Standards And Foundations Of The Classroom: Courtesy And Connection

There are many aspects we can consider which make up the foundations of our classroom. We potentially do not recognise or appreciate how many of these we set up without realising.

Our professional standards correctly require teachers to facilitate safe and supportive classrooms, and we achieve this in many ways from the physicality of the room to the quality and tone we set. But have we ever stopped to consider what other standards we are setting beyond these very practical requirements?

I can recall when I began teaching, being apprehensive at how a teacher actually gets a number of young people in the room sitting, attentive and engaged. As teachers, we are also forever students and to this day, most teachers naturally observe, reflect, and learn something around supportive classrooms and behaviour management each lesson.

There are a myriad of aspects to detail and comment on how the learning environment is created, including copious professional development workshops, but something I naturally did to facilitate connected and supportive classrooms, without even being told, was how students entered the classroom. Left to their own devices, most students would enter a classroom like a gaggle of geese; chattering, jostling, not 100% spatially aware of each other as they bustled/squeezed through the classroom door.

It has however always been important for my classrooms to have a quality which facilitates connection. Asking students to line up outside the room, waiting to be invited in and welcomed by myself as they enter, has been a standard I have not dropped. As each student enters, I greet them by saying their name and it’s always natural for me to be joyful seeing them. More recently I have noticed many are unable to return a greeting and the majority are not able to look at me. But that is okay. The standard for myself is to welcome everyone as I would anyone entering my own home.

Establishing the tone of our classrooms is key; having a standard for tone and courtesy is something we generally hold when someone enters our own home, and this is no different for our classrooms. This is very different to control, which could be demanding students enter as if in a drill, to stand behind their chairs and be silent. I do not demand instant silence, but the students are asked to be alert and responding to a quality of courtesy and respect that has already been established before they entered.

Entering the classroom in this way allows for a settlement from the stimulation of traversing the school or having just had a break. Giving space for students to settle into our classrooms in this way is supportive for students, teachers, and learning. It offers the teacher the opportunity to literally ‘read the room’ and respond to the general attitude and feeling of the classroom; this ‘reading’ establishes how the lesson will then progress, which may already be planned but may need a tweak or adjustment to respond to how the students present and what’s needed on any given day. It also provides the opportunity to observe a particular student who may be behaving differently and might need checking in with.

Overall, establishing the quality in the classroom and laying this as a foundation, offers students an environment where they feel safe and supported. To imbue values such as courtesy and respect is a key life skill to re-establish. They walk into a space which communicates that they and their learning are respected and valued, thereby facilitating the foundational quality for them, in turn, to value themselves, each other, the teacher, and the learning. Ultimately the quality and tone of the room shares they are valued and cared about. 

As a teacher, it is important to firmly establish this quality of foundation in our classrooms. It is a standard from which we do not back down from, and one which ultimately deeply supports students, and deeply supports ourselves.