Pro Teacher Tip: Build Community

What’s Really New: Building community continues to be the best piece of advice that I can give to any teacher at any level and in any content area. The community I built in my classes brought me great joy and comfort and many students reported the same. If that is not reason enough that community also supported our journey as writers as well. Build community deliberately by centering the authentic work of your class and you too can reap the benefits.

What’s New: It is that time of year again and every indicator points to this school year being a very rough ride, but my primary advice holds: build community with your students and build a community of peers/mentors to support you. This will require some careful thought about how you begin your relationship with your students. These were my practices kicking off the spring semester and fall semester respectively. This fall I plan to employ the writing marathon/workshop strategy as well as an online orientation so our time together is focused on writing and building community. I will also continue my practice of embedding poetry into our weekly writing invitations. I use a variety of channels to support communication between and among the members of our community. I know after years of pandemic teaching that my first year college writers are going to need a lot of support as they navigate the traditional expected transition into college combined with the physical and mental challenges of communal living during a pandemic. This semester my load includes a combination of online, hybrid, and traditional instruction but even for traditional students it is important to build those support structures and is is truly essential for hybrid and online students. The future of education lies in these hybrid, multi-modal, multi-channel constructions and as long as we take time to build thoughtful design and supportive communities then we can do anything. First week of classes in the books and I love watching our community of writers come together and bond over shared anthems and values in my Writing I classes and missions in Professional Writing. The power of authentic writing continues to bring me joy as I work to inspire developing writers.

Original post: It is that time of year when requests for advice for new teachers pop up across the interwebs. Here in Kentucky we are days away from the start of the school year for most and within weeks everyone in the United States will be back in school (one way or another). It is a good time to reflect on both advice for new teachers and survival tips for experienced teachers because we are all going to be in for a rough ride this school year (see I Am Broken if this notion catches you by surprise). My advice for brand new teachers and experienced practitioners alike is the same: build community. Building community in your classroom as well as building a professional learning community is your only hope for getting through yet another year of pandemic teaching and learning. I only wish I was being melodramatic.

I have written many times before about the importance of building classroom community and your professional learning network (PLN). Humans are social creatures and we do our best work in cooperation and in community with others. Even in the midst of a pandemic and social distancing restrictions and disrupted school schedules (yes, we should expect more of those this year) it is possible to create strong social bonds and human connections. My Spring 2021 classes built a powerful community despite being 100% online and a semester filled with disruptions caused by ice storms, floods, and power outages (it was a rocky spring in Eastern Kentucky). Some students were still reaching out to our community after finals week because the community was that important to them. I also know that as worn down and broken as I am that I would not have survived without my PLN offering support, cheering me on, and commiserating about our shared trauma and struggle. New teachers need to find mentors and guides – educators who share their values if not proximity. I have peers who teach at my institution or in my region who provide valuable support, but I also have an amazing network of peers I may never meet in person or even via Zoom.

Begin now to build your PLN. Look around you at your peers, look back at your instructors and fellow students and look forward at professional organizations, but do not neglect to use social media to find those asking the same questions and working on the same challenges. If you are lucky some of those folks are ahead of you on the journey, but even if they are not I believe in the power of the shared journey. I often describe my PLN as the terminator because it never sleeps and is always prepared to offer me what I need. My wish is for you to discover a PLN that brings you knowledge and comfort for the coming year.

I also hope you will provide the same for your students by creating a class community. Carefully integrate community building and support into every activity and lesson in your classroom from icebreaker to final deliverable. In the before times, my focus on community has made class more fun and more productive in countless ways, but now as we entire our second fall of pandemic teaching and learning it is even more crucial for our students and for us to support human connection for our happiness as well as learning. In addition to a workshop structure supported by HyperDocs, I also rely on writing focused on themes and an emphasis on personal values to knit our community together. You do not need to employ these specific tools and should instead select instruments that fit your hand and your teaching context. I wish you joy in this process. Now more than ever before it is crucial that we find joy in both teaching and learning. We are all worn down and broken and need to offer grace at every opportunity.

I chose Princess Leia’s call for help as the image for this blog post because I have been doing a lot of escape via Star Wars of late, but also because her plea set into motion a chain of events that proves her request was actually wrong. Obi-Wan Kenobi was not, in fact, her only hope. If you take a step back and view Leia Organa’s journey you will note that she saves herself, countless others, and a galaxy by building a community that fights together for the forces of good — and she does not do it alone. That is what focusing on community will do for you. Your PLN will inspire you and save you while offering you the opportunity to return those gifts three-fold. Your class community will support your students, and you, in countless ways. Do you agree that focusing on community is our only hope? How do you build community in our classroom? How do you develop your PLN?

Author: Deanna Mascle
#TeachingWriting and leading #NWP site @ Morehead State (KY): Passionate about #AuthenticWriting, #DeeperLearning, #PBL, #Ungrading, and #HyperDocs.

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