Sharing Good Practice
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS AND A SENSE OF
COMMUNITY IN YOUR CLASSROOM
BY: SALLY BURNS
divide according to other criteria e.g.
girls/boys, “Those who…
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
AND A SENSE OF
COMMUNITY IN YOUR
CLASSROOM
“
T
eachers who know how the
parents and grandparents of
their pupils live and think will
understand them better and
be able to work efficiently with them.”
These are the words of Hopi educator
Polyingaysi Qὅyawaym, also known
as Elizabeth Q. White (Carlson, 1964).
They are especially relevant to today’s
classrooms and should be the starting
point for the new school year.
The first time we meet our students is
key to how the year goes with them
and to building community in our
classroom. This article will outline a
number of strategies that I have used
successfully to do this.
Knowing each other
We (and it is important to include
yourself, the teacher, in the community)
need to get to know each other, to
find out who we are, where we are
from, how we came to be here, our
languages, our interests, our skills, our
strengths; in short, the more we know
about each other the more likely we
are to understand each other and feel
we are a community. We also need to
know and recognise the values that
guide us and will take us through the
next year.
36
Term 1 Sep - Dec 2019
5 5 come from the host country
5 5 belong to a religious community
5 5 speak more than one/two/three
language/s
5 5 enjoy a particular type of food/sport
5 5 play a musical instrument
5 5 are good at drawing and painting
5 5 have relatives overseas.
Ask the students to take the lead:
what else they would like to know
about each other?
A great starter activity is Mobile Maps.
You need an open space for this. In a
school where most of the students are
from the country you are in, you need
to display a map of the country with
key towns marked and markers on the
ground showing the names of these
in the correct locations. With a more
diverse student body, you might want
to display a map of the world and
simply indicate the cardinal points:
north, south, east and west. You give
the following instructions:
I am in XXX… This is north (pointing),
south, east and west. (Point out a few
towns/countries.) Place yourselves
around the area to show where you
live now… Now move to where you
were born… your mother was born…
your father was born… one of your
grandparents was born…
Remind students to watch their
classmates to learn more about them.
Having learned something about
our geographical background, let us
learn more about each other. Which
Community? is a great way to do this.
Ask the students to move physically
into sets. For example, students of this
school, then students of this class. Of
course, they will all then be in one
set or community. Now ask them to
Class Time
It is important to observe the
similarities and differences within
their new community.
Individuals in community
The next activity I bring in here is
Potatoes. You need as many potatoes
as there are students in the class and
a largish container to hold them.
Sitting in a circle, give each person in
the class a potato. Ask them how they
know it is a potato. How do they know
it is not a carrot, a banana? Now ask
them to look carefully at their potato
and really get to know it well. When
they are ready, collect all the potatoes
in a bag, give it a shake then empty
the potatoes out on to the floor or a
table. Ask the group to pick out their
own potato from the pile. Everyone
invariably manages to find their own
potato. Here are some questions you
might want to discuss:
5 5 How easy/difficult was it to find your
potato?
5 5 What made it easy/difficult?
5 5 What does this tell you about
potatoes?
5 5 What can we learn from this about
groups of people?