Building a Positive Community Through Reflection

December 19, 2019 Categories: Engaging Academics / Positive Community
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 powerful tool for both teachers and students, not just at the end of the calendar year, but all year long, to help build Read More »
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DEC
04
2019

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
2019

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
2019

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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OCT
23
2019

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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OCT
21
2019

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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OCT
18
2019

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
2019

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
2019

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
2019

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
2019

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
2019

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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DEC
26
2018

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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DEC
20
2018

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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DEC
07
2018

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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DEC
06
2018

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
2018

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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OCT
25
2018

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
2018

Creating Lasting Change

Michelle Gill is a professional development designer at the Center for Responsive Schools, and former educator at Garfield Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia. During her time at Garfield, she was part…
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AUG
23
2018

Building a Joyful Foundation

I can remember my first days as a principal as if it were yesterday. The vividness of the memory is largely because my first days of being a principal were also the…
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JUL
26
2018

What Are Your Hopes?

As we prepare for our upcoming Teachers and Leadership Conferences, we’ve been thinking a lot about hope. Students’ hopes and dreams are, of course, an integral part of the beginning of the…
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MAY
10
2018

Our Actions Speak Louder Than Our Words

In 1991, Ruth Charney, co-founder of Responsive Classroom, wrote a book that impacted K-8 educators all over the world, Teaching Children to Care. A reflection of her 20-year teaching career as well…
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APR
12
2018

Setting a Vision for the Future

As the bustle of the after-school and after-work hours wound down for the night, I found my eight-year-old daughter in tears in her bedroom. She was hunched over her sketch pad. Colored…
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MAR
22
2018

It’s Time to Reconnect

Helping students build relationships with each other is a key to creating an optimal learning environment. Stronger bonds mean students will be less likely to be unkind, to exclude others, to call…
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OCT
24
2017

What is Quiet Time?

Consider the energy and intensity that often accompany the middle of the day. Lunch and recess provide students with opportunities to run, play, eat, and socialize, and teachers often see this energy…
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OCT
12
2017

Stop Bullying Before It Starts

National Bullying Prevention Month is an opportunity to reflect on a serious problem that not only deprives students of a joyful learning environment, but can have toxic effects on the recipient that…
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FEB
15
2017

Helping Students Give Effective Compliments

Telling students what they’re doing right is one of the most powerful tools we have for helping them solidify and build on their positive behaviors and skills—and teachers aren’t the only ones…
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