Building Community in the Classroom Mary Ann Downey, Director Decision Bridges When I enter Dekalb Community School and pass through the metal detector, a shrill buzzer always makes me jump. The buzzer is only one of many reminders that I’m teaching in one of Georgia’s alternative schools, created to educate students suspended from public schools and on probation, usually for drug and weapon violations. The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice operates these schools and the focus is more often on control than education. Students, ages 12-17, sometimes younger, come from families with low to moderate incomes, the majority are African American, many live with single mothers, grandmothers, or in foster care. They may be too hungry or tired to learn and are often preoccupied with their probation status, next court appearance, or a crisis at home. I’m here to teach Consensus Decision-Making as part of the Career Education requirement. The difference in environment and students is dramatic when I drive two hours north of Atlanta to Amicola Falls Conference Center. There a beautiful lodge in a state park commands a view of the mountains and has all the amenities of a comfortable resort. The students are public health professionals with Ph.D. or MD degrees; many are leading experts in their specialty, and all work for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. They may be preoccupied with research projects, a hiring freeze, organizational politics, or simply the need to have a course like this on their resume for promotion to higher management positions. I’m here to teach Consensus Decision-Making as part of a weeklong Executive Seminar. My teaching experience has been with children and adults from the age of 6 to 80 in a variety of settings for more than 25 years. In classes for managers of Federal agencies, Fortune 500 Companies, as well as with inner city teens, I’ve discovered that we all want the same kind of classroom environment. Whether the subject I’m teaching is team building, stress management, career skills, or consensus decision-making, students want to be part of a community that encourages exploration of who they are in relation to their world. Every child and adult wants to find friends, and make connections with people who are like them. They also genuinely want to understand people they perceive as different. They learn best when they are in the safety of a classroom community that develops their capacity for connections to a particular group of people, while preparing them to be citizens of the world. In this essay, I will use illustrations from my experience in teaching consensus decision making to adult managers in public organizations and from teaching the same subject to youthful offenders in an alternative school. My purpose is to show that the best practices for building community in the classroom can be applied in a variety of settings. I will also describe some problems teachers and students may encounter in this approach and suggest some strategies that facilitate implementation. Every classroom has the potential to be a welcoming, diverse and inclusive community, a place where we teach students how to live in community and incorporate our subject matter into a cooperative learning environment. As a teacher, living my Quaker beliefs and our historic testimonies of equality, and peace, I believe that my job is build the beloved community even as I teach a variety of students and subjects. Parker Palmer has influenced my thoughts on building classroom communities. In To Know As We Are Known, he writes, “History suggests two primary sources of knowledge…one is curiosity; the other is control… But another kind of knowledge is available to us…This is a knowledge that originates not in curiosity or control but in compassion. The goal of knowledge arising from love is reunification and reconstruction of our broken selves and worlds… In such knowing we know and are known as members of one community and our knowing becomes a way of reweaving that community’s bonds.” (Palmer 1983:7-8) If we are intentional about building community in the classroom, we must learn how to reward cooperation, rather than competition. This means engaging every student in full participation so that their life experience becomes a resource to us and to their peers. As we offer our subject matter expertise, we also need to demonstrate the truth of the saying, “If you would be a teacher, by your students you’ll be taught”. Our challenge is to model and facilitate learning as a cooperative, exciting and creative joint venture. In a recently published study, Making the Most of College, (Light: 2001) Richard J. Light, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, reports the results of interviews with 1,600 students over a 10 year period. The goal of the study was to identify the factors in an educational setting that are most likely to improve student learning and overall happiness. Three of the factors that improved learning and satisfaction are directly related to building community in the classroom. One of the factors indicated that when students get to know faculty reasonably well, learning improves, especially if the student is struggling. A second factor identified showed that when students discuss their work in groups of 4-6 after independent study, they understand the subject matter better and feel more involved in their class. This finding was especially true when the subject studied required learning complex, scientific concepts. Foreign language classes were most often mentioned as “favorite classes” because classes are small, participation is required, and students work in groups, a situation that combines many of the elements that lead to more learning and