Creating a Safe Environment
With the recent focus on bullying and violence in schools, teachers and administrators need to work to ensure that their students feel like school is a place where they will not be harmed while creating a warm, welcoming learning environment. Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) note, "19 programs that were effective shared a common trait: they enlisted the support of not only guidance counselors and deans of discipline but also teachers, parents, and students, who, as bystanders, witness an estimated 85 percent of bullying cases". (Be Supportive, Item 8, creating a supportive school climate, para. 3)
Effective teachers and programs are able to establish rules and consequences for student conduct that are positive, uncomplicated, involve students in defining expectations for conduct, and have clear consequences (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Additionally, teachers are encouraged to catch students when they are doing things right rather than set out to control behavior. School should be a place students want to attend, not a prison where students feel trapped. Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) provide a number of ways that this can be accomplished, namely teachers can:
Teachers should also be organized and consistent in applying their rules, respond quickly when a rule is broken, and create and enforce a set time when students need to be in the classroom (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Morning meetings at the start of classes are a great way to establish rules and enlist student assistance in enforcing them, but at the same time teachers need to understand that when a rule is broken that there is usually motivation behind negative student behavior. Remember: there are no bad students, only bad circumstances.
Furthermore, the more positive a teacher can make a classroom, the more teachers will be able to foster positive activity like risk taking and cooperation.
Harry Wong details how a teacher can manage a classroom while creating a positive environment here .
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides a podcast that can help teachers here .
Stopbullying.gov also provides helpful resources here.
Effective teachers and programs are able to establish rules and consequences for student conduct that are positive, uncomplicated, involve students in defining expectations for conduct, and have clear consequences (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Additionally, teachers are encouraged to catch students when they are doing things right rather than set out to control behavior. School should be a place students want to attend, not a prison where students feel trapped. Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) provide a number of ways that this can be accomplished, namely teachers can:
- Accentuate the positive.
- Dispense commendation cards or notes.
- Provide opportunities for students to privately praise one another's positive behavior.
- Offer public praise for exemplary behavior (Be Supportive, Item 8, I catch students in the act of doing things right, para. 3-6).
Teachers should also be organized and consistent in applying their rules, respond quickly when a rule is broken, and create and enforce a set time when students need to be in the classroom (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Morning meetings at the start of classes are a great way to establish rules and enlist student assistance in enforcing them, but at the same time teachers need to understand that when a rule is broken that there is usually motivation behind negative student behavior. Remember: there are no bad students, only bad circumstances.
Furthermore, the more positive a teacher can make a classroom, the more teachers will be able to foster positive activity like risk taking and cooperation.
Harry Wong details how a teacher can manage a classroom while creating a positive environment here .
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides a podcast that can help teachers here .
Stopbullying.gov also provides helpful resources here.
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