Creating a Safe Environment

Creating a safe environment for your students is critical to promote and achieve literacy within the classroom. EducationWorld has an article written by Dr. Linda Dusenbury, that does an exceptional job describing what a safe classroom looks like.

Organization
It is important to keep your classroom organized and easy to operate for students. Having a clean and well organized classroom also makes it easier to teach as well as your ability to be effective in the material that you are teaching. Organizing your classroom makes it easier for students to focus on the material being learned instead of being distracted, and it promotes organization for the class as a whole.

Materials 
Students need to feel safe in order to learn, so your classroom environment is vital in encouraging academic success. It is important to have all the materials your students might need (calculators, scissors, books, etc.) where your students can get up from their desk and get them without having to ask you for them. This promotes independence as well as encourages students that they are able to be successful by using their own abilities. As a result, this will help raise self-esteem within the classroom.

Respect
Creating a classroom where students respect you as the teacher and each other as classmates is another important aspect in creating a safe place. Students need to exercise individual responsibilities that contribute positively to the class. Classroom job charts is a great example of students holding individual responsibilities. This is a way in which each student can feel like they are needed and appreciated in the classroom. Another reason why respect is critical in creating a safe classroom is because students need to feel like they can ask questions. Asking for volunteers read directions aloud, writing on the board, or showing their personal achievements are just a few more ways that a classroom can be a safe place by showing respect.

These are a few aspects that emphasize the importance of creating a safe environment within your classroom. If you can create a safe place for your students, they will reap the benefits academically. All in all, when you create an environment of safety and respect, learning will follow.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological concept that believes a child cannot succeed until their physiological needs are first met. This theory is based on the 5 tiered pyramid where the basic needs are at the bottom (tier 1 and 2) and the self-fulfillment needs are on top (tier 5). The overall question for this theory is: what is the child's motivation that drives the type of behavior they are expressing? Tier 5 is not achieved by everyone, and it is possible for people to move up and down amongst the tiers. Below is a list of the 5 tiers that represent Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory.

• Tier 1: Biological and Physiological Needs- air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep, and sex. 
• Tier 2: Safety Needs- protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, and freedom from fear.
• Tier 3: Love and Belongingness Needs- friendship, intimacy, trust and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love, and being part of a group. 
• Tier 4: Esteem Needs- achievement, independence, mastery, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, and respect from others. 
• Tier 5: Self Actualization Needs- realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is used in educational environments in that it has greatly contributed to teaching and classroom management. Maslow looks at the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual and how they impact their learning within the classroom. Before students cognitive needs can be met through literacy, their basic needs must first be met. For example, a student who didn't have breakfast and is hungry will not be able to do their best academically. Similar to this, a student who did not sleep well the night before will not be able to focus on academics because they are physically exhausted. A classroom culture that reflects Maslow's hierarchy of needs will be a successful classroom. Students need to feel physically and emotionally safe and accepted within the classroom culture in order to reach their full potential. 

I think that Maslow's hierarchy of needs does a fantastic job helping people understand the needs of children as well as adults. I feel that all teachers should be taught about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the importance it plays in one's classroom. There are several schools that have taken this theory and made programs that will help students reach their full potential. Many public school systems provide free or reduced breakfast and lunch for their students in order to help them succeed in the classroom. In addition to this, The BackPack Program is a program that sends food home with students on Friday to ensure that the students will have food over the weekend. These are just a few of the ways in which Maslow's hierarchy of needs has heavily influenced the classroom and promoted academic success. 

Classroom Job Chart

Job charts can be beneficial within a classroom due to promoting student responsibility as individuals and as a class. Because of this, I was interested in learning if having a classroom job chart related to student academic success. I reviewed The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth written by Holly Lane and Stephanie Allen where it addressed this subject.

Within this article, it gave an excellent example about how a classroom job chart is related to vocabulary achievement. Ms. Barker's kindergarten class had a classroom job chart where there were jobs such as line leader, zookeeper, cleanup helper, and weather watcher. At the beginning of the school year, she asked her weather watcher to report the weather. On this occasion, Sarah, the weather watcher, reported that it was sunny. When Ms. Barker asked if it would be warm or cool, Sarah answered confidently by saying, "warm."

As the school year continues, Ms. Barker starts to change the terminology on the classroom job chart, while leaving the jobs the same. In February, Ms. Barker had changed the line leader to "classroom movement coordinator," the zookeeper had become the "animal nutrition specialist," the cleanup helper had become the "custodian," and the weather watcher had become the "meteorologist." In making these changes, she asked Jared, the meteorologist, to give her the forecast for that day. Jared responded by saying, "It's going to be rather brisk today." A classroom observer later asked Jared about his word choice when he said, "Well, it's colder than cool, but it's a long way from frigid."

This is just one example of how classroom job charts can promote academic success through vocabulary. Ms. Barker intentionally set up her classroom to where her kindergarteners would be exposed to more complex and detail oriented terminology as the year progressed. As a result, her class started using more detailed terminology in their everyday language.

What is classroom culture?

According to Children's Literacy Initiative, a thriving class culture is when the members of the class, the physical environment, the class schedule, and approaches to instruction work together in harmony. A positive classroom culture is a critical component to the success of your students. The way in which you present the classroom culture to your students is very important.

The best way to share this with your students is by emphasizing the responsibilities each individual has within the class in order for the class culture to be healthy. It is important to focus on the individual responsibilities to uphold instead of solely focusing on classroom rules and the "do's and don'ts." The classroom responsibilities  should be viewed as the students working together to maintain a positive classroom environment with all of them being actively involved.

Listed below are some possible questions you can ask yourself about your classroom culture.

• What is going well in the classroom? 
• How is the classroom working? 
• What are some challenges? 
• Do you feel like some of these challenges impede academic instruction? 
• How will working on classroom culture in the room provide positive academic achievement? 
• How does language, procedures, and responsibilities contribute to a healthy and thriving classroom culture? 

All in all, if you create a positive classroom culture, then your students will be challenged and encouraged to succeed academically.