Inclusive Classroom Practices

With an introduction to some considerations for today’s learners, let’s unpack how to build a more positive, inclusive, and culturally responsive classroom environment. We will investigate the elements of classroom environment, how trauma impacts classroom environments, the role of families/caregivers in student success, and strategies for building a positive classroom environment.

Creating an Inclusive Classroom

Classroom Environments^[1]

For students to succeed at school, we must carefully craft a supportive, learning-centered classroom environment. There are many aspects to consider when designing your classroom environment. Some are within your direct control as an educator, and others are not.

You can control four things as you craft your classroom environment: physical set-up, overall atmosphere, behavior management, and building relationships with families. You may hear these elements called “classroom management” or “inclusive classroom environments.” The idea behind this term is that you have specific systems in your classroom that need to be “managed,” or organized, to scaffold your students’ success.

Four Elements of Teaching

Examine these four elements and envision how you will address them in your future classroom. If you are in a field placement or clinical experience, how does the classroom mentor teacher address these elements?

Some elements are beyond your control in your classroom, such as trauma students may have experienced previously or what resources your families or community has access to or lacks. In addition, sometimes cultural differences manifest themselves as apparent “misbehavior.” For example, if an educator comes from a culture where young people should look their elders in the eyes to show respect, they may accidentally label “misbehavior” in students from cultures where avoiding eye contact is a sign of respect. You may hear of these characteristics as part of a metaphorical “cultural iceberg.” On the surface, you see easily visible things like food, holidays, language, dress, and music; however, deep underneath the surface, less visible things exist, like rules, manners, values, authority/leadership, eye contact, body language, roles based on gender/age, hygiene, displays of emotion, personal space, and religion.

Trauma, resources, and culture, though not part of “classroom management,” still impact the overall classroom environment and therefore are important to be aware of. For this reason, we intentionally refer to “classroom environment” throughout this chapter because we feel it is more inclusive of the many contexts and systems that impact your students’ learning success.

Being Aware of Trauma in Educational Settings

When you think of a classroom environment, you may first think of a warm, welcoming environment where all students can thrive. The reality is that trauma can have a very real impact on students’ participation in instruction and the classroom community. Sometimes this trauma happens outside of the classroom, like Adverse Childhood Experiences; sometimes this trauma happens inside the classroom, like bullying. Being aware of different ways our students experience trauma both within and beyond the classroom helps us create learning environments that meet the needs of our students.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Our students, like Joey, come to school each day wearing an invisible backpack, filled with all of the experiences they have had in life. Some of these invisible backpacks are light because our students’ experiences thus far have been loving, safe, and predictable. Unfortunately, too many of our students wear heavy backpacks full of experiences that have been frightening, unpredictable, and unsafe. These experiences can be characterized as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Childhood exposure to abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction may lead to increased social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties as well as decreased academic performance in the educational environment. Additionally, traditional means of interventions and support may not be successful in modifying behaviors for the long term. Meeting the needs of our students impacted by adverse childhood experiences requires a shift in the educational setting to focus on the consistent development of healthy relationships between students and staff, including the implementation of trauma-informed classrooms and interventions.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is a term coined by Anda and Felitti (1998) following a two-year, retrospective study in partnership between Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this study, researchers examined the relationship between childhood experiences and the long-term impact on health. A questionnaire was developed utilizing pre-existing surveys and explored childhood exposures to certain experiences with the following categories of questions: psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exposure to substance abuse, mental illness, violent treatment of mother or stepmother, and criminal behavior. These categories were chosen to build upon existing research on the long-term effects of single episode child abuse. Felitti et al. (1998) recognized that other areas of dysfunction can co-occur with abuse and believed failing to measure the presence of these conditions in combination with abuse may wrongly attribute outcomes to one incident as opposed to the cumulative impact of multiple experiences. The study also identified 10 health risk factors including “smoking, severe obesity, physical inactivity, depressed mood, suicide attempts, alcoholism, any drug abuse, parental drug abuse, a high lifetime number of sexual partners, and a history of having a sexually transmitted disease” (Felitti et al., 1998, p. 248). The original ACE study found correlations between the number of childhood exposures and the development of health problems in adulthood. It is also found that ACEs were common, with 52% of participants experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience, and co-occurring, with 40-74% experiencing at least two (Felitti et al., 1998). Due to the correlation with social, emotional, and cognitive impact, this research suggests that preventing exposure to ACEs in childhood could potentially reduce the long-term negative impact at a societal level.

