Responsive Classroom

I love teaching because I love learning, and as a teacher there are endless opportunities to learn, grow, change, and try new things. This past weekend, I attended the ECIS (European Council of International Schools) conference in Barcelona and loved every second of it. I left feeling energized and excited to look deeply at the work I'm doing and how I can best educate my fabulous kiddos. 

Before the conference itself began, I participated in a full day Responsive Classroom pre-conference with Kerry O'Grady. Responsive Classroom is an approach to education that focuses on the importance of building both academic and social-emotional skills. These ideas are embedded in all that we do each and every day and cannot be separated- for example, rather than "Respect Week," respect is worked in throughout the entire day; what does respect look like on the playground? In the cafeteria? During reading groups? We also can't assume that students have an innate understanding of the social and emotional skills that they need to be successful academically and socially, including cooperation, self-control, empathy, responsibility, and assertiveness. They need to be taught and practiced explicitly, modeled throughout the day in various scenarios, and constantly reinforced. 

I absolutely loved everything that was presented. One of my biggest takeaways from the day was the importance of modeling. As Kerry taught us about the guiding principles of RC, led us through the research on the benefits, and guided us through activities and strategies for developing a positive community, engaging academics, and effective classroom management, she truly practiced what she preached. While it was a long day, the other participants and I were fully engaged and absorbed the entire time. Towards the end we discussed interactive learning structures, and as it turns out, she had used three or four of them throughout the day to keep us moving, talking, and involved with the material. She used the interactive modeling strategy when introducing different ideas, and taught us new energizers to break up the day and get us on our feet when energy lagged. We even started the day with an adult morning meeting, which broke the ice and helped everyone feel like we were in it together. It was a wonderful day, and I learned just as much (if not more) from her teaching methods as I did from the content she presented. 

I also came away feeling an intense pride in my school. I knew that my school is a wonderful place, and I knew before that our students are wonderful people. However, I came away feeling very proud of the learning environment  as a whole; a great amount of attention is given to social-emotional learning, developing relationships, and instilling values. I take these things for granted, perhaps because this is my first school, and I assume that it's just the norm. But as I talked with teachers from other schools, I realized that it is not always the case. While there are of course social problems (my class has a large clique this year- more on this another time, and 4th grade soccer will forever have its troubles), we don't have much of a bullying issue, and the students genuinely care about each other, their school, and their world. We even have a block for Morning Meeting built into our daily schedules, meaning that I have 20 minutes at the beginning of every day where I'm only expected to cultivate a sense of community. Because so much is in place already, I feel that I can push it even farther with academic choice and trying interactive learning structures that are new to me. I'm so excited! 

A coworker and I found that we were questioning our own practices and considering how we could further incorporate the principles and strategies of Responsive Classroom into our time in the classroom. I love using writing as a reflection tool and have been seriously missing writing/slacking on blogging, so am planning to delve into some of the ideas presented during the conference in a few posts over the next few weeks.