CHANGING OURSELVES AS QUESTIONERS

One way we can ensure equity to air space is by minimizing the generic questions that we throw around to anyone who will take us up on answering. These generic and nontargeted questions ensure that students who are confident in their answers and who are outspoken are the only ones with the voice. This convenient default mode is dangerous because it subliminally communicates to students that answering questions is about getting the right answer rather than actively learning. It also undermines the best practice of ensuring wait time so that all students can formulate their thinking.

When I operate from this default mode, it also means that some students feel invisible; I can watch students leave my class after a period realizing I only “noticed” about half of them… the dominant voices. I hate those days. Ultimately, questions that are intentional in their design and target are the questions that ensure all voices are honored.

CHANGING OUR STUDENTS AS CONVERSATIONALISTS

Our classroom is full of students who have inherent conversational tendencies. Some dominate the conversation. Some are active listeners. Some sprinkle in their thoughts here and there. Some are distracted. Being intentional in creating equitable air space benefits all of these types—and more.

In any healthy working environment that is built on quality collaboration, those who are dominant need to build self-monitoring skills to transition from vocal participation to strategic facilitation. The same is true for students who do not like to participate. Students who are shy need a safe space to build the confidence and courage to share their thoughts and ask their questions. When we create a classroom dedicated to equity of verbal space, we model healthy collaborative practices that build sensitivity and awareness of one another.

Before I continue, I want to be clear about the difference between equity and equality in air space. Equality would mean all students are talking the same exact amount. But, far richer yet more difficult to achieve, equity protects all students’ right to be heard. It is not about frequency; it is about presence. This allows for people’s natural conversational styles to be honored but still sends the message that every single person’s voice in the class matters and is worthy of being heard. Here are some ways to do just that.

SETTING UP AN EQUITABLE AIR SPACE

In the beginning of the year, focus on building connections through community builders and establishing healthy participation norms. Be redundant and explicit with the messages that verbal processing is a necessary part of learning, that all voices matter and deserve to be heard, that mistakes and questions are welcome and honored, that struggle is messy but collaborative and rewarding.

Even more important than these messages is the tone that they are delivered in. When participating in class becomes a punitive grade opportunity (“You’ll lose points if you don’t contribute”), a healthy verbal space is undermined. Rather, the invitation should be just that: a warm welcome to truly be here, in this community. Another easy action to build equitable air space is to reduce teacher talk; our classrooms should be dominated by the voices of students and only facilitated by ours.

Another essential way to ensure equity in air space early on is to get to know our students as individuals. I do this through several surveys at the beginning of the year. One of them asks students to tell me about their participation style. For those who self-indicate they are dominant, I conference with them about the importance of developing their listening and leadership skills in conversations. For those who are reserved, I conference with them about the importance of verbal engagement and how I can support them in their growth.

STRATEGY AND DESIGN

It’s not enough to establish the foundation for equity in air space; it must be nurtured intentionally throughout the year. For this, I rely on protocols. Yes, they can come with baggage, but I have come to see through my own experience and through the experience of my students that protocols protect participation.

More often than not, I build in think time. This means students have quiet time to mentally process and/or write in preparation for our discussion. This encourages students who speak too quickly to add depth and complexity to their thoughts, while also giving the reserved students confidence and courage.

I find that a modified think-pair-share protocol is a great extension of this. Students have time to gather their thoughts, then they share with a partner, and then I ask students to share out not what they said, but what their partners said.

It’s important here to point out the difference between a discussion and a share out. Whereas a discussion offers students the chance to spontaneously volley their thoughts among one another, a share out offers more space for students who are reserved to have the chance to offer their voice. Another boost to those students is to give them a heads-up that I will ask them to speak.

Lastly, I always make sure as much as possible that I offer choice and variety. For example, I offer eight to 10 questions that require a variety of thinking strategies but allow students to pick the three that most interest them.

Through intentional design and follow-through, even the shyest of students can feel verbal success. In these classes, everyone speaks. Every voice matters. Everyone has the power.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/maximizing-student-voice-achieve-equity-classroom-participation?fbclid=IwAR3SP6l0sb-RwjJpiwVNmT8recQiiB-cY_YwvHg9OD1Os3cy51hEHNDs79s

Social and emotional learning is often spoken of as the “missing piece” in education, but integrating SEL into academics is essential to a healthy, harmonious classroom. Checking in emotionally with students is a simple, effective way for teachers to connect with students and begin to equip them with lifelong tools to communicate their feelings and needs. As students are grappling with the major changes and potential traumatic experiences caused by the pandemic, this practice is more important than ever.