Results of the original ACE study yielded a strong correlation between early experiences and later outcomes as an adult. However, it is critical to note that the study, although ground-breaking at the time, had several limitations. Felitti et al. (1998) indicated that due to the retrospective and self-report study design, the results should only be interpreted as demonstrating that a relationship may exist between the presence of adverse childhood experiences and later health concerns. They also recognized that other factors, such as the age at which exposure occurred, the intensity and frequency of exposure, as well as the presence of protective factors may exist, impacting the relationship between the two, which were not included in the study (Anda, Porter & Brown, 2020). In fact Anda, Porter, and Brown (2020) released an article cautioning against the use of the ACEs questionnaire as a diagnostic tool. In this article, they state, “questions from the ACE study cannot fully assess the frequency, intensity, or chronicity of exposure to an ACE” (Anda, Porter, & Brown, 2020, p. 1). Furthermore, they indicate the ACE score should not be used to screen, diagnose, plan for treatment, or predict future outcomes of individuals as it was designed for research purposes at the larger level. This is essential to understand for our students in schools because identifying an ACE score does not give us a picture of the whole child, including their strengths and protective factors.

Caution with ACE scores

Aces in the Classroom

Our students’ invisible backpacks can be filled with experiences that weigh them down and impact their ability to function successfully in the educational environment. These can be single-episode experiences, such as a house fire or car accident, or the more complex experience of developmental traumas. Developmental traumas can include ongoing physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, physical and emotional neglect, and household dysfunction.

• Abuse is defined by a caregiver’s action, or failure to act, resulting in death, significant physical or emotional harm, or the exploitation of a child under the age of 18 (Child Welfare Information Gateway, n.d.).
• Physical neglect can include failure to consistently meet basic needs such as food and shelter, as well as providing a safe, clean environment. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological needs must be met before cognitive tasks such as learning can occur. Failure to provide adequate medical and dental care are also forms of neglect, though families without resources are subject to these issues and, as a result, children experience a lack of adequate care, beyond their families’ control.
• Emotional neglect involves the failure to meet or recognize a child’s emotional needs. Household dysfunction is the most common adverse childhood experience in childhood as many of the characteristics are often co-occurring. This category includes a variety of factors impacting caregivers such as divorce or separation, alcohol and/or substance abuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, and incarceration (Felitti et al., 1998).

The Impacts of Trauma on Brain Development
The dose-effect, or the frequency, severity, and duration of the experiences in our students’ lives can heavily impact their behavioral, social, emotional, and academic success. Bessel van der Kolk (2014) states the impact of chronic traumatic stress, the repetitive exposure to an experience overloading the body’s ability to cope, includes “pervasive biological and emotional dysregulation, failed or disrupted attachment, problems staying focused and on track, and a hugely deficient sense of coherent personal identity and competence” (p. 168). In essence, our students who experience chronic, traumatic stress can struggle to tolerate frustration and control their emotions, struggle to engage in healthy peer and adult relationships, as well as struggle to engage in executive functioning tasks such as initiating, sustaining, and completing work. This primarily occurs because trauma impacts their ability to access the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for these functions. The prefrontal cortex is part of the cerebrum. Instead, students with higher exposure to adverse childhood experiences tend to function more frequently in the brainstem, the part of the brain responsible for the autonomic responses of fight, flight, and freeze.

The image above highlights the differences in brain functioning for a child who experienced typical early development and one who experienced developmental trauma. The areas of the brain responsible for cognition are far less active in students with developmental trauma while the part of the brain responsible for survival (i.e. fight, flight, or freeze) becomes the default response system.

The fight, flight, or freeze response in the educational environment can inhibit our students’ ability to access their education effectively. It can also be disruptive to the learning of their peers. Some examples of fight, flight, or freeze responses include hitting, kicking, screaming, elopement (running away), pulling away from adults, not moving, hiding under furniture, shutting down, and withdrawing. We need to remember these behaviors are coping skills that developed in response to stress or trauma the student was unable to manage any other way. Additionally, our students are not doing this to us. They are responding to a situation, internal or external, in which there is no other way to cope. These situations are commonly referred to as triggers and may not always be predictable or observable for students with developmental trauma. For this reason, we must develop policies and practices within the classroom that are trauma-informed as it will foster an environment in which empathy is present and healing can occur.

