When it comes to student safety, I found the question “How do you help students feel safe in the classroom?” very necessary. Keeping our students safe in the classroom gives them enriching opportunities to learn at their best.
Our students must be stimulated to learn and be motivated to always come to school. This can never happen if they feel intimated in the learning environment. Can this pose a challenge for teachers? Or is it just a smooth line of classroom management?
For me, classroom safety should not only be about the physical and the health aspects of the students but more so on their emotional strand. The emotional aspect of the child signifies his/her whole being. Hence, it should be nurtured and protected.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
Creating a safe classroom environment should be one of our top priorities as educators. I know for sure that this specific task of ours highly calls for our best classroom management practices.
Thus, I am very glad that you are here with me today and we shall prompt our thoughts and actions as educators of the world as to what are the safety rules that should rule in our classroom to ensure numerous safe and productive learning encounters.
In order to learn, students must feel comfortable in the classroom. They need to feel safe and it’s a must for teachers to create a safe learning environment for the students. As per experience, I just can’t promote learning if the classroom is not conducive enough for learning.
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<<<Promoting a safe classroom? Take our practical views below and make your classroom a safe learning place.
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What is a Safe Learning Environment?
Characteristics that you should look into!
The classroom as the main learning environment should appear accommodating and nurturing. This description should hit the teacher’s plan and classroom prepping.
A safe learning environment is a space where students can learn at their best and realize their maximum potential without the feeling of insecurities and intimidation. Moreover, it should be a place in the school where students magnify cooperative learning and maximize interactive approaches established by the teacher.
Promoting learning competencies can be done easily if students are comfortable and reassured. This happens if the classroom is well-organized and attainable rules are followed.
Personally, I find it easy to teach effectively if my students value wholeheartedly the rules being set. Hence, I would like to share with you safety rules to deal with in order to make students feel safe in the classroom.
How Do You Help Students Feel Safe in the Classroom?
7 Practical Rules to Deal with
Read below as we get you covered by these practical safety rules to ensure the welfare of each child. These are the classroom specifics that you should rule out in your classroom so students feel warmly welcomed and safe.
1. Recognize individual differences
Recognition of individual differences could give students the freedom to make decisions and take the lead in their learning experiences. Also, encouraging students to be independent will boost their confidence and will make them feel special.
Significantly, as we model respecting individual differences among our students will guide them on how to interact with their classmates with respect. Most importantly, through this rule, harmonious relationships will prevail in the classroom.
Building relationships in the classroom should begin with embracing differences. By understanding our students’ learning capabilities and styles, for example, they will feel that they matter and that they are safe in the classroom.
2. Establish cooperative learning
I bet most teachers will agree when I say that cooperative learning does magic in the classroom. Using this interactive approach in the classroom will not only promote learning but also make the students feel relaxed and comfortable as they build strong relationships with their peers.
Notably, when students work with their peers, they are more oftentimes themselves. Most importantly, when our students work in groups and share ideas together, they will achieve learning objectives through collaboration and this makes them feel safe.
Although individual learning also has its unique advantage, more likely, students get excited to learn when they sit in groups and work together.
Our main task as the facilitator of learning is to set clear rules and standards to guide our students in different learning activities. By setting clear and attainable measures, we are certain that our learners won’t lose track and value the brilliance of cooperative learning as they perform with their classmates effectively.
3. Maintain an organized and clean classroom
In the classroom, specifics like cleanliness, orderliness, and organization should be best implemented to ensure that everything is in place and create a spot on your radar as manager of the classroom. Maintaining a tidy classroom is a way of making things run smoothly in the classroom; thus, safety reigns.
A filthy room is truly a mess and it will certainly affect students’ moods. Our students can’t just perform at their best in a disorganized classroom. It should begin with an organized seating arrangement. Creating a seating plan that will inspire students to participate is a wonderful creation of a great teacher.
All of this will depend on us, teachers. How we manage our classrooms and develop a strong culture of cleanliness and organization will highly affect student learning. Our students tend to exert more effort and are encouraged to do their best if they feel our utmost concern and efforts through classroom prepping right from the beginning.
Students should be taught how to be responsible for maintaining an organized and clean classroom. Again, it calls for a high-caliber leadership skill of the teacher. Our actions right from the start will matter as our students look up to us as the main leaders in the classroom. It’s our accountability to teach our students how to deal with classroom cleanliness to keep the learning environment nurturing and safe.