involvement. This third factor-small classes with required participation, summarizes especially well some of the essential ingredients for building community in the classroom. This study is validated by my experience. Getting to know students, encouraging participation, and facilitating work in small groups are among the simple specific methods that I use to teach consensus decision making to both teens and adults. I’ve identified four key skills that are needed for a group to use the consensus process effectively. These are the same skills that foster true community and that develop each student’s ability and willingness to: 1. Speak truth as they see it; learning to appreciate the value of their life experience; 2. Listen with respect to the truth of others; 3. Develop an appreciative understanding of differences; 4. Integrate differences to make new discoveries; Speaking Your Own Truth Margaret Fell’s life was radically changed when she heard and understood the importance of the words, “What canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light…?” (Quaker Faith and Practice 1995: 19.07) The message came from the Quaker minister, George Fox, in 1652 and Margaret Fell spent the rest of her life speaking her truth to others and helping many different people find their voice. She became known as the ‘mother of Quakerism’ because of her outstanding ability to lead and organize those drawn to the message of Friends. A four-year prison sentence could not stop her and from her cell in Lancaster prison she wrote the book, "Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed by the Scriptures, all such as speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus.” As the historian Margaret Hope Bacon notes, this book, “has long been considered a milestone in the history of women. In it Margaret Fell argued …that women had often played prophetic roles.” (Bacon 1986:16) It is easy to forget just how radical and powerful this idea was in 17th century England. The notion that each of us, regardless of gender, education or social status, has the ability to perceive and profess a measure of the truth was, and still is, revolutionary. We like to think our current educational system not only encourages freedom of expression, but also teaches students how to do this. My observations and experience lead me to believe, however, that we consciously and unconsciously limit oral and written expression in ways that are often like the 17th century. One of the ways we do this is by offering our own subject matter expertise and that of the experts on the required reading list as the final word. Students realize very quickly whether we are really willing to be challenged or have our sacred cows questioned. The perception students get from too many professors across disciplines from kindergarten to graduate school is that education is not about real discovery and continuing exploration, but is rather a game of ‘let’s see if you can say what the teacher wants you to say’. We also practice discrimination based on gender, race, class and previous education making it clear that some are more equal than others. In a report by the American Association of University Women, “How Schools Shortchange Girls”, studies are cited that support the following statement: “A large body of research indicates that teachers give more classroom attention and more esteem-building encouragement to boys. African American girls have fewer interactions with teachers than do white girls, despite evidence that they attempt to initiate interactions more frequently.” (AAUW Report 1992:2) We should not hide the light of our own expertise or that of other authorities, but past discoveries are just the starting point. The way we present subject matter experts can stimulate or squelch our student’s willingness to challenge us and to reach for a deep understanding of the subject that is their own. The focus of much recent discussion in education has been on the need to move from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered one. Both need to exist in a dynamic balance if we want to build community. Our purpose is to be a guide who is willing to lead expeditions not only along known pathways, but who is also willing to walk as a companion exploring unknown territory. We need to help each student draw on the knowledge of his or her life experience. If we accept the goal offered by Parker Palmer that, “To teach is to create a space where obedience to the truth is practiced”, (Palmer 1983: 69) then we enter into a communal relationship of leading and being led. How do we encourage students to develop and offer their unique voice? When I teach consensus decision making, I begin by making sure that I quickly learn each student’s name and facilitate work early in small groups so that students learn the names of their peers. After discussion of what consensus is and why it is used in decision-making groups, I introduce the basic skills required and emphasize that our class time will be used to practice these skills together. Students are encouraged to write their own translations of the guidelines for consensus decision making, sometimes with results that give me new insight, or at least a good laugh. Here’s an example of a rap written by a 17-year-old African American student about the guidelines for consensus: Rules of the C Word You need to sit back, relax and listen As I make a little rap about consensus Attention! Everybody needs to speak out! If you keep ideas to yourself, you need to be out. Listen up and you should open your ears Because everybody got something you should hear! Let’s be different and go for diversity Everyone be the same, there would be adversity. Let’s get together, cooperate, have a little teamwork Pull together on a