Bullying in the Classroom

While ACEs occur outside of the classroom setting, another element of trauma for students in school can be bullying. In 2017, about 20 percent of students ages 12–18 reported being bullied at school during the school year (U.S. Department of Justice, 2017). For behavior to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

1. An imbalance of power. Students who bully use their power–such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity–to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even involving the same people.
2. Repetition of behavior. Bullying behaviors happen more than once, and a pattern of behavior is established. One stand-alone hurtful comment or action is not the same as bullying.

There are generally three types of bullying: verbal, social, and physical. Verbal bullying is saying mean things and includes behaviors such as teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting, and threatening to cause harm. Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors about someone, and/or embarrassing someone in public. Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes behaviors such as kicking or hitting, spitting, tripping or pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, and/or making rude or mean hand gestures. In 2017, about 42 percent of students who reported being bullied at school indicated that the bullying was related to at least one of the following characteristics: physical appearance (30%), race (10%), gender (8%), disability (7%), ethnicity (7%), religion (5%), and sexual orientation (4%) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2017).

Cyberbullying, also referred to as electronic bullying, is bullying that takes place using electronic technology. Electronic technology includes devices and equipment such as cell phones, computers, tablets, and communication tools such as social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites. Examples of cyberbullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles.

Unlike bullying, cyberbullying can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and reach a student even when they are alone. It can happen any time of day or night. Cyberbullying messages can be posted anonymously and distributed quickly to a wide audience. It can be difficult and sometimes impossible to trace the source. Deleting inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures can be extremely difficult after they have been posted or sent.

Bullying and cyberbullying have significant implications when it comes to trauma and our students’ school and life experiences. Children who are cyberbullied or bullied in school are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, skip school, be unwilling to attend school, receive poor grades, have lower self-esteem, and more health problems. There can also be the most devastating of consequences: a child committing suicide. As an educator, you are in a position to prevent bullying or intervene when it happens.

Building Rapport with Families in Classroom Environments

Imagine a teacher saying to another teacher in the hallway, “Families don’t come to conferences because they just don’t care about their kids.” How would hearing that statement make you feel as a teacher? A student? A family member?

This statement in the box above is one you may have heard from teachers talking about their students’ families or will likely hear it sometime during your teaching career. This statement conveys a deficit view of families by positioning families as “uncaring,” while the reality is likely quite different. Families might be unable to attend a conference due to various challenges with scheduling, transportation, childcare, or their own negative experiences in school. This statement also reveals misunderstandings of the differences between family involvement and family engagement, two terms often used interchangeably but are distinct concepts.

Family Involvement Versus Family Engagement

Family involvement tends to be more school-oriented, whereas family engagement tends to be more family-oriented. Ferlazzo (2011) described family involvement as the school holding the expectations for family participation and telling families what they need to do. In other words, the school does things “to” or “for” families and families respond. For example, consider when it is time for teacher conferences: the school sends out a schedule, and the expectation is that families will come to school at the appointed time. The goal for these meetings is often a one-sided transition of information, where the teacher reports to the family how the student is performing in class while expecting the family to be somewhat passive acceptors of this information.

On the other hand, family engagement indicates working “with” families: sharing responsibility and working together to support children’s learning. In this case, when it is time for teacher conferences, the teachers are encouraged to work with families and find ways to communicate with all of them. While some families will come to school at the scheduled time, some might schedule a phone call when they are on break from work, while others might prefer to do FaceTime because they want to see the teacher. Teachers will also engage family members as contributors, asking them what they have seen at home or what their celebrations, goals, or concerns are for their child’s learning.

Schools cannot exist without families, so there is a great need for partnerships between schools and families. Families can contribute to school communities in a variety of ways, even well beyond volunteering in classrooms or contributing to required fundraisers. Families can use their firsthand knowledge of the local community to help connect teachers with community agencies or experts for field trips or classroom visits. All students bring a wealth of background experiences–often built with their families–to the classroom each day, which can help students connect to and understand learning goals and the world around them. Remember that while there are more visible, traditional forms of support (like volunteering or joining the PTA), families partner with educators in limitless ways to support a common goal: their child’s learning and growth.

