[9-Weeks] Build a Safe, Inclusive Classroom Community

I’ve been waiting so long to tell you this …

Since the last time I’ve written, my husband and I made a 3000 mile move across the country, back to Oregon to be near our budding family.  As we’ve settled in, I have been excitedly creating new material and up-leveling all my programs.

You, dear difference maker, have constantly been on my mind this year of so much chaos and disruption.  Being an educator as you are, I know that the last thing any of us want, with our already fully packed plates, is something more to do.  That’s why I think you are going to love what I have for you that can make your life easier in the last 9 weeks of this school year.

Before things shut down, you already knew about the crises in today’s classrooms: far too many room clears, students being put in padded safe rooms, statistics like 60% of our students having already experienced trauma in their lives, an increase in our suicide rates due to exclusion and hurtful social engagement. The list goes on. But now, students are coming back.  The question is, “What’s going to be different?”

I have been writing about the missing puzzle piece of energetics, and I’m excited to reveal the first of five resources that will bring back the energy, joy and feeling of fulfillment that only making a difference can bring to our lives.

Today, I’m so pleased to bring you the foundation builder to my new Energetics Series: 9-Weeks to a Make A Difference Year Curriculum.  It is a primer to my brand new Teaching Energetics Online Program, coming soon. You can join the wait list here.

9-Weeks to a Make A Difference Year Curriculum is for any one who may be feeling compassion fatigue, even though there remains an unrelenting “pull” to reach and teach very single student in your care.

While most would think this is a program that would be for the first 9 weeks of a school year, I have taught this curriculum at Portland State University for CEUs during every quarter of the school year. The teachers in my classes applied it in their classrooms concurrent with the CEU classes – in any quarter of their school years – with consistent results.

For today, let’s focus on the best that can happen in the last 9 weeks of this upside-down school year.  I think you will be glad you did!

Reaching out …

Founder of Heart Productions & Publishing, the Pacific Northwest

The Biggest, Baddest, 6th Grade Class
Excerpt from Teaching Energetics: Change Your Vibe See Your Students Thrive!

Early in my career, I had earned recommendations for being a teacher who could reel in students and classroom situations which had previously been unmanageable.

In my third year of teaching, I was hired into a different school to take over a class that had been labeled the Biggest, Baddest Class that school had ever seen.  These kids were now sixth graders, and not one teacher before me had been able to gain any semblance of control with this group. Because of my young reputation for classroom order, ironically, those hiring me just assumed I used authoritarian disciplinary tactics, which I never did.

There’s nothing like the power of the made up mind.  

I knew that, if I had any chance with this group, I needed to make a firm decision to hold an unshakable vision of what it would mean for them to become the best class that school had ever seen.  I intuitively knew, I had to decide that it was possible and then dive in and sell them on it.

On the first day of school, they came into classroom like they owned it.  They knew what their reputation was, and they acted like they were proud of it.  They expected me to do what each of their previous teachers had done: lecture, threaten, humiliate, yell and send them to the Principal’s office.  But I didn’t.

As I gave my opening welcome, telling them how much I was looking forward to our year together, I could see them squirming.  They couldn’t stand it.  The apparent class leader urgently waved his hand at me. I called on him, and he asked “Haven’t you heard? We’re the biggest, baddest class this school has ever seen!” I simply responded, “Well, I don’t believe that.”

There was a big collective gasp as they all looked at each other with stunned expressions.  Many of them began waving their hands for me to call on them so they could tell me how bad they were.

Rather than minimizing what they had learned to believe about themselves, I gave them time to vent (to let the air out of that big red balloon of pent up hurt and anger in the middle of the room.) Then I said, “Well, I don’t see you that way at all.  As I watched you arrive, I thought the exact opposite.  I thought about just how excited I was to meet each of you and what a great school year we are going to have together.”

Silence.  They couldn’t read me.  No one had ever been excited to have them in their classroom.  They thought I couldn’t possibly hold a high vision for them.  I could see their mental wheels turning and their eyes were like deer in the headlights.  What I was telling them did not compute!

