How to Create a Strong Classroom Community: 5 Tips to Ensure Your Students Can Actually Tolerate Each Other
It’s nearly impossible to run a classroom when your students hate each other. Between arguments, pettiness, and literal fights, there is no room for teaching. It’s important to make your classroom environment one that your students feel welcomed in - like they’re a part of something - where they can at the very least tolerate the people around them.
Classroom community is one of those things you aren’t exactly taught when you go to college to be a teacher; it’s more something you have to experience to understand. Read my tips to get a head start with building your classroom community - it will make a world of a difference in your room.
TL;DR (click to jump to a certain section):
Tip #1: Host Morning Meetings & Play Games/Team Building Activities
Whether you’re an introvert, an extrovert, or somewhere in between (like me), human beings need some form of connection. Without a connection, or an opportunity to forge one, you cannot have any sort of relationship with another person, let alone a positive one. Morning Meetings are a way to start your day off on the right foot and begin to build the positive relationships that are imperative to a smooth-running classroom.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Morning Meetings, or at least some form of them. Here’s a basic structure of the way Morning Meetings work:
You have your greeting. You must greet the person by name and look them in the eyes. You can say a regular, “Good morning,” or make up. some super quick activity to tell each other good morning.
After, you have a share time. They can share about anything related to whatever topic you choose, but no one can talk while someone else is talking. Typically, in Morning Meetings, you have a talking piece to pass around. I used a stuffed potato.
Next, you do an activity. It could be a game like hot potato or heads up, 7 up, or a chance to have a social-emotional lesson.
Last, you have your morning message, usually reserved for letting students know what to expect during the day, or other miscellaneous things you may need to tell them.
There are a TON of resources out there for you to research Morning Meetings, as well as find some topics to discuss as well as activities to do. Click here for a free week of morning meetings to get started with this amazing strategy.
Going off the same idea, simply playing games and other team building activities with your students, as well as involving them in other fun learning activities can be a great way to get them talking and laughing with one another. Naturally, this can forge positive connections. As long as you hold firm boundaries, group students accordingly, and set solid expectations before beginning the game, adding a sense of fun into your classroom like this will be a great tool to use.
Tip #2: Set Expectations and Uphold Them
Children, regardless of age, thrive when clear boundaries are set and upheld. If your students know they can get away with poking fun at others and being nasty, then that’s what they’ll do. I did not let my students make fun of other students, and would give out consequences to those who tried to. Of course, a lot goes on that we, as teachers, do not see, but at the very least your classroom can become a safe place for all students to feel welcomed.
That’s great, but what are some tangible things you can do to help with this?
I had conversations throughout the school year with my class about how it’s okay to not be friends with everyone, but it is important that we learn how to work together as a class. This is especially important during the first week of school, but can also be helpful when you notice they’re starting to get on each others’ nerves.
As stated, I gave out consequences to students who did not uphold my expectations. This can look different depending on what was done, as you need to have natural consequences when disciplining your students. But, for example, if a student are to call someone ugly, you can have the offending student make a list of 25 positive things/compliments about the person they insulted (or more if necessary). If it’s not satisfactory or they did it half-heartedly, have them start over. Do not let them have any free time or recess until it is finished.
Sometimes restorative circles/conversations can be held, depending on the offense. It doesn’t always have to be super formal and structured. Just simply listening to your students and having them listen to each other can make a big difference - maybe they just had a misunderstanding and they’re in need of a mediator. A lot of the problems in my classroom were solved by me simply sitting with my students and having them talk about what happened. NOTE: This cannot be done when they are heated, as it will turn into an argument. Let them calm down first. Only one person speaks at a time.
Once your students know you aren’t messing around when it comes to how they treat others, this can stop a lot of issues.
Tip #3: Switch Up the Seating Occasionally and Strategically Group Them
Not every student is going to get along, and that’s fine. Though it’s important that they learn how to work together, I personally found that switching the seating up occasionally helped prevent any proverbial fires in the classroom environment. Think about it: would YOU want to sit next to someone you didn’t particularly care for for an entire school year? I know I wouldn’t.
You need to lessen opportunities for arguments and give kids a chance to work with others. I encouraged students to work with people they did not usually work with.
Every 9 weeks (which is when our report cards came out), I would either change the desk arrangements, change the seating chart, or both. This did a few things:
It allowed students to get the chance to work with other students who they may not work with or talk to otherwise.
It gave the students a break from the others kid who might be getting on their nerves.
I didn’t necessarily change everyone’s seat - sometimes a student literally could only work well with a handful of other kids. That’s okay. Perhaps you can move them to a new desk group but still be around the same kids so they don't feel called out.
I would start with my “difficult” students first. Who was talkative? Who were their friends? Is anyone volatile and will get into fights? I would place them on my seating chart separated from one another - on opposite sides of the room. Then, on my paper, I would place in the other students around the “difficult” ones, keeping in mind personalities and ability levels. I found that (in my upper elementary classroom) sitting them boy-girl-boy-girl REALLY helped cut down on talking out of turn.
Remember: this is your classroom. You can arrange them however you want. And if you get a lot of complaints from your students? That means it’s working. :)
Tip #4: Don’t Make Them the Bad Guy
Not every teacher may agree with this, but don’t make your students the bad guy. First of all, this can escalate behaviors if it’s attention-seeking. Second, it can destroy your relationship with that student (and we all know that relationships are everything when it comes to classroom management).
There are a few things I did to make sure I wasn’t singling out anyone and making them the “bad guy”:
I tried to not do whole-class consequences (unless it was something like practicing how to walk in line). Instead, I would take names and those students would practice expectations during their recess.
I did not call out students by name when correcting behavior. For example, if there were students talking in line when we were supposed to be at a 0, I didn’t say, “Johnny is talking so we have to wait here until he’s done.” I said something along the lines of, “I’m waiting on 3 people before we can go in.” This helped because 1) sometimes the behaviors shown can be attention-seeking, and we want to ignore those, and 2) it can build animosity among your students if they’re always having to wait on the same person.
I usually held private conversations with students to correct behavior rather than call them out in front of the entire class. For example, if I was teaching and another student was being disruptive, I tried to find a good opportunity to go to them and correct them face-to-face. This wasn’t always possible, depending on the activity, but it did truly help with the attention-seeking behaviors.
Along these same lines, do not manage behaviors from across the room. Get out from behind your desk and go up to your students to correct them. Proximity matters!
Sometimes I would give out whole-class prizes “in honor” of someone else. So, if Little Johnny had a great day, I would give the whole class 5 minutes of extra recess. This can be super helpful with the students who sometimes struggle. It’s hard when the same student disrupts class over and over and prevents you from doing fun things, so try to find ways to reward positive behavior.
Tip #5: Allow Authentic Opportunities for Connection
The beauty of classroom management is that, once you have firmly set your expectations and you have a hold of your classroom management, you can let loose sometimes. Your classroom doesn’t have to be a prison. Your kids should be allowed to be kids, regardless of their age. Yes, there are times when things need to be done, but, personally, there is nothing wrong with letting them converse with each other just to have some fun.
Crack jokes with your students.
Indulge them sometimes when they say something funny - it’s okay if you laugh!
Let them have a “three minute talking break” before you start your group lesson.
I would tell my kids, “There’s a time and place for everything. Sometimes it’s time to work and sometimes we can laugh and have fun. What time is it now?” They KNEW when it was time to get serious, so having this quick moment would (usually) straighten them up. If they couldn’t handle it, we would have the natural consequence of silence.
Your students are never going to have a good relationship with each other if they have no opportunities to make them! So, give them those opportunities throughout the day. Click here for some resources to get started with community building.