Building strong partnerships between schools and families also requires reconfiguring the traditional view of “family.” Be careful not to assume that a student’s family consists of a mother and father. Families might consist of same-sex parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, stepparents, adopted parents, foster parents, older siblings, and more. For this reason, using the word “family” instead of “parents” can be more inclusive. In addition, we need to view communities as part of families, and schools can engage with their community “families” creatively. For example, some schools have “grandmas.” These community grandmas come into the classroom a few days a week to tell stories about their lives and listen to students share their stories. This partnership demonstrates a beautiful way to build meaningful relationships between the school and the community.

Your Family's Participation

Interrupting Bias and Stereotypes in School/Family Partnerships

Chimamanda Adichie (2009) warns us about stereotypes in her TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story. The issue with stereotypes, she states, is that they are partial and provide one lens: “They make one story the only story.” Viewing children and families through one lens, a deficit lens, is harmful and imposes limits on what they can accomplish. This “single story” is especially likely to harm children and families of color.

Sometimes, single stories about our families–especially families and communities of color–can lead to stereotypes and assumptions that hurt our families and weaken school/family partnerships. Let’s look at two fairly common stereotypes.

One common stereotype is that families do not attend school because they do not care. Many possible reasons exist for families not to come to school. Edwards (2016) offers that families of color may have had unpleasant experiences in schools themselves and are not willing to succumb to the “ghosts” of school again. As children, they were not welcome or well-treated in school and could not bring themselves to enter the buildings again; schools were traumatic places.

Another common stereotype is that families have nothing to offer their children or school. Families are their children’s first teachers. Deficit views of families negate that before coming to school, children have learned their family’s language and culture by being immersed in them. Children learn their families’ and communities’ ways of knowing and being by interacting and engaging with community members and families.

To build stronger school/family partnerships. schools can reframe the traditional reliance upon family involvement instead of family engagement. The norm for involving families is that the school dictates the needs and reaches out to families, telling them the needs. Instead, reframing this partnership to one of family engagement invites collaboration and shifts from a deficit orientation to a strengths-based perspective. Families have a lot to offer in an educator’s work toward building positive classroom environments, and schools need to take note of the resources available in their community and extend invitations for meaningful work.

Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRP)^[2]

Key Theorists: Zaretta Hammond, Gloria Ladson-Billings

Culturally responsive teaching builds students’ brain power by Improving information processing skills using cultural learning tools. When education focuses on using culture as a cognitive scaffold, we can leverage students’ neural pathways that make learning easier. Culturally responsive teaching is grounded in social and cognitive neuroscience.

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994/2009) created this concept in the 1990s. Instead of viewing students as empty piggy banks waiting to be filled with coins of knowledge, culturally responsive teaching recognizes that students bring a variety of experiences and knowledge with them to the classroom and that these resources can be used to design classroom experiences that are relevant to the students’ cultures and experiences. Another way to look at culturally relevant teaching is to “teach to and through [students’] personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their prior accomplishments” (Gay, 2010, p. 26). Powerful learning occurs when we recognize the knowledge, backgrounds, languages, and experiences that our students bring to our classrooms and design instruction around these elements.

Ladson-Billings (1995, 2001) established three key pillars of culturally relevant teaching.

Creating a Positive Classroom Environment

Developing a strong sense of community and belonging in the classroom is essential to building relationships that may serve as protective factors for our students. Implementing practices and approaches built around empathy, the ability to recognize and feel the emotions of others, can positively impact all students but is critical to the success of students who have experienced adversity.

It is sometimes difficult to separate our empathy with students from our sympathy for students. Some of our students experience such difficult lives, and our sympathy leads us to expect less of them. Interacting with students from a place of sympathy does not build our connections with them and does not let them know we believe in them. Table 5.1 shows differences in statements focused on empathy versus sympathy.

Statements Focused on Empathy versus Sympathy

Stop and Investigate

As educators, we must create an environment that models empathy for students to facilitate trust and security. Bob Sornson (2014) states, “By helping children learn empathy, we raise the odds they will have strong positive social relationships, truly care for others, and be able to set appropriate limits in their own lives without using angry behaviors or words” (para. 2). Traditional elements of a classroom environment, including structured, predictable routines and morning meetings, can be expanded to increase opportunities for empathy daily. However, some traditional classroom management models include practices that interfere with developing healthy connections between teachers and our students. Building connections with students can be challenging and take effort and repeated attempts with students who have experienced adversity; furthermore, these relationships can be damaged quickly if we use practices that do not align with building empathy.

