Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 236: Supporting Student Culture and Success

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Ep 236: Supporting Student Culture and Success · New Teacher Talk

Welcome to New Teacher Talk,
the podcast where we help you navigate your first years in
the classroom.
I'm Beth Wilkins.
And I'm Anna Quinzio-Zafran.
Today,
we're talking about something that shapes every day of your
school year: student culture.
Our guest, Nola Kennedy,
joins us to share how you can build a classroom where
students feel known, valued, and ready to succeed.
You'll leave with practical ideas you can try this week.
Let's get started.
What if the most powerful resource in your classroom isn't
your lesson plan,
but the voices of the students in front of you?
A thriving classroom is a place where every voice matters.
When students feel included, heard, and valued,
trust grows.
All learners feel safe and confident to take risks,
and as an outcome, contribution and engagement skyrocket.
Hi, I'm Nola Kennedy,
and I'm a teacher with 35 years experience in schools.
In this episode,
I'll share with you four key routines that can transform
how we start a new school year.
So if you're ready to create a classroom where all voices
are heard and valued, this episode's for you.
Let's dive in.
We'll start with a welcome circle.
A welcome circle can be such an important beginning to our
day in the classroom.
It can set the tone and create a cultural rhythm,
a predictable routine that creates a place of safety for
the people in our care.
A circle.
There's something perfectly equal about a circle.
It doesn't have a front row.
It doesn't have a back row.
There's no best seat.
There's no corner for hiding.
So whether students are sitting cross-legged on the floor,
whether they're on chairs or standing,
depending on what's a-age appropriate for your group,
we start with a circle.
Everyone can see each other's face,
and everyone belongs in a circle.
And I think that matters because before children are ready
to learn, they need to feel safe.
We all do.
Many of our students arrive at school carrying a lot more
than a school bag.
Some come with anxiety, uncertainty.
There's potentially an experience of trauma in the room.
Others may have just had a rushed or chaotic morning.
An affirmative routine like a welcome circle says something
powerful: "You're safe here." Familiar, positive,
consistent, predictable,
and that consistency can reduce the uncertainty.
It can lower stress, reduce the cortisol,
and help students to settle into a learning state.
The Berry Street Education model refers to this routine as
a morning circle,
and I'll pop their resources at the end of this podcast for
you to check out.
They're well worth exploring.
So our welcome circle doesn't have to be complicated.
It's a greeting.
We all hear our voice in the room as we greet the person
next to us, and we go around the circle.
We hear our own name being spoken in a positive tone for
the day.
The welcome circle is a simple check-in.
I would position it after a soft entry to the day,
once everyone's had a chance to gather themselves and be
set up for success.
Depending on the age of your students,
there might be a question that follows the name greetings.
There might be a song.
We might discuss the value we're focusing on for the day.
We might talk about what went well at WWW from the day
before or since we last met or something from their holiday
break.
The sharing might be out loud in the whole circle,
and sometimes it might just be with the person next to you,
and that will ebb and flow depending on your group and the
day and the moment.
Whatever setting ensures all have shared their voice.
So a welcome circle is something that helps everyone
arrive, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally,
and it helps us to be ready to learn.
I also love to end the day the same way with a closing
circle.
It's a lovely way to bookend the learning.
It might simply be everyone sharing one thing they're
grateful for or something they learned that day, and again,
it could be out loud in a group or with the person next to
you.
And perhaps it's taking a deep breath and exhaling
together.
We're building those positive micro moments and tools for
resilience through the welcome and closing circles so that
when students leave,
they're taking with them the emotional tone of the day and
a sense of calm that might help them in their resilience or
whatever they're facing outside of the classroom.
So that brings us to the second routine for hearing and
valuing student voice,
and this is the cheapest investment you'll make.
My guess is you'll already have some in your craft
supplies.
In Australia, we have wooden craft sticks.
They're essentially a paddle pop stick.
Perhaps you know them as Popsicle sticks.
In Australia, we call them pop sticks.
Has one simple stick ever had so many uses?
I've used pop sticks as counters, a pointer when reading,
a ruler, for craft material, to make a flying boomerang.
