Creating a Positive Classroom Environment

I'm going to talk about creating a positive, inclusive classroom environment with reference to strategies from "Critical Practices for Anti-bias Education", a pamphlet from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance initiative.

Choose Books that Reflect Student Experience

At our American-themed international school, we often order books intended for U.S. audiences. Our students don’t need math books that use Imperial units or readers on U.S. presidents, but we keep getting them anyway. English-language books that deal with Chinese or Thai themes are rarer. When I see one, such as I Hate English! by Ellen Levine, or a Chinese New Year book, I try to use it if possible.  I want my students to learn about other cultures as well, but these texts give them the opportunities to speak from personal experience.

More often, I try to choose texts that are universally relatable. Kids from all cultures are interested in travel, adventure, animals, dinosaurs, space, and food. The better I get to know my students, the more thought goes into choosing books for them.

Student-centered Classroom Arrangement

I work between the grade 4 and 5 classrooms and a small ELL room. I tell my students that if the place they are sitting won’t distract them, it’s not a problem. When I work with small groups in the classrooms, we sit wherever, a different place every time. We try to disassociate from the old-school “sit down, shut up, and listen to teacher” approach wherever possible and the way I seat my students is meant to be democratic and support shared inquiry.

The walls in our ELL room have a big chart of English phonemes, some student work, some IB Learner profile posters. I’d like to add quotes, pictures, or anything that would stimulate a student’ curiosity- conversation pieces. This could be a chance to bring in some American culture, and at the same time counter the misconception (common among Asian IS students) that Western=American=White. 

Some personalization of the ELL room would also be good. Maybe a special display frame for a “status update” or that students best work for the week/month. 

Gender (and ethnicity)- Neutral Practices

 When I was in the fourth grade, our teacher disciplined the whole class by making us sit silently with our heads down. Her way of making sure we didn’t whisper: “If you’re a girl, sit next to a boy, if you’re black, sit next to someone who’s white.” Segregating students in this way (I should say re-segregating since this was in North Carolina) reinforced the false binaries of race and gender handed down to us by our society.

Education that truly prepares students for the future must do the opposite and challenge received notions of identity.  Many of my current students come from conservative cultures and their parents hold old-fashioned views on sexuality and ethnicity. Some examples:

• ·         There is occasional friction between Chinese and Japanese students. Parents tell them stories about World War 2, but don’t explain how every county has done something bad at one time or another or how people from a given country aren’t necessarily all the same. I see filling in these gaps part of my role as an international educator.
• ·         When doing a rhyming-words lesson, a 4^th grade ELL came up with gay and looked at me like I was supposed to be shocked. I said “Yeah, that’s a word and it’s not a bad word either. Write it down.” He replied “But it’s very disgusting.” I simply said, “No it’s not,” and moved on with the lesson. Preaching my values might set up an opposition between myself and the parents (with the student unfairly torn between the two), but confidently asserting my beliefs sets an example and will provoke thought.

Rethink Participation Norms

In Thai culture, students are expected to echo the teacher’s words. They are not encouraged to ask teachers questions either, and they are often at a loss when asked an open-ended question. Depending on the individual, it can be very difficult to break them out of this mindset. I try meeting them halfway by:

• ·         Writing several options or examples on the board and let them choose
• ·         Giving plenty of think time
• ·         Trying to avoid “on-the-spot” questions. Partner work lets them speak under less pressure.
• ·         Defusing their anxiety with humor
• ·         Smiling, giving eye contact and verbal encouragement

Because of the structural differences between Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European languages, ELL students from East Asia make countless grammatical mistakes. To correct every mistake on every assignment would be overwhelming and discouraging to the students.  Instead, I focus on current and past learning targets i.e. target language for that lesson and stuff we’ve already talked about. See this interesting article for more about working with Chinese ELLs.

There is a balance to be struck between correcting their English and encouraging them to produce more. Since perfection is not our goal, I tend to lean toward getting them talking or writing, using what they do know.

Keeping in mind that young learners are absorbing and interpreting everything around them, some extra effort to send appropriate messages and make sure everybody's learning receives full support seems worth it. 

Until next time...

References

Critical Practices in Anti-bias Education. Teaching Tolerance, Southern Poverty Law Center, 2014. http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/PDA%20Critical%20Practices_0.pdf