The table below provides an overview of some management practices to avoid and use. However, you will get much more in-depth information on classroom management strategies as you continue in your pathway as a preservice teacher.

Classroom Management Practices

Don’t: Clip Charts and Cart-Flipping Systems

Clip charts and card systems are one genre of behavior management strategies that are punitive and shaming. The idea behind these systems is that when students break a rule or demonstrate established misbehavior, they will be asked to “move their clip” (often lower down a chart of behavioral levels) or “flip a card” (often from green to yellow to red). Each clip or card level carries its consequences. These systems are publicly shaming because students have to move their clip or flip their cards in front of their peers, often after a teacher provides a verbal reprimand that the entire class hears. Also, any member of the classroom community–or even a visitor who steps into the classroom–can see how every child in the room is doing at any given moment. Using clip charts may activate a student’s fight, flight, or freeze response, indicating the student no longer feels safe in the environment.

Don’t: Public Humiliation/Shaming

It is never acceptable to yell at a student. It is even less acceptable to do it in a public environment. Frustration as a teacher is expected. We are adults, however, and we need to remain calm. Students look to us to keep them safe and to protect them from those who may be shaming them for being “different” and humiliating them in front of their peers. We do not want to add to that shame and humiliation. Other forms of public humiliation and shaming can include visible punishments like writing a student’s name on the board or asking a student to stay in or away from a certain part of the classroom (i.e., standing in a corner or not joining the group on the carpet). (Do note that sometimes students need space to decompress and regulate their emotions, which can be done without publicly humiliating the student.)

Don’t: Isolation

Additional practices that can activate this response include isolating students experiencing strong emotions. As adults, we feel a range of emotions throughout the day. Our students can experience this same range of emotions. If our classrooms are not based on empathy and understanding, we may exacerbate the situation by sending the student out of the room or to a calm-down space as a punitive response to their emotion. An empathetic response validates the student’s feelings, and a limit or consequence may need to be set if safety is a concern.

Don’t: Group Punishment

Group punishment occurs when one student or a small group of students demonstrate off-task behavior, and consequences are applied to all the students in the class, whether they participated in this off-task behavior. You might have heard statements like, “If anyone talks during snack time, no one gets to go outside for recess,” or “If any student shouts out during this activity, no one gets added game time.” These kinds of punishments are not realistic or reasonable. Some students who struggle with self-regulation skills become the scapegoat for “ruining it” for all the students in the class, leading to resentment from their peers and exclusion from their peer group.

Don’t: Assign Laps at Recess

A common consequence for misbehavior or noncompliance with classroom policies (such as completing homework) is asking the student to walk laps at recess. This practice is not productive for several reasons. First, it associates exercise with punishment. Students need to have positive associations with exercise to maintain their physical health; if walking is something one only does when in trouble, one is less likely to continue this healthy behavior for one’s well-being. Secondly, it removes the unstructured break time from the students who often need it most. For example, students who need constant redirection for socializing or being on the move during class would definitely benefit from ample opportunities to socialize and move at recess!

Don’t: Be a Negative Role Model

Role modeling is critical in the development of empathy. Unfortunately, we are not perfect, and, at times, we may model inappropriate behaviors. For example, a student may have something that does not belong to them, and out of frustration, we grab it from the student. Later that day, the same student wants something someone else has and goes over and grabs it from them. Our typical response would be some consequence, leaving the student feeling “it isn’t fair.” We modeled the behavior and provided a consequence to the student for using an adult-modeled behavior. These moments will happen and allow us to acknowledge our behavior and repair the relationship with the student. A response toward restoring the relationship may sound like this: “Joey, I’m sorry. Earlier, I grabbed something from your hands. When you did the same thing to Raúl, I gave you a consequence. I need help remembering to do the right thing sometimes, too. Do you think you could help me?” This response models for Joey that even adults make mistakes and how to recover and repair them when they occur.

The practices listed above–including clip charts, isolating students when strong emotions arise, and making missteps in our reactions as teachers–can trigger a student’s automatic fear response. A student in a fight, flight, or freeze state struggles to learn and is no longer thinking through their choices. As educators and models of empathy in the classroom, we need to minimize the use of these practices and replace them with those that build our students’ emotional intelligence.