But at the beginning of every year,
I start with a bundle of fresh pop sticks,
and I write the name of a student on each until every
person in my class has their own named pop stick.
I pop them in the pop stick pot,
and that becomes a simple resource that is my most used in
a day of learning.
It's from the pop stick pot that names are pulled by myself
or fellow students for selection of students,
and that could be selection to share an answer to a
question.
It could be to be a leader in a role.
I could pull out two for a pairing and sharing opportunity.
And that pop stick pot soon becomes a consistent,
predictable routine that reassures every student that there
is no bias in the selection,
that anyone's name could be drawn to give feedback at the
end of a presentation or to ask a question or to answer a
question.
It keeps everyone engaged and curious about who might be
next, while also secure in the familiarity of the system.
It's a way to ensure that everyone's voice is heard,
not just those enthusiastic few who consistently want to be
asked questions and contribute their own.
And gradually, something interesting happens.
There's a new expectation in the room.
Everyone will be included.
No teacher bias, no favorites, no hiding, no zoning out.
Selection becomes fair.
Questions become fair.
Leadership becomes fair.
Sharing becomes fair.
There's no, "Miss Nola always picks them." There's no,
"I can zone out.
I won't get picked.
She never calls on me." A simple pop stick quietly
communicates something really important: every voice
equally matters.
Gradually,
we'll see a culture of mutual respect and student voice
developing,
and the classroom becomes something students build with us
rather than something we deliver to them,
and the learning is something that students are engaged in.
Okay,
the third routine I'd like to share with you today is creating
essential agreements together.
Notice I didn't say classroom rules, and words do matter.
Rules tend to belong to someone else with power over,
but agreements belong to everyone.
That's power to or power with.
Something I've grown to love at the beginning of the year
is starting with an almost empty classroom.
It can feel risky the first time.
As teachers, we love to prepare beautiful spaces,
get everything set up, laminated, labeled, organized,
systematized, and picture perfect.
But leaving the room with space for students to help create
the environment sends an important message.
The classroom belongs to all of us,
and that sends the message that the learning belongs to all
of us.
Ownership is a powerful launching pad for learning.
And then when we sit together, preferably in a circle,
we can begin asking questions.
I might ask,
"What kind of a classroom helps everyone learn?
What helps people feel respected?
What do you need to be successful this year as a learner?
What helps everyone have a voice?" And together,
we can start to talk about the essential components of a
classroom and our culture that we're going to establish
together.
Now,
we can use those pop sticks to ensure that we hear everyone's
voice.
Another method is we can get everyone to write down their
ideas on paper,
and then those paper contributions can go into the mix,
and one by one,
we can pull out those ideas and share them in a group.
Not everyone is going to be confident to speak their ideas
out initially.
That takes time,
and so we need strategies to scaffold and support those who
are still developing their skills in speaking publicly.
It is possible that the suggestions for essential
agreements might initially be offered with a,
a power over negative kind of framing.
Perhaps no calling out or don't call out is offered,
and that's perfectly okay.
But rather than writing that down in concrete immediately,
we can become curious as leaders and ask more questions.
Firstly, of course, affirmation.
"Great idea.
Calling out can be a challenge in a group setting when
there are so many of us." But then that curiosity,
"What does calling out really mean?" And after a bit of
discussion,
we discover that we're talking about something bigger.
We're talking about respect.
We're talking about listening.
We're talking about turn-taking and making space for
everyone.
And now we're talking about the bigger picture.
We're talking about our values and the values that are
guiding our classroom culture.
So suddenly, "No calling out" becomes,
"We listen so every voice can be heard." So the language
starts to change the culture of our room,
and even more importantly, the thinking changes.
And our role as educators isn't to have all the answers and
do all the telling.
Our most important role is to hold space, to guide,
to facilitate, to create the circle,
a space that enables students to discover the values
sitting under their ideas.
You'll be amazed at how quickly students begin reframing
ideas for themselves with a positive power with framing.
Instead of, "Don't touch other people's stuff,"
they might suggest, "We respect each other's property," or,
"We respect each other's space." Instead of,
"Don't be mean," they might offer,
"We choose kindness." Each class cohort will develop their
own list of unique essential agreements,
and that's powerful, too, because that's ownership.