It’s just a matter of developing daily routines and implementing the rules and classroom jobs consistently.
4. Emphasize respect in the classroom
Listening to our students is a simple act that exemplifies respect. Developing a respectful classroom is in the hands of the teachers. Do you agree?
It’s definitely of our own making. Creating a classroom environment where everyone feels respected and safe is our topmost concern.
If respect is strongly developed in our students, discipline will follow. Firstly, as teachers, we should let our students feel that they are respected and cared for in our classroom.
Addressing their learning needs where they are the center of the teaching-learning process will ignite a feeling of trust from them. It’s where respect for us dwells.
Reaching out to each of our students will make a big difference in our interactions with them. This will make them feel important and thus beams the line of support in their hearts. If they feel our support and concern, they certainly feel safe. Hence, the culture of inclusion and respect should be one of our approaches in dealing with our students.
If respect is held in high esteem in the classroom, productive and socially accepted behaviors of our students will flourish. This will help maintain order in the classroom thus ensuring safety and productivity.
5. Make learning fun!
Making learning fun both inside and outside the classroom empowers our learners to learn better. If students feel enjoyment while learning it amplifies the feeling of security. As teachers, we can do more in making learning fun and encouraging.
We all want our learners to feel enraptured towards learning. However, that isn’t the case at all times considering that we are dealing with diverse students. Figuring out what works best in our classroom can help in meeting the individual learning needs of our students. this may sound overwhelming on our part, but it should be done.
Promoting activities that will spark student engagement and participation ideally makes lesson presentations fun. Also, when our students enjoy what they do in the classroom, they feel safe and are always excited each day. To make learning fun you need the best teaching strategies. Having that aha moment in the classroom will spark their interest.
Moreover, we should include in our plan how to connect lessons to real-life situations to make them more meaningful. By making the students see the real connection of learning to real-life they might as well enjoy the learning process.
6. Allow students to ask questions and participate actively
Each of our students in the classroom is auditioning for self-expression. Hence, they should be given the best chance to ask questions and participate actively.
Unfortunately, having students who are eager to air out their thoughts and ideas isn’t always the scenario. There are students who are passive and are just content listening to other views.
What do you think hinders them from getting actively involved in the different learning activities?
Students come in varied gifts and capacities. Thus, we need to delve deeper into their multiple intelligences and provide them with a lot of options in the classroom. Focusing on one aspect will deprive students to show their best and demonstrate their knowledge and skills. It’s dread.
Don’t just force students to do one thing at the same time. Provide them with incredible choices to be at their best. For example, if the lesson objective requires students to interpret a poem in its entirety, you can’t just write the written composition of their interpretation.
Curate modifications by making them work in groups while performing varied tasks. A group may create a song or draw pictures that best illustrate their thoughts.
7. Establish fairness in the classroom
Students in our classroom expect fairness and respect. Hence, equitable learning opportunities should be a concern for all teachers. Not a student should feel unwanted or deprived.
Treating everyone in the classroom as equals can help them magnify their confidence and respect each other’s differences.
Thus, teachers by all means should carefully monitor the behavior of each child so no one is left behind or not a child is to dominate in the classroom. It’s all in the hands of the teacher as the manager of the classroom.
With the proper explanation of classroom rules and policies, students are also mindful of their actions and decisions thus, they are given the opportunity to be responsible.
Promoting fairness in the learning environment will bring forth respect, trust, and safety. The individual needs of learners should be addressed and accommodated properly. Again, the recognition of individual differences plays an important role in the incorporation of fairness in the classroom.
For instance, a visually impaired student should answer questions in larger fonts and should be given ample time and assistance to answer examinations.
Conclusion
Each individual learner in the classroom should be given the best chances to succeed. Certainly, it is possible if the classroom revolves around mutual respect, fairness, and trust.
The classroom rules implemented should be the same for all students in order to emphasize fairness. Furthermore, the learning environment should make students feel at ease.
Hence, if you’ve been teaching with compassion, answer the question “How do you help students feel safe in the classroom?” is a cream puff. So, which rule should rule in your classroom?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a bit more detail. Give a mention of this venture in the comment box below.
