by Donna Thayer, teacher
“I already know how to do this and Tori doesn’t, so I don’t need any help from her!” Marissa says loudly. It’s back to school and Tori and Marissa are working on their “Schools Around The World” poster. Marissa has the poster centered on her desk and is using her body to block Tori from participating. At eight-years-old, she is still absorbing that learning is best done as a community.
No matter what subject I am teaching, my instruction needs to include 21st-century skills: collaboration, critical thinking, communication and creativity. I can get at these skills by helping my students see themselves as community members. Together we build awareness of what happens when you work as a partner, a member of a group or a member of a classroom community.
While the young children in my classroom know how to play together, they often do not intuitively know how to work together. Fostering an environment where my students learn from and with each other means that they need to be active listeners, present learners and kind and supportive classmates who demonstrate accountability and responsibility. In other words, they need to develop community readiness skills. In this work, families are my partner. At home, there are multiple opportunities to help a child become aware of what it means to be part of a community.
While the young children in my classroom know how to play together, they often do not intuitively know how to work together.
Learning to wait and learning to listen to others are key community readiness skills. In my class, children have to wait their turn and learn to listen with care to determine if what they want to say is related to our discussion or if they need to save it in “their thought bubble for later.” At home, parents can help their child gain awareness that someone else is sharing at the dinner table, for example, and model that they may need to wait a moment.
Children who know how to be “great losers” when playing a game are the ones who are able to accept others' ideas when working together. I model this by saying, “good game, want to play again?” When playing games at home, parents can make sure their child loses, often. (This is hard, I know!) When children lose often enough, they get good at being a “great loser” instead of a “sore loser.” This is an invaluable skill because children stop playing games with sore losers pretty quickly into the school year.
I challenge my students to learn more about their own likes and dislikes and ways to stretch themselves. Instead of “boredom” being a dirty word or a reason for disruptive behavior, I reframe it as an opportunity for creativity and problem-solving. Free time at home, with nothing scheduled and no electronics, is the perfect time for children to learn to be responsible for their own entertainment and become creative problem-solvers.
Free time at home, with nothing scheduled and no electronics, is the perfect time for children to learn to be responsible for their own entertainment and become creative problem-solvers.
Finally, while it is not realistic to think every child will be friends with everyone they meet, I expect that they will be kind to everyone. I point out the great qualities that all my students have, in front of their classmates, while helping them to see how they can use these qualities to support others. In our “class expert” notebook, every student completes a page on things they are good at. (“Need help drawing airplanes? Come and see Yoton.”) My students love referring to this notebook to see which “expert” they can check in with.
Once children recognize that we all have things that come easy to us and things that we need support with, they become better equipped to work together. At home, parents can model pointing out their own mistakes (make lots of them on purpose) and areas they need to work on, as well as how they can depend on others to help them to grow in those areas.
Partnering with parents to help our kids develop community readiness skills means that Marissa and the rest of my class are better positioned to succeed as 21st century learners. It also means that, as I look to the year ahead, I will have a room full of happy community members who feel like they belong and know that they are important to me and to each other.
About the author
Donna Thayer is a second grade teacher at Mason-Rice Elementary in Newton, Mass., and Teach Plus Massachusetts Senior Policy Fellow. She is a contributing author of "Family Engagement in Education," a book for new teachers to build strong family-school connections.
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