“The first rule about Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.”
And much like the famous movie line, classroom culture is something often not discussed by teachers with their students, instead preferring to focus on the rules, procedures, seating and other tangible factors that influence the classroom experience.
However, classroom cultures are intrinsic to every school and every teacher cultivates their own culture - whether they know it or not.
I certainly think it is something teachers should be aware of and explicitly address the idea of classroom culture though - and how you create it. Here are some practical ways you can do just that:
1. Identify and simplify
Culture is a complex word with layered meanings and interpretations. Depending on the phase you teach, making it explicit will involve simplification.
At the beginning of the school year, I like to spend the first lesson encouraging students to reflect on what they do in different classes with different teachers. How do they enter a classroom? Who orchestrates discussion? Is collaboration or competition encouraged?
They will realise that each teacher and classroom they enter operates and feels slightly different. This is the culture you will collectively create. Your aim is to come to a consensus by the end of the lesson, or multiple lessons if you wish. No contracts or charters, I like to keep the agreement unwritten to avoid veering into the territory of rules over culture.
2. Collaborate to create
Your classroom culture is dependent on your unique group of students and the norms you create with them.
Once you have simplified the task, openly discuss the shared culture you would like to move forward with. Encourage students to draw from lessons they enjoy and share what they feel contributes to that environment.
Your focus here should be unwritten, less formal things that students find to have a big impact. A simple one I like to incorporate is a culture of “one voice.” I inform students that we don’t need to raise our hands or gain permission to speak, but this only works if we can learn to speak and listen. This helps to foster a culture of open discussion.
Brainstorming or mind mapping on the board is a good way to share this. Students who have collectively contributed to a culture are far more likely to buy into it.
For secondary teachers with multiple classes, this should be a unique exercise for each group of students with no pre-determined outcomes.
3. Instil values, not rules
Avoid falling into the trap of simply collectively listing rules you think will aid in the successful completion of the curriculum.
A rules-based classroom will focus on behaviours that hinder learning and pre-plan reactions to address these. A culture-based classroom will embed values that drive learning as a collective.
An illustration of this is timekeeping or class attendance. Rather than deciding “if someone is late to class by X amount of time, then the punishment is Y”, focus on why we should be punctual. How can we demonstrate respect to the class and teacher by showing we value each other’s time? What is the correct procedure if one of us is late?
Culture is nuanced and simply noting that certain behaviours equal certain outcomes will only lead to a classroom in conflict.
4. Toe the line
While our classroom cultures should be unique and meet the requirements of the teacher and students, it is also important that they do not conflict with the school rules or ethos, for obvious reasons.
However, successful classroom cultures can inform policy.
Rather than flatly obeying or disobeying rules, use your classroom as an environment to safely experiment. Are there areas of school policy or rules that your students find challenging or difficult to adhere to?
Encourage them to think of small-scale ways in which your class can address them. Mobile phone policies are always a topic of contention which you could trial alternative approaches.
Provide more freedoms based on the mutual values you have created, and any successes can be brought to management with some empirical evidence of progress.
5. Re-culture
The beautiful thing about culture is it is constantly evolving and changing. As such while it may be easy to settle into a particular way of doing things that you have found to work well with most classes, this will stagnate your own growth.
As such re-evaluate your values with each new school year and consider how it fits with the school ethos.
Draw upon other teachers and each new group of students to provide a unique perspective on your classroom. Cultures continually evolve and adapt, and so should your classroom.
While culture is often perceived as something that is vague or unseen, by applying these tips you can begin to take control over the direction of your own classroom culture. Unlike Fight Club, the first rule of classroom culture should be to talk to your students about classroom culture.
David Keating is an English teacher joining Deira International School in Dubai this August. He has taught internationally for eight years. He tweets @DavidKeatingEdu