plan, Rules of the C word Rules of the C word. (Sims: 2000) Adult managers do a similar exercise by writing guidelines for the consensus process that they are willing to use in their work teams. They test these guidelines and work with the class group to agree on a common set of guidelines to use during the workshop. In this way, they are able to practice the process of collaboration in the relative safety of a class lab, before taking the risk of trying to develop guidelines with a group of peers or staff in their work setting. Another exercise requires students to speak about their beliefs and values, including goals and personal mottoes that guide their life. Students are given time to construct a banner that depicts their values in words, symbols or pictures. When all banners are complete, each person speaks about his or her banner, usually to a small group, and banners are displayed in the classroom. An important part of this process is for me to offer the kind of disclosure that I ask of students and to model the risk of not meeting someone else’s expectations for me as the teacher. This exercise could be translated to fit any subject by asking students to take a stand on a divisive issue in the field and to identify the values that support that choice. Students of all ages and backgrounds are often reluctant to risk such personal disclosure. Most have not been encouraged to do this in other settings and have been rewarded for being careful, objective and critical. As teachers, we may not have seen this kind of classroom practice and may not be comfortable asking for and offering this kind of knowledge. It may seem as risky as coming to class naked and asking everyone else to do the same. I encourage students and teachers to start where they are and risk as much as they are able. Small steps in personal disclosure can lead to others especially if the class takes place over the course of a semester. Building community in the classroom requires that we create a “laboratory for personal disarmament”, described by Scott Peck, (1985: 69), instead of the guarded, competitive contributions we often encourage by our leadership. My experience teaches me that this is counter to the culture in most educational settings. Listening with Respect “There are two ways of spreading the light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” (Clark: 1998) This message from Edith Wharton expresses well the kind of teaching that is necessary for building classroom communities. Most teachers know how to be the candle, but I believe that we need to work harder on also being the mirror that reflects the light offered by our students. Listening respectfully and deeply models, and helps students develop this capacity to be a mirror. Perhaps our greatest human need, beyond mere survival, begins in infancy with simply wanting someone to respond to our cry, with wanting to be heard. A great deal of attention in our first five years is focused on learning how to speak in a way that will get us what we want, and in learning to understand what we hear. Children quickly learn to read verbal and nonverbal cues from others about how their message is heard. This kind of education continues during our secondary and college careers as we learn to send and receive increasingly complex oral and written communication. We develop great skill in hearing only enough of another’s message to formulate a response, sometimes interrupting to finish the sentence or to offer our own wisdom. As educators, we expect students to develop the ability to sit and listen to a teacher or others by simply doing it daily for many years motivated by knowing that they will be expected to remember some of what they hear for a test. To teach respectful listening we have to give students the chance not only to speak, but also to be heard and understood, even when their response is not what we want. How we handle the most challenging, long winded, or off base responses signals our intentions and may mean that some students never speak again, or do so only when they are sure they can say what we want to hear. A simple practice that models the listening I want to teach can be used to respond to many student questions or comments. The first step is to allow a brief pause before I summarize in my own words what I’ve heard and ask the student if I’ve accurately restated the message. This sends a clear signal that I want to be sure that I understand before I reply and is especially helpful to the class if the person speaks too softly to be heard by all, asks a question with many parts, or rambles in a way that’s hard to follow. Such a response may be too redundant for short direct comments or questions, but is an important demonstration of respect for the light that each student can bring to a discussion. The query, “Are you open to new light from whatever source it may come?”(Quaker Faith and Practice 1995: 1.02.7) reminds me that I am often too quick to reject new light because I don’t value the source or because I haven’t even taken the time to understand what I’m hearing. In every class, I offer many opportunities for students to practice listening with respect to their peers as well as to me. One exercise involves having students work with a partner, each listening to a message from the other on a particular subject for 3 minutes and then responding with a summary in their own words about what they’ve heard. The goal is to have the speaker say, “You’ve heard and understood my message.” The subject matter is usually about material being covered in the current or a previous class session, but is also sometimes just, “What has your day been like so far?” This encourages students to speak and hear concerns that are more personal, things that may make sitting