Articles Positive Community

Finding Time for Self-Care During the School Day

Research doesn’t have to tell us the effect teachers’ mental and emotional health has on the classroom community (though it does). As we all know from experience, it impacts not only ourselves…
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MAR

06

Helping Students Turn Anxiety into Achievement

According to the Child Mind Institute, there has been a 17% increase in anxiety disorder diagnoses in young people. When these children show up in our classrooms, they want to be successful…
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19

Student Sharing: A Strategy for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Responsive Classroom strategies, structures, and techniques offer a wide array of practices we can use for culturally responsive teaching. One of these strategies is student sharing. Providing opportunities for students to share…
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17

Using the Responsive Classroom Approach to Support ALL Students

Ensuring that all our students are academically engaged is our highest priority as educators. We want to teach our students the skills needed to creatively engage with content while becoming critical thinkers—…
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11

Strategies for Cultivating a Classroom That Represents Students

Imagine walking into a family member’s home and seeing your photograph on the mantel, or being in class and hearing your professor use a cultural reference you connect with. These experiences make…
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06

Strengthening Your Community: Continuing to Connect with Students and Families

Recently, as I was returning a rental car, the associate behind the desk asked me an all-too-familiar question: “How was everything?” Without very much thought, I smiled and provided my routine answer:…
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03

Valuing Cultural Norms That Differ From Your Own

Black History Month is an opportunity for us as educators not only to teach students about historic contributors to our American history, but also to help students experience and find value in…
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19

Building a Positive Community Through Reflection

As the year draws to an end, we find ourselves reflecting on the past 12 months. New Year’s Eve in 2019 also marks the end of the decade! Reflection can be a…
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04

Check the Boxes of Self-Reflection

Our beliefs drive our actions and the results of our actions reinforce our beliefs. When we endeavor to change our actions, often we focus on the relationship between our actions and their…
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NOV

20

Developing Intrinsic Motivation with Choice

According to Vocabulary.com, the word “intrinsic” is an adjective that means “belonging to a thing by its very nature.” Some synonyms for intrinsic are: essential, built-in, constitutional, inherent, integral, inner, internal. This…
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NOV

05

Find Time for Social-Emotional Learning

One of the best parts of being a teacher is having the opportunity to provide students with social and emotional skills (in addition to academic skills) that help them build and maintain…
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23

Bullying Prevention: How Aware Are You? 5 Steps You Can Take

According to stopbullying.gov, between one in four and one in three U.S. students say they have been bullied at school. October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and this provides an opportunity for…
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21

What to Do When Students Start Testing Limits

The school year is in full swing: hopes and goals have been established, classroom and school expectations are in place, and learning is in high gear. Everything is off to a great…
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18

Having Effective, Affirming, and Energizing Conversations with Families

Every interaction we have (or don’t have) with parents does, to some degree, reflect how much we value families’ input and the extent to which we see caregivers as our partners in…
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SEP

08

How to Create Meaningful and Rewarding Relationships with Colleagues

A guiding principle of Responsive Classroom is “How we work together as adults to create a safe, joyful, and inclusive school environment is as important as our individual contribution or competence.” In…
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JUL

31

Establishing Balance at the Start of the School Year

Summer’s adventures and excursions are dwindling, and your email inbox is filling up with welcome back notifications, professional growth opportunities, new initiatives, and meetings. These clear signs that a new school year…
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JUL

10

Relax, Reflect, Recalibrate

It’s the middle of the summer, another school year is successfully in the books, and preparations for the new school year are not quite in full swing. Now — while you’re hopefully…
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APR

03

Challenge Is a Part of Learning

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” –Frederick Douglass This famous quote, printed on bright pink cardstock and posted above the whiteboard of a third grade classroom, stood out during…
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MAR

07

Clearing the Way for New Growth

Recently I was in a school conducting observations, and I noticed that all of the classrooms were picture-perfect. The decorations on the walls looked like an advertisement for a teacher store, and…
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26

Healthy Teachers Make Healthy Classrooms

Responsive Classroom Consulting Teachers Joe Tilley, Luke Mason, Jenny Spero, and Ramona McCullough, and Professional Development Designer Michelle Gill weigh in on the importance of self-care. You already know that social…
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20

2018 – The Responsive Classroom SEL Year in Review

It’s been another great year at Center for Responsive Schools! We are grateful for the opportunity to continue sharing the Responsive Classroom approach to Social-Emotional Learning with educators around the world. Here…
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07

A Unified Approach to Teaching in a Diverse International School

Students come to ACS Cobham International School in England from all over the world. Some stay for their entire pre-collegiate school experience and others make a home there for just a few…
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06

Responding to Misbehavior with Empathy

Taking proactive steps to build a strong learning community, with practices like positive teacher language, interactive modeling, and investing students in rules through Hopes and Dreams, does a lot to prevent misbehavior…
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NOV

05

The Challenge of Kindness

National Bullying Prevention month may have ended last week, but the work of stopping bullying in our classrooms and schools continues throughout the year. By committing to The Challenge of Kindness we…
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25

Restoring Trust After Bullying

We do our best to create positive learning communities and stop bullying before it starts, but when bullying has already happened, how do you repair the classroom community? We asked Responsive Classroom…
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SEP

21