Why The Classroom Community Matters More Than Ever
Particularly in an education landscape increasingly tempted by the "wizardry" of technology
There are no magics or elves / Or timely godmothers to guide us. We are lost, must / Wizard a track through our own screaming weed. —Gwendolyn Brooks
The first week of summer is a relatively aimless one for me.
Restorative? Yes, especially with time to finally begin reading what I’ve been wanting to read for so long and relieved of the burden of the teacher’s perpetual “I still need to _______” list that mercilessly resides in one’s head at all times—no matter how firmly one attempts to draws a line between work and the rest of life.
The list is done for now, though, and I’m quite enjoying Davita’s Harp by Chaim Potok. (The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi? You’re next on the docket!)
Still, this time can be quite aimless for me, as I find myself wandering in the recent nostalgia of how yet another school year ended, and how six separate classroom communities found their own way to a close before exiting into the enthusiastic deluge of summer.
It was a really good ending, I think to myself, as I also voice these words aloud to anyone who asks. And really good endings matter.
So before that “recent nostalgia” fades and summer settles more permanently in, I wanted to explain how our classroom communities came to a close (following up on the conversation Jim and I had about the end of our school years ended)—and also why I believe deeply that these endings mattered.
Because I believe they mattered a great deal.
“I want to affirm ______ because…”
With the AP Literature exam out of the way in early May, the closing stretch of the course refocused towards a different aim entirely: giving students space to create their own multi-genre projects about what they find meaningful.
Watching students navigate these projects individually over the final month of the year was rewarding within itself; however, the culminating lesson is what will sit with me for some time.
As you can see in the image above, students encountered a full circle of desks in the final day of class with a single index card atop each. Then one-by-one, student took turns sharing about their project—the title they chose and why, the visual they included, a quote they were proud of, and ultimately what they find meaningful and why.
Some students shared about a person who meant a great deal to their life, including some who had passed; others an accomplishment or activity they were a part of (for example: track, theater, gaming, symphony). Others went more philosophical, sharing what they believed it meant to be a “good person” or what it means to be a “student” in today’s moment.
All uniquely individual and authentic.
7-8 students would present, and then we would pause to “whiparound” the circle as each student expressed an intentional affirmation to one of those who had just presented—for what they said, or for their overall impact on the classroom community. Then the next 7-8 students would share their projects, then the circle of affirmation, again and again.
Until the bell rang.
I had originally designed for this to be done with about 10-15 minutes to spare, intending to lead students through my own personal favorite Gwendolyn Brooks poem (“Paul Robeson”) and a final “Mr. Luther lesson,” but in each class period I found that students were needing even more time to talk to one another about their projects. And then to affirm one another afterwards.
I had no business interrupting that.
There was nothing left for me to say, I realized, other than to slip in a “I care about all of you, take care of yourselves” with seconds to spare before the bell rang out.
As a teacher who often talks and writes about a student-centered classroom, I’ll admit that at times it can be hard to displace oneself within it—even when students are ready. These students were ready, though, in how they were showing up for each other, and the fact that I could quietly just listen to this “showing up” for nearly the entire period?
That’s how a classroom community can end meaningfully.
“Mr. Luther, but what about the octopus?”
And then there were my sophomore English classes who walked into the same full circle of desks (separately: who has time to move desks between class periods?) but a quite-different experience as they had not just completed a month-long project.
Instead, their final circle was built entirely around reflection: reflecting on how their values had changed or stayed the same; reflecting on the different texts we read throughout the year and why they mattered via a mirror/window lens; reflecting on their own growth as writers via #TQE; and then reading/reflecting on one of my all-time favorite poems to teach: “You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?” by Elizabeth Acevedo.”
Each reflection began on paper but then moved into partner discussion before whole-circle discussion, with some of the best conversation we had enjoyed in those spaces for some time taking place as each separate classroom community came to a close.
Lots of students talking to each other; lots of me listening and simply appreciating them, individually and collectively.
And, yet again, the student conversation vastly exceeded what I had anticipated, and I was left with just minutes before the final bell—with quite a predicament, though, in these English 10 classes: they had not yet had the octopus signing that they had been promised.
I won’t go into the full system here, but the quick version is essentially that signing the octopus throughout the year meant that a classmate had nominated you for living out one of our classroom values, with the goal of signing all eight tentacles by the end.
So when I said “there’s only a minute left,” one of my eye-roll-y-est students at the beginning of the school year when we were introducing the octopus looked stricken and immediately interrupted me: “Mr. Luther, but what about the octopus.”
If only I could have gone back in time with a video of them saying that with such urgency!
I made sure to read off all the “final signees” before the bell—auctioneer style in one class, admittedly—and then I watched as instead of rushing out of the last class period of the year, sophomores crowded around the octopus to complete their final signings, passing the pen back-and-forth to each other and reminding them which tentacle they were supposed to sign.
Until all that was left in the room, finally, was a signature-filled octopus and me, a very-quiet and very-grateful teacher.
The Classroom Community Has To Matter
Too often the classroom used to be built around a teacher talking at students who were expected to take an abundance of notes and then regurgitate that information on a high-stakes assessment. Rinse/repeat.
Too often now, though, the classroom has become a space with every student pursuing their own learning on their own individual screen, with the teacher wandering the room and occasionally offering support—more often just making sure extraneous, “non-academic” tabs aren’t open on students’ web browsers.
Rinse/repeat.
Weighing both, though, what I come back to is how parallel these two very-different paradigms are as far as eliminating the actual community that can and should exist within any classroom space. Whether it is the lecture-driven teacher or the latest “individualized learning program” on a screen, the result is the same: students are too often siloed and the community is too often evaporated from the classroom.
The way this school year ended, nevertheless, was a reminder to me to double-down in my conviction around classroom community going forward.
It doesn’t happen in an instant, of course, and a lot of work and intentionality goes into creating spaces with students affirming each other and pleading to sign the octopus before the school year ends. Classroom community isn’t going to get any easier, either, with the wizardry of AI-infused technology looming in the years ahead.
This is where I return, though, to my all-time favorite poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, and some of my all-time favorite words of her poetry: “There are no magics or elves / Or timely godmothers to guide us. We are lost, must / Wizard a track through our own screaming weed.”
Yes, we are often lost in education, I’ll admit, but the screaming weed of our classrooms are where we must wizard a track—and the real wizardry happens when students talk to each other and build a classroom community amongst themselves that is authentic to who they are and what they need.
What we all need, really.