It starts with the climate…

Creating the high-trust organizationphoto © 2011 opensource.com | more info (via: Wylio)
The climate of a classroom is key to learning.  I know we’ve heard it, we read it, we understand it, and it totally makes sense. When learners (no matter their age) feel comfortable to express their ideas, share, collaborate, and ‘fail forward’, they learn more.  They see the value of sharing diverse ideas, even sometimes the most ‘out of the box’ type ideas that lead to great ‘ahas’.

I’ve always said that every situation comes back to this climate and the relationships we build with our colleagues, students, parents, and all the stakeholders in a school community. As an educational leader I am reminded everyday how important relationships are. That is why no matter how crazy my schedule is I take time to talk to people in my organization, to ask them how it is going (and truly care about what they respond, offering help as needed), to follow-up on past conversations we’ve had, to share success stories or ideas that might help them be a better person (or sometimes these stories are just for fun to add humor), or to simply find out if their children are feeling better since the last time I talked to them and they had some illness spreading like wildfire through their household. Taking time to truly speak, listen, and show you care about others is essential to building good relationships. Of course the other key thing is to follow-through with promises you make and prove that you can be trusted with confidences that they reveal to you.

I was reminded of the importance of climate and relationships this week when I facilitated discussions with our elementary teachers on standards based report cards, which we are developing and implementing this coming school year.  The discussions we had were powerful! We delved into learning competencies for ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, and 21st century competencies. Throughout the discussion we addressed quality first instruction, assessments that show true evidence of learning, ways to truly assess learning, and ways to truly communicate that learning to all stakeholders. We spoke about collaboration and the fact that we aren’t teaching in isolation anymore, but need to be teams in learning. I truly believe that these discussions would not have been so rich if it wasn’t for the positive climate that was created.

A good day is a day when you walk out of work and feel like you were a part of something great. I have had those days, and for them I am grateful to the people I have created relationships with and proud to call those people my friends and colleagues.

Must reads:

The Inspirational Teacher by Greg McGuey and Lonnie Moore

Being an inspirational teacher (my post from last year)

Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab your students by their Brains (Second Edition) by LouAnne Johnson  I wrote about it here.

Here are some lists of what makes a classroom a good learning environment:

The Learning Environment (good list for classroom atmosphere)

Intervention Central’s ‘Establishing a positive classroom environment’ , ‘Reducing Problem behaviors through good academic management: 10 strategies

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