I held firm.  They felt my energy, my focus, my vision and my expectancy, that they were officially on their way to being the biggest, best class the school had ever seen. I listened and I acknowledged them without flinching.  I spoke my truth.  I was happy and excited to meet each of them.

When they had collected themselves from the shock of it all, one of them said, “Well, just you wait and see. We’ll show you just how bad we are.”

I smiled and said, “Yes, we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’m really happy that you are all in my classroom this year.  Now let’s do our first activity … ”

Of course, I knew they were going to test their old identity at every turn in the road for a while (9 weeks to be exact).  That’s why our very first activity was to talk about what kind of class rules they wanted, to build the kind of community they wanted.

Any group of students this out of control has been talked “at,” not talked “with.”

They had never taken personal ownership for creating a classroom community that they could be proud of.

You can imagine the looks on their faces when I told them that the very first thing they (not me) were going to do together, as a group, was to make a list of new rules for the year.  The sky was the limit, with only one stipulation:  I would overrule anything hurtful or harmful.

I asked them who they wanted to have come up and write their new rules on the board.  They picked the most disruptive student in the class. He jigged, jagged and bounced his way to the chalkboard, getting lots of jeers and laughs along the way.

And so, it began.  I asked them to start calling out what rules they thought we needed, in order to have our best year ever.

At first, they were stunned and cautious.  Then they eagerly went to extremes.  But, after the nervous energy died down, the rules they called out were far more harsh than I would have ever come up with, and I told them so.

I let them call out as many rules as they could think of, and then we dissected each one as to whether or not it was even a good rule.  They didn’t miss one rule that I would have included.  In fact, I was the one who coached them to not have so many rigid rules.

You Can Always Begin Again: 9-Week Curriculum

No matter what quarter of the school year you are in, if you want to build a safe community, you must make a safe space for students to find their voice and take ownership.  Beginning with creating their own list of New Rules is unifying. It gets them all on the same side.  They are the ones that will hold each other accountable, and let me tell you, that really lightens a teacher’s load. If anything, you’ll have to tell them to not be so hard on themselves and each other.

If you want to be able to reach and teach students it all begins with a safe, inclusive classroom. Then community begins, with students coming together to talk about what’s important to them.  Even though there will be differing opinions, talk it out until you find alignment.  If you can’t find alignment, give it a day and come back to it the next day.  Don’t stop working on it until you find the sweet spot.

The only way to teach safe social engagement is to DO social engagement deliberately, intentionally; and this 9-Week Curriculum will help you through the maze of what’s really going on just below the surface.

There’s no better time than the present.

The last 9 Weeks of any school year – and particularly this chaotic school year – are pivotal in creating comradery, so they can end the year with the excitement and expectancy of getting on with the next school year.

Learn more about how to make your classroom safe, all-inclusive and hum with academic productivity with my “9 Weeks to A Make A Difference Year” Curriculum.

Your Road Map:  1) one class period a week for nine weeks: play a heart connecting movie and/or engage students in a team building activity which you will then use to, 2) direct the conversation using my “done for you” questions to, 3) explore what is really on in your students’ hearts and minds.

When you follow my 9-Week Make A Difference Year Curriculum you will …

• slow everything down and breathe a collective breath.
• ease your students into constructive and productive social emotional engagement with “done for you” activities and discussion questions.
• learn deeper levels about each student by listening to them discuss “what came up” for them about the movie or activity.
• start tuning-in to your students’ “hidden stressors” that each of them is struggling with daily, not just academically, but socially and emotionally to build a common bond.
• experience the transformational power of my WIW – “What, If, When” – technique, to shift the energy of the room in 30 seconds or less as intense situations come up (and they will come up)!
• see unskillful behaviors with new eyes of understanding, hear with healing ears.
• be thrilled at how a safe, inclusive and caring community will yield calm minds and accelerate learning.
• marvel at how quickly students – particularly those who are normally behind – are able to catch up and even pull ahead.

Click the link for more information and get started now!