When you hear the term “community building,” what comes to mind? The first six weeks of school? Or perhaps some icebreakers you awkwardly engaged in on the first day of sleepaway camp? Maybe your place of employment wanted to boost team morale, so you played Two Truths and a Lie. We have all participated in Community Building at some point in our lives. It’s sometimes meaningful, sometimes not, and usually fun. But when a classroom community is built in the right way, for the right purposes, it can completely transform a student’s school experience.
What does it mean to “build community?”
Building community is about a lot more than playing games or breaking ice. When we intentionally and thoughtfully build the community in our classroom, we create a learning environment that is joyful, safe, academically rigorous, and inclusive of every student. The classroom becomes a place where all kids want to be and where they feel ownership over both their surroundings and their learning. The members of the community trust each other and feel safe taking risks and making mistakes.
Sounds great! How do we do it?
Building a strong classroom community takes time and effort, but it isn’t hard. Investing this time and effort will be more than worth the impact it will have on students. Let’s look at some ways to get started:
- Get students involved in designing their learning environment. This means both the physical space (like setting up the library) and the non-physical space (like structures, routines, and classroom rules). The more you can involve students in the setup of the room, the more invested they’ll be and the more they’ll feel part of the fabric of the community.
- Create opportunities to build student-to-student connections. This is where those activities come in that many people call “icebreakers.” We prefer the term “community builders” because they do so much more than just break ice. The best way to incorporate community builders into your classroom is to embed them into your teaching! Including interpersonal questions into content-based activities ensures that you can maintain the academic flow of the day while providing ALL students with opportunities to feel successful among their peers.
Benefits of Community Building
There are so many reasons to devote the time and energy required to effectively build community. Some of the benefits include:
- Connection builds trust. The more trust between students, the more likely they are to take academic risks.
- Developing interdependence. Students learn through working with each other in a variety of ways that they each have valuable insights and are invaluable members of the class.
- Students feel a sense of belonging. The more your students feel that they belong, the less likely they are to communicate their needs with maladaptive behavior.
How to Get Started
Pick one activity that you can easily incorporate into an existing structure (like a do-now) and try using it once a week. You can build from there!
Don’t have any activities on hand? We’ve got you. Our Community Builders Packet includes 12 activities you can use and reuse all year long. They all include tips and strategies for students who may need more support.
Whether you’re brand new to building classroom community or building onto what you’ve already tried, you won’t regret investing time in strengthening the connections in your classroom.