Empowering Students

We have a weekly class meeting where students bring up their concerns and we talk about it as a whole class.  What I love the most about these meetings is the problem solving that takes place.  The students bring up their kid concerns, but we don't solve the problem for them.  Instead, we ask them what they want to do about it.  Then we support them in their efforts to improve their school lives.

Here is a recent example.  One issue that the students kept bringing up is that there were certain students from other classes who kept teasing them for being in Quest.  The first time it was brought up, the students agreed that the teacher should e-mail the other students' teachers to inform them of what was happening on the playground and on the bus.  The teacher agreed to do this.

Several weeks later, the problem persisted.  So this time, the teacher suggested that the students try talking to their tormentors themselves to try to resolve the issue.  She would provide the safe space in which to do it, her classroom during the next class meeting.  So the students wrote letters to the other kids inviting them to their classroom to discuss the issue.  The next week, the other students arrived and participated in our class meeting.

The teacher made sure to let them know that they were not going to get in trouble, that this was a meeting in which students work together to try to solve problems.  So our students brought up their concerns and the other students shared their side of the story.  Together we worked to try to figure out the root of the problem and some possible solutions.  Eventually, the outside students admitted that they were just trying to be funny in an effort to make friends.  Then one of our students remembered one of the seven habits that they were learning in school, "seek first to understand, then to be understood."  In the end, most of our students agreed to make more of an effort to be friendly with the other students.  Some of our stduents decided they would just ignore the behavior and the other students.  The outside students agreed to try other strategies to make friends. 

I don't know how much the situation has changed on the playground, but I am willing to bet that the meeting made a bigger impression than simply getting in trouble.