Do: Know Your Students

Positive relationships that affirm students’ membership in the classroom community are the foundation of a welcoming classroom environment; therefore, educators need to develop individual relationships with their students as much as possible. Get to know your students as individuals through activities like beginning-of-the-year “getting to know you” surveys, sitting with your students during lunch, chatting during less structured times like breaks or recess, and asking families for their tips (after all, families have known our students for far longer!). Attend sporting events, performances, and other activities students invite you to. Use the information you gather to work personalized references into classroom instruction, but make sure you do so equitably.

At the same time, remember that your job is not to be a student’s friend. You are still a professional adult, and you must keep this professional boundary in mind. The age of your students also plays a role. A kindergarten teacher being invited to a child’s birthday party is quite different from a high schooler inviting a teacher to a birthday party.

Do: Establish Positive Relationships with Families

From the beginning of the school year, reach out to families in various ways–phone calls, notes, messages through your school’s learning management system–to establish positive relationships. Provide specific, positive feedback on what you see their child accomplishing in the classroom to demonstrate to families that you know their child as an individual. Some teachers like to use “surprise” notes at home that highlight positive achievements and accomplishments for individual students and families to celebrate. (Be sure to send these notes home for all children–you may wish to keep track to ensure you are equitably distributing these positive notes.) While the beginning of the school year can be hectic, investing time upfront in building positive relationships means that when you need more support later, you’ll have a partnership already built with the family if an issue arises.

Also, remember that educators and families share a common goal: wanting what is best for their children. Sometimes, educators and families may have different perspectives on how to get to that same outcome. Remembering that families and educators are partners in this common goal can help when conflicts arise. This Edutopia article shares some communication strategies to try with families at the beginning of the year.

Do: Routines

As human beings, we feel safe when we know what to expect. Routines help our students know what to expect. Established and predictable routines can include visual and verbal reminders for the flow of a typical day in the classroom, such as a posted schedule with the times and activities listed. These routines are also explained and practiced with the students frequently at the start of the school year. Routines can include special greetings, expectations for various parts of the day, like arrival and departure, and procedures for accessing materials like writing utensils during instruction. Predictable routines create a feeling of safety and security for students as they can reasonably expect to know what is coming next. Preparing students repeatedly, ahead of time, for any changes in the routine also facilitates trust within the environment and can act as a preventative measure for those who experience dysregulation related to change.

Do: Morning Meetings

One daily routine that can build empathy and community is a morning meeting. These community gatherings can occur on a classroom carpet or at their desks and typically include academic and social-emotional activities. For example, students may greet their peers with special morning greetings, and the teacher can discuss the day’s plans. Morning meetings are a fantastic opportunity to build classroom activities that increase a sense of belonging and community. Allowing students to openly express how they feel in the classroom and about the environment helps to give them a voice and feel like they are valued members of the group. At the secondary level, educators can allot a few minutes at the beginning of each class to complete a brief check-in with their students. This can include asking non-threatening questions or allowing students to share on a rotating basis. The secondary level is sometimes overlooked when conversations about building emotional intelligence are discussed. These students are undergoing significant developmental changes and need the opportunity to be heard and feel belonging. Minor modifications to daily interactions with students build opportunities for empathy and social-emotional development. This increases their exposure to healthy, prosocial skills, which can increase their ability to function in healthy relationships.

Do: Classroom Responsibilities

Classroom responsibilities, sometimes called classroom jobs, give students ownership of the classroom environment. Common elementary classroom responsibilities include line leader, caboose, and paper passer. Students can also be “librarians” responsible for maintaining and organizing books in the classroom. Dr. Clayton also had what she called a “S.I.C.,” which stood for “student in charge.” This student would “take over” when Dr. Clayton worked with a small group, such as a reading group. Students would go to them to ask to use the bathroom, for example. (Side note: be sure the answer they give is “yes”!) Responsibilities can continue into middle school and high school. Of course, a high school student is not interested in being the line leader, but they can be the teacher’s assistant for the day, such as running errands to the front office. Just be sure that these responsibilities rotate among students so that no favoritism is interpreted.

