7 Strategies for a More Positive School Environment

Here are 7 strategies for generating more positivity, which you can adapt to your learners, your style and your time-frame.

Teachers need more ways of sneaking a little more emotional and social intelligence into their classrooms without sacrificing the time needed for curriculum.

Schools across the globe are facing issues connected with overcrowded classrooms, behavioral issues, special needs, student anxiety, and internet addiction.

Such issues risk taking away even more of our class time and contributing to teacher stress and lack of motivation. It’s important to realize the power of simple things that send a very strong message of hope and connection to your students – something we all need.

The approaches listed here show that core values like hopefulness, gratitude, reflection, and effective communication are truly important in your classroom and in your school culture.

Greet students by name

Research shows that there is concrete improvement in behavior and engagement in troubled students who are greeted by name, at the door, at the beginning of the lesson.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1885415/

Learn about Peer Mentoring

Learn about Peer Mentoring where older students can mentor younger ones. Mentoring can have benefits for both students, since the older one feels important and capable, and the younger can feel special and protected.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/reading-buddies

Make a positive phone call home

Parents of ‘difficult’ children sometimes avoid teachers, because it’s too painful to hear negative things year after year. Surprise them with a positive call about something – even unconnected to schoolwork – you’ve noticed.

Write a positive postcard

Challenging student? Write a positive postcard to parents/guardians with the behavior you’d like to see in the child. Show them the postcard and then tell them, “Let me know when I can send it.” Smile and let them think about that. Maybe they will be motivated to change something!

Discover the value of reflection

Have students keep a “Life is (Often) Good” notebook. Every Friday they can write what was important to them that week: what they did for others, what others did for them, what they discovered, what they are looking forward to. Teachers can keep one too, to show how much you too value reflection as a part of your school culture.

Use the Calm Down Box

Students with poor impulse control? Have a plan with the student. Talk with your student in a non-judgmental way to establish a plan to use when his or her feelings are overwhelming. Can he/she ask to leave the classroom? Can he/she write in a special diary? Can he/she sit in a special area of the classroom and use something from the Calm Down Box?

Positive School Environment
Click here to download the “Calm Down Box”

Create a “device-free zone”

Instead of just prohibiting it, delve into their social media use. Be curious about it and discuss the importance of establishing a “device-free zone” in their lives which is spatial, temporal and mental. Students could volunteer to try a “Tech-Timeout” for a few days and keep a notebook of what they did during that “free” time, how it felt (probably weird!), what they discovered.

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39528/turned-off-how-teens-respond-to-a-no-tech-challenge

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