Feeling Safe to Learn

If you asked students to rate their level of safety to learn and willingness to share in your classroom, what do you think they would say? Do you think they’d say they can be their authentic self and feel like they belong? Join Molly, Dr. Eve, and guests Michelle Powers and Temeka Wright from Samuel Gaines Academy, as they share their recipe for a safe learning environment.

Transcript

01.23.24 Sec Feeling Safe to Learn

Molly: (1) [00:00:00] From Leader in Me Studios. I'm Molly Garcia. This is The Empowering Teacher for Secondary When you reflect on the classes you're a part of today, and if you ask students to rate the levels of safety and willingness to share in them, what do you think they would say? That they can be their authentic self? That they feel like they belong? And what is the recipe for such an environment? This is what we're tackling today.

Molly: Our guests, Tamika Wright and Michelle Powers, high-school educators at Samuel Gaines Academy, are going to be sharing what they intentionally do to create a leadership environment for all who enter the classroom. But first, let's jump into research connect with Dr. Eve Miller, FranklinCovey's Director of Research. 

Molly: Eve, what can you tell us about the research behind having a safe place for students to learn and why this is an area we should not cut out or just address at the beginning of the school year? 

Eve: Absolutely, Molly. Well, okay. In short, the reason classrooms of worth and potential matter [00:01:00] and why they are worth every teacher's time and effort is because they are the brain-based path to preparing students for learning.

Molly: Okay, wow, you have to say so much more. You know how excited I am about neuroscience.

Eve: Well, what immediately comes to my mind when you ask about why it matters to build an environment that communicates students' worth and potential is the ability this has to build a student's sense of belonging. And I know, I know, belonging is a term that's thrown around a lot in education circles. And when something becomes so common, it can lose this power.

Eve: So, if you're alright with it, I'd like to share what brain imaging has revealed about belonging and the brain that's really powerful.

Molly: Okay. You know I am always up for talking about brain science. I don't think I've ever heard about the neuroscience of belonging, so I'm excited to hear all about it.

Eve: This is science that is emerging as we speak. There is an area of the brain called the [00:02:00] anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC, and it sits between the emotion and sensation centers of the brain and the frontal lobe. 

Eve: And because it sits there in that really powerful spot, it's able to control what information gets processed by the learning part of the brain, the frontal lobe. But this is what we're learning about this part of the brain that's fascinating. It is also where we process our perception of pain. And I don't mean just physical pain, I also mean social pain.

Eve: And that is why when we experience rejection or isolation, we can actually perceive it as painful.

Molly: Okay. We even use terms related to pain when we're talking about those struggles, like “they hurt my feelings.”

Eve: Oh, yeah, totally. Or they broke up with me and our breakup songs are filled with analogies around war and death, [00:03:00] right?

Molly: Yeah. I know. I know. I'm thinking of the song “Love is a Battlefield,” right?

Eve: Yes, exactly. So the part of the brain that processes physical and social pain, it also plays a critical role in how we respond to this pain. So when a friend leaves us out of a get together, this part of the brain both communicates emotions of sadness or anger. But it also, because of where it sits in the brain right there by the frontal lobe, um, it also helps us to regulate that feeling of anger or sadness so we don't send a reactive text telling them off, right?

Eve: So, I share this about the brain so that now we can return to your original question, um, and we have this kind of, more of a shared understanding why certain environments are far more likely to bring out certain behaviors.

Molly: Yeah. Fantastic. I can already sense how this gives me and our listeners a stronger framework to understand that original question.

Eve: Yes.

Molly: Why is it important to create an environment where students can [00:04:00] see, hear, and feel their worth of potential?

Eve: So, a classroom where students feel judged by the teacher or their peers or where hierarchies thrive, like this student's better at this or worse at this, and that is known, that is a classroom where actual fear of social rejection can cause students to withdraw to avoid literal pain. And building on this in such an environment, a student will naturally need to dedicate some portion of their cognitive resources to processing the social landscape.

Eve: I mean, that's, that is the information that ACC is sending forward to the learning part of the brain and they will have less ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors because of this, and they'll have less ability to make effective choices and less ability to learn.

Molly: Yeah. And this dynamic, honestly, Eve, is far too often accepted just as the norm. So give us the good [00:05:00] news.

Eve: In a classroom where students feel a sense of belonging there isn't a need to actively monitor the social landscape for threats and that capacity can go directly into learning, the capacity of the brain that is.

Eve: In fact, in this classroom, where positive social connections happen, the reward system of the brain activates, and it promotes learning and motivation.

Molly: This is amazing. Eve, thank you for just helping us to unpack all of this. We're going to continue unpacking this with Tamika Wright and Michelle Powers, high school educators at Samuel Gaines Academy. And they're going to be sharing what they intentionally do to create a leadership environment for all who enter the classroom. Michelle and Tameka, welcome to The Empowering Teacher Podcast for Secondary. 

Tameka: Thank you so much for having us. We're excited to be here.

Michelle: Absolutely. 

Molly: Yes, we are so grateful that both of you're with us today, and I would love to talk about what needs to be [00:06:00] present in a classroom in order for students, number one, to take their guards down, and second, to be open to learning new content without hesitation.

