The first week of school is often an overwhelmingly boring, anxiety inducing, mind numbing series of days spent introducing oneself, listening to 20* other people introduce themselves and share some tidbit you have little interest in, and being force fed lists of rules, processes, and behavioral guidelines. It is like landing the job of your dreams only to spend the first week in a stuffy conference room being forced to watch monotonous slide presentations about corporate guidelines. Neither experience makes you excited to begin contributing to the community and neither makes you feel respected or valued for your unique strengths.
At Chestnut Ridge, we take a different approach. From the first day of school, we establish that the student is part of the shared community and that every member of the community is respected for their contribution. Instead of reading out a list of rules, we define the expectations together. Instead of mandated behavioral guidelines, we brainstorm on how we wish to be treated by others and how we might accomplish that through our own behaviors. Instead of reviewing the school handbook, we write one as a team. And, best of all, instead of being told how we will learn and what topics we will cover, we complete a learning styles assessment and an interest survey which form the basis of our future areas of focus.
Building an educational environment that provides a psychologically safe space to learn begins on Day 1 by giving everyone in the community a voice. Technically, it began long before as I established a feeling of trust as E’s teacher, setting the stage to overcome past educational traumas hand-in-hand.
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