Finally, my fourth takeaway for today is class meetings.
So whether your students are five years old or 15,
a weekly class meeting says something very important.
We invest time in creating a system and a classroom culture
where everyone is safe and heard.
Your voice deserves time, protected time, sacred time,
set aside, prioritized,
not squeezed into those last three minutes before the bell.
So I usually set aside 30 to 40 minutes each week,
and within that, students will have leadership roles.
We'll need a chairperson, a timekeeper,
someone to record the minutes,
and the teacher is mostly the facilitator,
holding space for this important time.
I like to have a system to keep a record of who's had those
roles, just so that over time,
everyone gets to lead in every role.
But on the day,
we can use the pop stick system to pull out who's going to
be the chairperson for that day.
I develop a pro forma for an agenda that can be displayed
and accessible throughout the week so that all students who
want to can contribute.
Perhaps space for five or six agenda items,
the student's name, the topic,
and the time they believe they'll need to share their idea.
So as ideas arise, students can record them on the agenda.
Sometimes agenda items can be around classroom issues or
systems.
It can be around whole school systems, playground issues.
It can sometimes be systems around how we might celebrate
successes or sharing brilliant ideas.
Most often,
there emerges incredible contributions and solutioning that
I never would have thought of myself.
And sure,
sometimes it's about discussing the missing glue lids,
and that's all okay.
Student voice is important because those things obviously
matter enough to those students.
They wanted to get it on the agenda.
And we want to send a message that your voice is important,
and so we give it the time.
As students' skills develop with scaffolding,
I encourage them to bring suggested solutions for any
problem they've identified and that they want to raise in
the class meeting,
so the team of the class can discuss and contribute.
But I've found that it does help for there to be an
expectation for each agenda contributor to be
solution-focused.
Just a little aside,
another level of student voice in the class meeting routine
that I like to use is giving each student a token to spend
during their meeting,
and they spend that token by contributing.
Now,
it might be that you decide every student has three tokens,
and every time they contribute, they spend a token.
Now, for some students,
the challenge is stopping after three.
We've got a lot of exuberant sharers in class meetings,
and that's fabulous.
But for others,
the challenge is finding the courage to spend just one
token this meeting,
and that presents a great opportunity to have a private
conversation before the meeting to set them up for success,
to set a challenge of spending a token.
Even if you just support someone else's great idea and say,
"I agree with Johnny," see if you can spend a token today.
So along with my data collection of roles each student has
for the class meeting,
I like to collect data about tokens spent to measure growth
and to focus on next steps.
Eventually,
we might not need those tokens anymore because the
scaffolding has enabled the culture to carry itself,
and with time,
students start noticing who hasn't spoken yet.
They might pause.
They might listen and make space.
The chairperson might even ask the person who hasn't
contributed,
"Did you have any thoughts about that?" And that's when the
magic is really starting to happen in a classroom,
and you know you've got a hum going of a collaborative
space where all voices are valued and respected.
When I look back over my 35 years of teaching,
I have to say strengthening student voice and ownership of
their learning have to be the most powerful part of my
learning journey as a teacher.
Facilitating a classroom culture where all voices are heard
and valued is a great privilege as a teacher.
So if you're a new teacher standing on the edge of your
very first school year,
or perhaps one of your early years as a teacher,
wondering if you're ready,
remember you don't have to have everything set up.
My encouragement to you would be to create space.
Create space for building a place where people feel safe
enough to learn because they know that their voice matters.
And when they know their voice matters,
learning will follow.
I hope you found a useful takeaway from one of those four
routines that you might try out this year: a welcome
circle, names on a pop stick, essential agreements,
and class meetings.
Thanks for listening in,
and don't forget to tune in to New Teacher Talk on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcasts.
Also,
find and follow us on Instagram and BlueSky at New Teacher
Talk.
I hope the year ahead is a great one for you and the
students in your care.
I know they are incredibly lucky to have you leading them
in the classroom culture where all voices are heard and
valued.
Enjoy the journey ahead.
That wraps up today's episode.
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Until next time, take care.