AGE-APPROPRIATE SEL

According to the Los Angeles Unified School District, many of the students in the district were at risk for traumatic stress before the pandemic, so I knew I had to provide a safe, trauma-informed classroom space. I also knew I had to integrate foundational SEL skills in ways that were appropriate for my students’ age.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leader in advancing evidence-based social and emotional learning, offers an educational framework of core SEL competencies that correspond to students’ age and stage of development. For our youngest students, there are central themes of core competencies across multiple SEL frameworks related to self-management and self-awareness, including the ability to handle emotions in productive ways.

Simply put, being able to first identify and then express how they feel sets children up to successfully manage and cope with emotions. These skills are the foundation of emotional literacy, and we need them at any age.

UNDERSTANDING MOODS AND FEELINGS

To lay this groundwork, I began inviting students to share how they felt and why, if they were comfortable, during our daily morning circle. To teach my students the vocabulary to identify and express their feelings, I designed a Feelings Chart labeled with a vocabulary of emotions and accompanying photos of children’s facial expressions.

I adapted the visual concept of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence Mood Meter, a tool for identifying and sorting emotions for people of all ages. The Mood Meter sorts emotions on a gradient scale ranging from high to low energy, pleasant to unpleasant, and gives equal representation for positive and negative emotions.

While looking for ready-made flash cards or photos of children’s emotional expressions for my chart to help my emerging readers, I was disappointed to find resources that depicted nearly all white children. I gathered an assortment of public domain photos to reflect the racial demographics of our Los Angeles population. Our Feelings Chart is sorted into four zones: high-energy pleasant yellow zone (energized, joyful, curious, enthusiastic); high-energy unpleasant red zone (angry, stressed, frustrated, nervous); low-energy pleasant green zone (at ease, content, grateful, serene); and low-energy unpleasant blue zone (tired, worried, down, sad). To create the color background, I cut out and pasted paint swatches together on poster board.

INCREASING THE VOCABULARY OF EMOTIONS

After only two days, the majority of my students went from saying they felt “good” or “tired” to saying they felt “energized,” “down,” “serene,” or “joyful.” We talked about what the words meant, and my students worked together in groups to sort photos of children’s facial expressions into the color zones. Once my students understood how to identify emotions, we talked about what strategies to use to positively shift how they feel in various situations: asking for help from an adult, taking a break in a dedicated calm classroom space, using words during a conflict, etc.

Gradually, I noticed this vocabulary showing up in students’ conversations and collaboration. Arguments didn’t solely end in students just walking away; with some support, they could talk it out and keep working together in class. After three months, we moved on to reflective listening. During circle time, students paired up with an elbow partner, and, using a visual anchor chart I created, they took turns expressing how they felt, mirroring their partner’s language and recalling a time when they felt similarly, if possible.

Over the course of the year, I noticed the atmosphere of my classroom slowly transform. Our academic time became richer and significantly more cohesive. Some students stepped into the role of peer supporter using the work I had modeled for them, asking each other how they felt and offering helpful suggestions when they looked upset.

SEL AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

There are huge implications in this related to class management. Devoting time to social and emotional subjects seemed to send the message to students that their emotions are valid and welcome in the classroom and that their emotional well-being is important. As we engaged in discourse, we created a language of understanding influenced by each community member.

During the first wave of the pandemic, when our school campus transitioned to online learning, my students continued using the vocabulary naturally from our Feelings Chart even without the visual aid. Students expressed that they felt disappointed because they couldn’t see their friends or felt sad because they were lonely. We continued our practice of brainstorming strategies to feel better, and other students seamlessly stepped in to share ideas. This practice had become part of our classroom culture.

In-person classes are back in session for most schools, and who knows what students have encountered in the last year. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 140,000 children in the United States have lost a parent or grandparent caregiver to Covid-19, and countless others have lost vital supports while combating the ongoing stress, fear, grief, and uncertainty created by the pandemic.