Do: Individual Contracts

Sometimes, certain students need more specific structures and rules that everyone in the class doesn’t need. Instead of creating a “one-size-fits-all” behavioral management system that does not meet all your students’ needs, consider writing individual behavior contracts. These contracts should have specific, observable goals, clear time parameters, and straightforward, tangible outcomes. For example, in Dr. Wells’s kindergarten class, she had one student who was struggling with self-regulation skills, but she also knew he was obsessed with Angry Birds. She created an Angry Birds behavior chart with this student only. After she chose a target behavior (such as listening and following directions the first time they are given, an important safety skill), she would establish criteria to set the student up for demonstrating the target behavior. At first, the goal might be that the student follows 1 out of 10 directions in one hour. Despite the nine times the student didn’t follow directions, the student still earns the reward–in this case, playing a round of Angry Birds on the classroom tablet for five minutes–because they need to experience success first. Then, as this goal becomes easier, increase the challenge: now, the student needs to keep 5 out of 10 Angry Birds on his chart (signifying he listened 5 out of 10 times) in an hour. Next, expand the time slot. Perhaps the student has to keep 5 out of 10 birds for the whole morning and then reset for the afternoon with the exact expectations. If your behavior contract uses a chart like this one, remember to keep it private. Instead of taping it to the board for the entire class to see, consider keeping it on a clipboard and discreetly marking it, and then privately conferring with the student out of earshot of peers when the established period has ended.

When making individual contracts, remember it is important to know your students, their needs, and their interests. While some students may have multiple areas for growth–shouting out and following directions the first time when given, for example–pick the one area, you need to see growth in first for the student to feel safe and trusted. Also, be aware that individual contracts won’t fix everything immediately; they take time, patience, and consistency.

Do: Teach Social/Emotional Skills and Mindfulness

Implementing social-emotional learning activities into the curriculum can assist in developing self-regulation and conflict-resolution skills. If students are taught to recognize and regulate their emotional states, they will be better able to recognize the states of others, remain in the thinking part of the brain, and more likely to resolve conflicts in a mutually beneficial way. Skills such as using a regulation space, a place in the classroom where students can go when they need a break or need to regulate their emotions, must be taught repeatedly and should be taught to the whole class. This space should include sensory items such as stress balls, fidget sticks, and putty, as well as self-regulation tools such as social stories, coloring pages, deep breathing tools, and visual reminders for using the area. Normalizing the use of this space removes any stigma or punishment associated with experiencing strong emotions and makes using regulation skills a positive experience for students. Additionally, educators should role model the use of regulation skills to the class throughout the day.

Mindfulness in Educational Settings

The ability to self-regulate is an important developmental milestone for all students and requires co-regulation from a loving, consistent adult to develop in early childhood. The use of mindfulness-based activities in schools is a research-based strategy with benefits for students, teachers, and the classroom community as a whole. Strategies can include external and internal focuses and utilize the five senses to help students remain rooted in the present moment. Activities can be embedded into the structure of the daily classroom routine and increase the sense of calm across the environment. Mindfulness strategies can be modified and adapted to meet the needs of various students. Utilizing these skills regularly in the classroom is a social-emotional strategy that can benefit all students regardless of their early life experiences.

Jon Kabat-Zinn (2003), a mindfulness expert, defines it as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (p. 145). Simply put, it intentionally notices our internal and external environments without judging what we find. This intentional awareness requires consistent training and practice to benefit. Mindfulness can include various activities based on movement, touch, breathing, and the senses, as well as the use of reflection. Kabat-Zinn says, “We are all mindful to one degree or another, moment by moment. It is an inherent human capacity” (p. 145-146). Some mindful techniques that are commonly engaged in include taking a deep breath and noticing the taste of food in your mouth. Additional training and practice can help develop already existing strategies and add new ones to increase the benefits to our well-being. Most research on the benefits of mindfulness-based practices has been conducted with adult,s and modifications are necessary to increase accessibility for children.

Students may need teaching practices to be adapted by using shorter activities, more activities with movement (such as yoga), and props or visual aids to assist them in focusing on specific sensations. Small things such as using a stuffed animal can be beneficial to teaching deep breathing by allowing the student to put it on their stomach and instructing them to make it go up and down using their breath. Mindfulness strategies can be simple activities that can be easily implemented in the daily routines of a classroom. It is important to consider the developmental age of our students as well as what activities might be appropriate on a given day.

