Strategy for Building a Community

Strategy for Building a Community

There are a number of different strategies that one can use to help to foster a sense of community -- not just within the classroom but within the external neighborhood and its residents and occupants -- for assisting children with their learning. Many of these methods are denoted within Hardin's Effective Classroom Management: Models and Strategies for Today's Classroom. In addition to explicating the intrinsic relationship between community building and teaching students, one of the most valuable techniques covered in this manuscript related to community-building is the idea that it should be a component of or an actual part of the learning process. From a teacher's perspective, then, it is important to realize that these two objectives -- engendering lifelong learning for students and making them see their relationship to a vibrant, thriving community (which they will one day grow up and contribute to significantly) are actually all part of the same process. Community building ideally involves families, educators, and communities (McFarland-Piazza et al., 2012, p. 34). There is no distinction between building community and utilizing didactic methods for students; community building actually should be a part of most if not all didactic instruction.

Thus, the particular tactic that I believe will be most beneficial to my particular overall classroom management revolves around the tenet of perspective taking, in which students are "provided explicit opportunities…through which they can imagine how the world looks from someone else's point-of-view" (Kohn, 1997). This is a critical concept to implement into one's classroom management, because it allows children to see the pragmatic value of that which they are learning. Reading about the application of basic mathematical concepts (such as multiplication, for example) may help students learn. But actually taking them into a grocery store and letting them see the massive amounts of cash involved in a wholesale transaction will reinforce the point even more. In doing so, they will understand the relationship between the different forces in the community such as the grocery store, the wholesaler, and even the local customer which may be them or one of their parents. Although this scenario is just an example, it suitably demonstrates the value in using community to reinforce learning, and using learning to reinforce community-building for students.

I actually believe that the best age to introduce this particular classroom management principle is for the younger students, specifically those in first grade through third grade. This way, students will get a foundation for learning and building community that should hopefully last with them through their scholastic journey -- and beyond, conceivably. However, if this concept were not introduced to students until later on in their educational journey -- such as in middle school, perhaps -- they will have lost critical time in which their personalities and learning habits are being formed. Additionally, using this management principle with younger students will help them to become more extroverted and to grow up believing that they are part of a community of people, so that they can contribute to it accordingly.

It is critical to realize that this line of thinking is supported by Hardin, who asserts that "Activities that promote an understanding of how others think and feel foster intellectual growth while helping students become more ethical and compassionate" (Hardin, 2012, p. 146). The key to making this particular technique succeed is to get children to stop thinking about themselves (which is not always easy to do) and to focus on how they relate to others. That way, they can understand that learning is not something that merely occurs in a vacuum (or in the classroom environment), and that it is a vital part of life itself.

The case from last module that I would like to specifically apply community building initiatives to involves the first scenario and the third grader known as Billy. Billy is a learner who may very well be gifted, and who has little difficult keeping up with his work in general. Specifically, his subjects of interest appear to be both math and English, which is great since typically students display a proclivity towards either one of these disciplines or the other. The primary aspect of Billy's scenario is that he has the propensity to be disruptive. I believe that this tendency of his is due to the fact that he is able to complete his work relatively quickly, the work is easy for him to accomplish, and then he becomes bored. The larger issue involved here is the fact that he evidently needs to be on an advanced track for learning, and is involved in a school in which homogenous learning occurs.

That said, Billy is one of the primary candidates to benefit from community-building -- mostly because it will allow him to apply his considerable intellect to some other aspect of academics that he has not already mastered. There are several facets of his character that make him perfect to become involved in perspective taking. He is naturally gregarious, so the essential concept of community-building is already ingrained within him. Moreover, he has the scholastic potential to understand concepts that may be more advanced than the usual, which will only assist him in applying learning to community building. Finally, there is a distinct correlation between community-building and discipline that would be beneficial to him (Jankowski, 2002, p. 1).

There are a number of specific strategies I would utilize to help Billy understand that he is an integral part of a larger community, the likes of which can assist in his learning. The aforementioned example about field trips was both hypothetical and pragmatic -- as such, I would be delighted to take Billy and his class on trips in which they could actually see concepts that they are learning about put into action. For instance, if in his language arts class they are studying aspects of history, or perhaps in his social studies class, I would like to take this class to a museum so that they could truly connect with the surrounding community -- and context -- to which this subject matter pertains. The overarching point, of course, would be to expose students like Billy to the fact that there is a bigger purpose to their studies than just pure scholastic value. That purpose, of course, is in the creation and sustaining of a community and a culture in which knowledge is disseminated and learned in real-life -- not just in the classroom.