One of the things I appreciate about this year’s students is the way they take charge of their own learning.
Of course, it helps that I have an excellent batch of students to work with this year. At the beginning of the school year, I established a couple of ground rules that helped create an appropriate classroom environment. One is that my students need to be as comfortable as is practical under the circumstances. I have a Brita water pitcher and cups and a box of fidget toys. If they want a cup of water, a fidget toy, a tissue, or to sharpen a pencil, they’re expected to get up quietly and non-disruptively without asking, get what they need, and return to their seat. If they want to go to the bathroom, they use the ASL sign for toilet, in order to be able to negotiate the request for a hall pass silently without interrupting the discussion.
The other basic ground rule is that we have to maintain an environment that allows everyone to succeed. If someone is talking and it’s not about the physics that we’re discussing in class, the problem is that the student is making it harder for his/her classmates to succeed. This is something they understand and respect. They’re teenagers–they’re not completely silent, but they are respectfully quiet, especially when we’re going over problems or concepts that many of them find challenging.
One of the things that impresses me is that if there’s an empty seat near the front, quite a few of the students, if they’re finding a concept particularly difficult, will spontaneously move to the front during the discussion, so they can be closer to the white board and the discussion. Once they’re feeling confident that they understand, they get up during the discussion and move back to their regular seats. Some teachers might think of this behavior as a challenge to their classroom authority. I see it as evidence that my students have a mature attitude toward their learning, and that left to themselves, they will find a way to be proactive and appropriately assertive about making sure they get what they need.
