Thursday, September 26, 2013
Culture In Progress
In my classroom I am currently changing the classroom culture. When we were charged with examining what our classroom culture looks like I didn't necessarily like what I saw. I did not like being driven to the point of anger by my students behavior, so I made the decision not to get angry. I no longer elevate my voice and what I have discovered is that the students will reduce the volume of their voices to match mine. This has cause a tremendous shift in my attitude, in the students attitude, and thus the overall culture of my classroom has changed. This began a conversation with another teacher about how classroom culture is something that is created and if the teacher is not intentional about their culture the students will create the culture based off of previous experiences because that is their default setting. There are many aspects of my culture that are in the changing process, and I am excited about how these changes will impact student learning as the year progresses.
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I believe that students many times mimic the behavior they are shown. I am glad you have seen positive change in your classroom based on how you changed your behavior. It is making me stop and reflect about my behavior and what I need to change to help create better classroom culture.
ReplyDeleteI'm very interested in the notion of volume. I've never thought about that, but now that I've read the post, I'm going to pay very close attention to how volume operates in my classroom and in other classrooms. I know when I'm walking through the halls, that there are varying volume levels as the default. I'm wondering if there is research about volume in the classrooms and how that affects student behavior.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I'm very curious about "default settings". This will make a great journal topic for my personal reflection and for my students. What is the default setting for your learning? How do default settings change between classes?
Good stuff.
Thanks Twyla.