Some schools may take a more intentional approach of introducing school-wide initiatives for social-emotional learning. Social Emotional programs provide frameworks, such as the one from Collaborative for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (CASEL), to assist teachers and other school personnel with helping students develop social and emotional skills, but also to equip educational stakeholders with the knowledge of building equitable learning environments that support students’ wellbeing and academic success. To build student social and emotional capacities, the CASEL framework utilizes five competencies: relationship skills, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and responsible decision-making.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Regular and consistent use of mindfulness strategies benefits the whole person, including physical and mental well-being. Hofmann et al. (2010) reviewed 39 studies on the impact of mindfulness-based therapy on various mental health and physical diagnoses. Results of the meta-analysis revealed improvement in symptoms of anxiety and depression, including those that may be related to an underlying medical condition. Additionally, the benefits of mindfulness were not found to be relative to specific diagnoses because of the impact on general well-being. Within the school system, mindfulness has also been proven to positively impact various areas for students, including attention, emotional regulation, compassion, and reduction of stress and anxiety (Mindful Schools, n.d.). The consistent use of these strategies also benefits teachers and improves teacher-student relationships (Flook et al., 2013).

Zelazo and Lyons (2012) report, “Mindfulness training disrupts the automatic elicitation of emotional responses, resulting in greater calmness and emotional stability” (p. 157-158). Regular practice also helps students identify what they feel safe before they act, leading to increased benefits in other areas of their functioning. Student reflection also allows students to identify their automatic thoughts and change their emotional responses, thus gaining control over their behaviors.

The benefits of stronger emotional regulation through mindfulness-based practices extend into all areas of our students’ lives. Schonert-Reichl et al. (2015) found that implementing a social-emotional curriculum for as little as four months improved students’ behavioral and academic functioning. Additional benefits include improved impulse control, focus and attention, and stronger peer relationships through the development of compassion and empathy for others. Implementing a regular mindfulness practice in the classroom benefits individual students and the entire classroom community, including the teachers.

The practice of intentional and non-judgmental awareness by students and teachers holds many benefits for individuals and the classroom environment. Mindfulness can include internal reflection and focusing on external stimuli and sensations to help us remain grounded and focused on the present. Practice requires consistency and adaptation to meet the developmental needs of our student populations. The benefits for students include increased emotional regulation, focus and attention, impulse control, compassion, empathy, and improved relationships within the school environment. Mindfulness practices in the classroom also benefit teachers by decreasing burnout and psychological distress and improving self-compassion and positive observations of student behavior. Implementing these practices in the school is part of a trauma-informed classroom and is helpful to all students, regardless of their early childhood experiences.

Conclusion

Teaching today is a complex process. Teachers must understand their content and how to teach it, but moreover, teachers are also professionally and ethically responsible for understanding how to support students best. To do so effectively, educators must be mindful of the considerations that impact students.

Before students can learn, they must first feel safe, supported, and valued. Creating empathy-driven classroom environments involves intentional decisions about specific elements under the educator’s control, such as an accessible physical arrangement of the classroom, an affirming atmosphere, and using humanizing management strategies while intentionally avoiding those that cause humiliation or shame. Additionally, educators can partner with critical community stakeholders, such as school social workers and family or community members, to access additional resources to support students’ success.

Love Them First

Creating empathy-driven classroom environments also involves awareness of elements not under the educator’s control. Adverse childhood experiences are common within our classrooms, with varying degrees of impact on our students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive functioning. Understanding the unique histories of each of our students is important, but so is uncovering who they are as individuals, including what makes them resilient. A history of adverse experiences does not mean our students cannot learn, grow, and develop healthy relationships. It means they have experiences that may change the path that gets them there and will need the positive adult connection we can provide as their teacher even more.

To create an empathy-focused classroom environment, there are certain elements to include–routines, morning meetings, and developing individual relationships with students–and elements to avoid, such as clip charts or card-flipping systems, group punishment, and public humiliation. Building and implementing a trauma-informed classroom with empathy at the core is a practice that supports all students and will increase a sense of community and belonging for all.

Building and modeling empathy fosters a reciprocal relationship in which students feel educators’ genuine care and concern for their best interests. We lay the foundation for our students’ success by intentionally creating a humanizing classroom environment where they can learn and grow.

Inclusive Classroom Practices

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