposing figure. In our classroom community, we are all teammates -- cheering and working with each other.  We share the joy in other's successes and encourage each other past our mistakes.

To build positive relationships with my students, I want to welcome them and say good-bye to them, every day. I will notice them by asking how their day was at home, how their siblings are doing, and to compliment them for their ability, progress and effort. The way I teach my lessons, the projects I assign, and the books they read, should all be reflective of who they are and what they go through. For example, the books we read in class, or that I provide for them should be books that reflect "mirrors or windows" for each of them.  I hope to frame each lesson with Muhammad's (2020) four frameworks: identity, skills, intellect and criticality. Lessons that I provide will challenge students to think critical and deeply about world, and they will learn more of themselves and others through it. The frameworks will give purpose, meaning and joy in their learning.

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I believe teachers possess the power to directly impact their students. They carry the ability to revolutionize students’ mindsets, inspiring them to excel beyond what they think they are capable of. For me, community is where I found empowerment and a sense of belonging. I am motivated to establish this with students at school. School should be where students make healthy relationship with themselves and others, and I want to be part of that.

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Learning is built through relationships in the classroom with the teacher and peers. In, No More Teaching Without Positive Relationships, Howard suggests a three-pronged relationship building approach for teachers and schools to build positive relationships with their students. This includes “promoting connectedness among students...teach with social minds as a context…[and] promote collective learning” (Howard, 2020). This engages the whole student’s self by creating meaningful relationships in school and all aspects of the students’ identity grows.
With parents, or caregivers, relationship building is just as important. Through relationship building with parents, parents should understand that their child's learning is a collaborative effort with home and the classroom. This begins before the school year. To stay true to this philosophy, caregivers and teachers should meet before the school year to get to know each other. Teachers and caregivers are on the same team, with the student. A conversation of what language is spoken at home, what hopes the parents have for their child, can promote collaboration between all parties.

Lastly, administrators and teachers are in education for the same reason, however, there is a gap in understanding or in communication between the parties. Fostering a relationship between teachers and administrators can make the work environment welcoming to be in and efforts for the student can be of a priority.