Fostering a positive school climate

by Stephen Pohlen

One of the most important roles of any administrator is to help create and maintain a positive school climate. That climate begins with the classroom. An administrator has the delicate job of influencing what happens in the classroom through the official feedback of classroom observations and the relationships built with each of the teachers. I believe that curriculum choices and lesson delivery can transform students’ attitudes toward learning and thereby dramatically change school climate. When I set out to create a lesson, I make sure that it is hands-on, minds-on, and hearts-on.

As a science teacher, I have plenty of experience with the value of hands-on education. Though time consuming and often expensive, there is nothing more powerful than giving students the direct experience with the concepts you are trying to teach. When I teach Newtonian mechanics, my students build and race dragsters. When I teach phase changes, my students make ice cream. When I teach electricity, my students build a battery out of basic chemicals and metals. It doesn’t matter whether it is an urban sixth grade, or a suburban twelfth grade class, hands-on education stimulates more types of intelligence than a paper and pencil assignment, making for richer and more interesting learning.

Often, when I think I have created the perfect hands-on experience to teach a concept, the students will unpleasantly surprise me. Either, the experience has further solidified a misconception, or the main idea they derived from the activity is distant from what I had intended. This brings me to minds-on lessons. Without proper questioning, reflection, and debriefing, a hands-on experience might as well be a mindless following of a recipe. It is important to challenge students’ minds, to help them stretch to make new meaning of the world around them. When students reflect with peers, present their own findings, and answer open-ended questions, they are challenged to have a deeper understanding of the concept. When students realize they are being challenged, and are able to meet that challenge, they feel empowered by learning. They want to come back to your class for more intellectual inspiration.

For many, hands-on and minds-on is not enough. These are the students who want to know, “Why are we learning this?” Hearts-on connections between the concepts of the classroom and the students’ world give them a reason to care. A lesson should connect to students’ prior knowledge of the world in order to expand that world. When students learn about energy transformations and the pros and cons of the ways we produce electricity, there should be some transfer to their lives. How does what they learned change the way they use energy? What implications does it have for them as voting citizens? What can they do with the knowledge they have? Assignments that directly address these questions allow, or force, students to be conscientious decision makers.

The most effective classrooms are the ones where students want to be there and they are hands-, minds-, and hearts-on the content being taught. These classrooms have fewer behavior problems, more learning, and a better climate. School climate is integrally linked to classroom climate. Students carry the feelings of each classroom with them from room to room, through the hallways, and into the lunchroom. Administrators have the capacity to foster positive classroom climate through staff development, classroom observations, constructive feedback and strong relationships with teachers while respecting and honoring each teacher’s classroom autonomy. And, in turn, hands-on, minds-on, and hearts-on classroom instruction begets not only learning, but a positive school climate.
 

Stephen Pohlen is a student in the K-12 Principal licensure program and middle school science teacher in the Minneapolis school district. He can be reached at stephen.pohlen@mpls.k12.mn.us.