in a classroom difficult. My experience is that once we tell someone even a little bit of our trouble and know that we are accepted, problems and all, we are more likely to let go of our concerns and attend to our present task. This kind of simple exercise develops skill in speaking about ideas and listening to different perspectives. It also allows even the most reticent student an opportunity to practice speaking in a safer setting than a large group discussion or directing a question to a professor. The time and space for peer exchange may make it easier for old prejudices to be examined. Issues of increasing complexity or those that are more controversial in the field can be addressed with this method. When we allow students to share personal, as well as subject matter knowledge and to explore issues at a deeper level with a peer, we create the climate that supports a search for truth and new light in the classroom community. Developing an Appreciative Understanding of Differences When I ask public health managers to recall a recent meeting in which they wanted to speak up, but didn’t, most had more than one example. In small groups, they brainstorm a list of factors that cause them to keep silent. Remember that most of these students are leading experts in their field. As each group reports, common themes emerge. The list always includes the perception that either the leader, their peers or both will not understand or accept the idea, and that this will lead to loss of status in the group. The list generated by youthful offenders is always remarkably similar. I encourage everyone to consider just how often we censor our own thoughts and how much support we need to risk offering our expertise or experience, especially when we think our ideas differ from conventional wisdom or from our peers. Imagine giving birth to a new idea as being like giving birth to a baby. We may not spend nine months after conception in initial development, but once the idea is out for others to hear it is still new and vulnerable. Even when we propose a well-established idea, we may be reluctant to offer it or defend it in a hostile environment. Like an infant, ideas offered in a group are easily damaged or destroyed especially when they suffer multiple attacks. And we react to these attacks like mothers of an infant wanting to take ourselves and our ideas to a safer place. No matter how objective we think we are, an attack on our ideas feels like a personal attack. If we can treat new ideas like infants, allowing time for cleaning up, tender loving care and growth, many more live to develop into the real innovations we need for current problems. Most of us evaluate what we hear quickly and it is hard to develop the ability and the willingness to delay initial negative judgments long enough to understand a new perspective or to see it as a legitimate alternative. Once we can make this shift, however, it becomes easier to consider the merits of a different point of view. Developing the skills of speaking our truth and listening with respect provides the foundation for dialogue in which differences can safely emerge and be heard. After students practice hearing and restating accurately opposing views in the classroom, then they are given the challenge of practicing with someone outside of class where there is an ongoing conflict over an important issue. The goal of this assignment is to be able to restate the other’s position to their satisfaction, and not to engage in debate or even state the opposing position. In preparation for the assignment, students think about how they would define the problem if they held the opposite view and list reasons to defend this position. They are encouraged to start with the assumption that those who hold this position are reasonable, intelligent, caring people like them. In this assignment, students walk cognitively in another’s shoes. They sometimes find that they know very little about the other position or why it is strongly held, and become better motivated to listen with respect and naiveté. In one class report about this assignment, the mother of a teenage son listened to her son’s reasons for wanting to attend violent movies that she found objectionable. She said the exercise helped her realize that she had not taken the time to hear his views or to try to understand why he was determined to go. Letting him know that listening to his point of view was her homework assignment made it easier to sit down and talk about the problem in a different way. When she did, she could begin to see how they might find common ground to resolve the conflict while still holding opposing views about the movies. He also expressed an interest in hearing her views for the first time. This is the desired outcome-to help students see that once we take time to develop an appreciative understanding of differences, continuing dialogue is easier and may lead to creative resolution of conflict. Integrate Differences Simply understanding and appreciating differences does not mean we can easily reach an agreement that respects and includes all views. It may only get us to the point of agreeing to disagree, to a stalemate. In many of the long- standing regional conflicts that we see worldwide, it is clear that as long as opposing sides remain unable or unwilling to negotiate for the common good, progress is not possible. Positions become more entrenched with time, prejudices develop about the people holding the opposite position, and the gulf between opponents widens. This process occurs at all levels of society. Whether the conflict is between mother and child, among neighbors on the same block, or between nations, it seems easier to maintain the status quo without dialogue than to wrestle with real