I believe that relationships are important. The relationship between teacher and students is of utmost importance when developing a great learning environment. To help build these relationships, we are working with each class to develop agreements of behavior, rather than just declaring classroom rules.
We call these agreements Social Contracts, and we’ve been working on them in our classrooms over the past week. It is a process we are using to develop a basis for how we are going to treat each other. We are using the process from Preschool all the way through High School.
The process is simple. The teacher poses a series of questions, and the class discusses their answers. Here are the questions:
- How do you want to be treated by me, the teacher?
- How do you want to be treated by each other?
- How do you think I want to be treated by you?
- How will we treat each other in times of conflict?
We want to instill in each student that they are responsible for their behavior. But, we also want them to express how they would like to be treated and to have a conversation about what that looks like.
Mrs. Clatturbuck’s kindergarten class not only talked about how to treat each other, they acted out each of the different things in their contract and put the pictures on the contract!
I believe wholeheartedly in this process. We even have a contract at home. If you want to learn more about it, I’d love to talk with you.
Paul Brenner, WCS Administrator
Talon Times 