Classroom Community

           

                              (If I had photoshop I'd change the "mistakes" to be something like "attempts")

            It took me three weeks to notice this but now I cannot stop thinking about it.  This week I noticed that the four students who generally have “behavior problems,” which in Kindergarten means not following directions or sitting still, are the only ones to point out if another student is misbehaving.  For these four students, it is so normal for them to be reprimanded that I feel like they are oftentimes just waiting to be in trouble again, or to point out someone else who should be in trouble.

            We as a school system have trained students to see another person’s failure as our own success, and this is only kindergarten!  Some of these students did not even go to preschool yet they are displaying this mentality that is so common for students to buy into.  I feel like sometimes by always correcting or redirecting these students we as teachers are creating bullies: a teacher picked them on for their behavior, so they pick on other students for their behavior.  Clearly this is not what I want to be doing; in fact one of the things that I look forward to the most/am most apprehensive about is building a community in my own classroom that will eliminate this phenomenon and mentality.  I do not want my students to see another student’s “failure” as their own success.  I do not want there to be so much inherent competition that students are rooting for their peers to fail.  I’d like to believe that despite the individualistic society we live in, it is possible to eliminate this behavior in the classroom.  I just don’t know how I’m going to do it yet…