Emotionally checking in daily with students allows educators to respond to students’ trauma and get them the at-school support and counseling they need, work that I continue daily. I saw my students lean on these strategies we explored as a class while living through uncertainty and change, which speaks to the power of these practices—not only for young students but for students of all ages.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-young-students-emotional-well-being?fbclid=IwAR07gueaiNTr3RCibMcLcBarjkQjTuYs2_iP_MhavRrTrcuL56nc9I75yvY

HOW ALL EDUCATORS CAN FOSTER A STRONG SCHOOL CULTURE

School culture grows out from the classroom and into daily life within a school building. It can be strengthened by having teachers focus on the assets and strengths of learners, and providing students with pedagogical and learning approaches that build on their diverse experiences. Doing so can yield a palpably supportive climate steeped in the expectation that all students will achieve academic proficiency.

To create such a climate, students’ learning and academic success can be enhanced by encouraging positive ethnic, racial, and cultural identities. School leaders can have teachers elicit, recognize, reinforce, and celebrate the cultures of all students. They should hold and espouse high expectations for all students, and engage families (and community resources) as important partners in supporting learners to achieve academic and social success. When classrooms lack aspects of diversity, students and teachers can together create plans to introduce and experience other perspectives in the spirit of widening their cultural responsiveness.

School leaders can also have teachers apply, and help students apply, their cultural experiences to classroom learning tasks, and encourage all students to demonstrate awareness of their historic place in society, and in their school and community. In so doing, students are encouraged to display and appreciate the diverse skills, knowledge, and real-life experiences that are represented in the classroom.

HOW TEACHERS CAN FOSTER A CULTURE OF CARING

Classrooms are places where students need to be helpful, cooperative, kind, and caring about one another. For 180 school days, students enter classrooms wanting to be successful, recognized, valued, and supported. Teachers can create this kind of supportive environment by creating with students a set of classroom rules or norms for how to treat one another.

Observe existing patterns of caring, kindness, and helping within your classroom, and pay particular attention to discussing how students can help one another and seek out help from adults in the school. Make it clear that caring and kindness are the norm, not the exception, and that no students are excluded from receiving and demonstrating these attributes.

HOW TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN SELF-REFLECTION AND CELEBRATION OF THEMSELVES

Teachers can guide students in building social and emotional competencies so that they learn to act in ways that make themselves proud. Teachers can also provide students with equitable opportunities to speak, participate, and lead; to join groups, teams, or clubs; and to be recognized and appreciated. Barriers that perpetuate unequal access and participation should be eliminated to enable access and opportunity for all students.

Students benefit from clear, non-stigmatizing opportunities to express uncertainties, anxieties, and loss, to address the issues they are seeing and hearing about in the media, and to raise questions they want to discuss. Teachers can have students use pair shares, pre-writing, and other means to make sure every student participates.

Some good discussion prompts to help build a supportive classroom:

• What should you do in my class if you are feeling anxious about an exam, assignment, or project?
• What should you do if you are feeling distracted, saddened, or angered by losses in your life, either past losses or ones you are anticipating, or events reported in the media?
• When do you learn best?

• Who are the people you look up to most—in your family, in the community, in history, or in various walks of life (sports, the arts, government, science, writing, etc.)? Why?
• What are examples of hope, heroism, and positive moral conviction and inspiration in your life right now? Who or what provides this for you, and what strengths can you draw from them that you can apply to your everyday life?
• What are examples of mistreatment of people you have seen or heard about recently in your school, based on race, gender, ability/disability, or some other personal characteristic? How about your community? Let’s talk about an example where you acted based on what you saw: What happened? What did you do?
• Now let’s talk about an example where you did not act based on what you saw: What did you do instead? Why was it so hard to act? How did you feel? What is the lesson learned from those feelings (e.g., hard to take action as an individual; must be very confident about possible action; must be well-practiced and prepared for obstacles; must believe very strongly about what the injustice is; must feel supported in taking an action)?
• Acts of everyday courage—tolerance, acceptance, reaching out to others—are not simple and do require courage. Who or what are you most or least willing to fight for, and why?


This kind of culturally responsive, supportive environment is the minimum that should be expected of schools in order to prepare all children for participatory citizenship in the 21st century, regardless of students’ backgrounds and their individual abilities or disabilities.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-sel-can-help-make-schools-feel-more-inclusive?fbclid=IwAR1RwO8sDWR-REeI7y2P8GpKetzwZDEIzCjwUQc2QQ0yKWKMU3gyBtDbiTA