Tameka: I'd love to answer that question. From a middle school teacher's perspective, establishing and maintaining trusting relationships is the foundation of the building blocks needed for students to engage in their learning experience. These relationships impact the school culture and it also increases students’ performance. To build these impactful relationships takes getting to know each of your students by discovering their interests and passions, as well as their struggle and strengths.

Tameka: Um, 10 to 12 years from now, students aren't going to remember the math problem they had, or the science lessons they've learned, but they will remember their teachers and the impact they had on their lives coming to school, feeling supported, loved, empowered and cared for.

Molly: Yeah. And that really comes to the heart. We know that our teachers deeply care for students and they [00:07:00] want the absolute best for them. So what are some of those reasons why a teacher may not take time to create this environment?

Michelle: I'm thinking particularly in the beginning of the year, our teachers are just overwhelmed. You're trying to set up your classrooms. You have pre-service learning going on. The schedule is just packed, especially the first couple of weeks of school. And for our middle school teachers, they also have multiple classrooms that they have to get ready and multiple situations of things that they have to deal with just to be ready to teach.

Michelle: So trying to set up that leadership environment can be overwhelming. We've done a couple of things at our school that really help enable them to make that happen. We have morning circles scheduled into the daily schedule. So they have that time to build relationships with their homeroom students.

Michelle: And then we also have something called a First Eight Days PowerPoint that we've created that kind of really structures out what that will look like so that's something they don't have to think about it. We've taken that off their plate.

Molly: I love Michelle that you brought in [00:08:00] those beginning of the year structures, right? So making sure in our master calendar, we have a homeroom. We have morning huddle up the morning meeting time and bringing in that structured eight days. That gives us a good start. How do teachers continue creating that intentional environment throughout the year on a daily basis?

Michelle: So in, our hallways and our common areas, we have posters that we've created that are of our students so that our students see themselves and they see themselves as leaders. There are QR codes that have the student voices that talking about what those habits mean. We also rely heavily on the Leader in Me Curriculum on the website to kind of keep that momentum going.

Michelle: So the, the teachers know what resources they have to continue to integrate Leader in Me into everything that we do. Additionally, we have a calendar. The end of last year, for example, we looked ahead about what we wanted to emphasize this year. What structures we wanted to put in place and we created look-fors.

Michelle: So every month there's a different set of look-fors that focus on different Leader in [00:09:00] Me habits that they want to explicitly teach or structures we want to make sure are in place. For example, in August, our big focus was on leadership roles. And then personal classroom mission statements. In December we have our Leadership Day, so we wanna make sure all of our scoreboards are updated.

Michelle: And so those are all in the look-fors that you see along the way.

Molly: I love that because the look-fors are just great, like reminders of what leadership looks and sounds like. Okay. I just want to go back here really quick to this QR code thing. I want to make sure I'm hearing this right. Michelle, tell me what I'm going to see because this has got my attention.

Michelle: So when you open the QR code, you'll see students, we are a K–8 school, so you'll see our Kindergartners and our middle school students describing what that habit is. And so you hear their voices attached to a poster of them describing what the habits are.

Molly: If that doesn't scream leadership and I'm worthy and have potential, I don't know what does. I love that idea. It's beautiful. Okay, let's piggyback off of that. So when a teacher has taken this intentional time to create this [00:10:00] environment that you're sharing with us in their school, in the classroom, what results should we expect to see?

Tameka: Well, teaching seventh and eighth graders, you should definitely expect to see empowered students, students who have taken ownership of their learning environment, leading with their voice, and living through the 7 Habits. Students don't have to wait to be called on. They're excited to lead by participating and sharing out on the things they've learned.

Tameka: Uh, not only that, you'll find that students grow, learn. And they're inspired by their peers. I find joy just watching my students perform through this cycle where they educate, motivate, and celebrate each other. The importance here though, is to definitely establish that strong relationship and that strong foundation in the beginning. Uh, leading by example and allowing students to have voice and choice within the parameter of how they would like the class to function.

Tameka: Another thing that I really enjoy seeing is how the students really own their leadership roles and expand on them. Among our different [00:11:00] leadership roles, we have peer helpers, motivators, accountability specialists. Students embrace those roles, and they are eager to take on additional roles around the classroom and throughout the school.

Tameka: And that leads into how we created our culture club this year. In the club we have what we call a CCC, which is our culture club collaborations, where we may challenge another club to an event to promote team building and how we synergize with each other to work collectively to get a job done.

Tameka: So it's, it's been great.

Molly: It just seems like the total package, how it all comes together. When we first, I heard y'all say model. So living them ourselves as the adults in the building. The second is to have structures where we could explicitly teach the habits and that we're constantly having those look-fors, right?

Molly: So what does it look like? What does it sound like an opportunity for us to re-engage when we might be a little bit tired, right? When it's October or it's February, but those look- [00:12:00] fors allow us to be able to stay loyal to the things that we know, are most important in our school. Michelle and Tamika, thank you both for just shining the light on what happens when we choose to intentionally create a leadership environment in your classrooms. And to our listeners, remember you matter, you make a difference, and you've got this.