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If you walk into Tr. Suzanne’s 2nd grade classroom first thing in the morning, you’ll find her students already quietly journaling. Tr. Suzanne takes attendance and collects lunch and pretzel money but her careful eyes never leave the class at large. While she creates impromptu math lessons for the students bringing her change, she also passes out words of encouragement at a near-constant rate. “I notice that everyone at table four has begun working.” “Thank you for choosing your crayons so quickly and quietly, Nicholas.”
A few minutes later, Tr. Suzanne invites the class to “find a responsible seat on the rug.” She counts down from 10 to 1, with the expectation that at 1 every student will be seated on the rug. Stragglers receive a gentle tap on the shoulder to help them stay on track.
Morning Meeting begins with a greeting. The students chant together, and each child receives a hello from the class and announces how the upcoming weekend will be spent. Then it is Jamie’s turn to share an object she brought from home and answer her classmates’ thoughtful questions before the class moves on to a community-building improv activity. Tr. Suzanne assigns pairs of students snowy-day scenarios to act out, and the performers take turns catching snowflakes on their tongues and building millions of miniature snowmen. Finally, the class reads the morning message to find out what exciting learning adventures Tr. Suzanne has in store for them that day.
Amazingly, throughout the busy meeting, Tr. Suzanne continues her respectful reminders to students, keeping each one seamlessly on track. “Please make sure that your legs are crossed and your bottom is on the rug.” “Let’s all take a few scoots backwards to make room for our friend Jaela.” When she notices that a student is sitting next to a distracting neighbor, she quietly helps him switch places with another classmate. In just over 20 minutes, Tr. Suzanne has given this group of seven and eight year olds a welcoming and soft “landing” into their school day—in which time nearly every student has heard a personalized word of encouragement from their teacher.
While anyone watching the morning’s events unfold would be impressed at the calm and easy-going sense of community, not everyone would know that Tr. Suzanne’s words and the class’s activities are all a carefully planned part of the Responsive Classroom program, a system of classroom management that recognizes social and emotional growth as inextricably linked to academic progress.
Creating a safe, caring, and respectful learning environment fosters productive teacher and peer relationships and maximizes cognitive growth. This is why Independence Charter School has adopted the Responsive Classroom program in our lower school and the corresponding Development Designs program for our middle school. Teachers all over the school are starting their day with community-building Morning Meetings like Tr. Suzanne’s and noticing just how important that sense of “belonging” is for their students’ achievement.
Not every ICS teacher has yet had the opportunity to complete Responsive Classroom training. Make an online donation to ICS now and help us reach our goal of fully training 100% of our teachers this summer!