differences. Generating creative ways to merge opposing positions into mutually acceptable alternatives requires a willingness to consider new ideas and to modify our own positions. We have to commit to finding common ground and to the struggle for a third way. “Each of us must be the change we want to see in the world,” as Gandhi said. (Clark: 1998) The hardest part of this process for those of us trained to be experts and have answers may be to accept not knowing the answer. We have to learn to tolerate ambiguity, lack of clarity, the muddle of change and somehow continue to believe that there will be an answer. Getting students to practice skills for integrating differences begins with small groups working on simple problems. Creating a 24-hour plan is an exercise I first used with teens, but later discovered works equally well with adults. Groups of 5-7 members are challenged to create a plan of activities for the next 24 hours. They must stay together for the entire 24 hours, and can assume that they have unlimited resources to go anywhere, and do anything that everyone agrees to do. The goal is to be sure that everyone is willing to commit eagerly to the plan and to avoid easy compromise that no one really wants. This exercise usually generates a lot of laughter and engagement, but also replicates the kind of problems every family has when trying to plan a vacation or even a few hours together. Different values, interests and abilities influence how we want to spend our time and how willing we are to give up individual pursuits for group activities. The requirement that everyone has to stay together for the full day is often challenged. Students use the skills of previous lessons to state a preference, listen with respect and try to appreciate the differences in both the ordinary and the wild ideas. Time to plan is usually limited to 15 minutes and a reporter for the group posts and explains the plan to other groups. In Prejudice Reduction Workshops offered by the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), participants are taught to address controversial issues by first practicing statements that advocate simply for the importance of the issue in neutral terms that bridge differences. For example, “The AIDS issue is one that touches all of us. We are all interested in how to provide the best care to those who have AIDS; how to help those who are at risk; how to provide the most effective public health education; and how to use our money wisely in funding research.” (Brown 1984: 40) This is a simple and powerful exercise that can be used for any divisive issue. When students practice making neutral statements, they quickly become aware of how hard it is to move from an advocacy position to one that is inclusive. Learning how to make statements that identify mutual interests establishes a framework for cooperative problem solving. In the Consensus Building Handbook, Michael Hughes describes how strategies for integrating differences were used in a two-year process to develop an HIV prevention plan for the state of Colorado. This process provided a setting for extremely diverse values to be presented and Hughes comments that “Conflicts of value are harder to resolve than conflicts of interest. Part of the reason for this is that values matter more to people than interests do (and matter to them more intimately) and are commensurately harder for them to sacrifice.” (Susskind 1999:1012) Some of the strategies that were used here have broad applicability in the classroom. In a list of 10 key ideas that participants were given, he includes, “Focus on the future. Communicate the way you want things to be, rather than dwelling on what you don’t like about the present. Frame concerns in terms of your interests, rather than making demands: ‘Here’s the interest I’m trying to meet.’” (Susskind p.1017). Students at the alternative school are given the assignment of identifying a need in the community that they would address in a service learning project. Getting agreement on a single problem is a challenge and creating a plan to help with limited time and resources requires use of the skills developed in the earlier assignments. When they are able to advocate for consideration of a specific need by making statements that bridge differences and focus on the future, they learn how much easier it is to engage in a discussion that can identify and integrate differences. One group focused on the problems of the homeless in downtown Atlanta, and worked a day at Café 458. This is a unique restaurant where volunteers prepare and serve daily noon meals, providing menu choices and table service to homeless people. The students demonstrated great teamwork, helping each other out as needed and were eager to report their success back at school. In letters written to the director of the café, they were able to say that they were glad they could serve, but also wished they could do more. One student wrote, “At one point in my life, me and my mother were homeless and had nowhere to go and sometimes had nothing to eat so I know what they are feeling.” (James: 2000) Managers in consensus building workshops, discuss difficult work problems where unresolved issues interfere with getting decisions made. We discuss the need to identify the interests and values that may be barriers to resolution, and practice making statements that bridge difference. They give and receive advice from their peers, with the goal of understanding better the range of views on the issue. Sometimes, this leads to a new insight and a real breakthrough in how to change their approach as managers to the problem. Why Bother? It is easy to find reasons not to build community in the classroom. Most of our students and faculty colleagues will not expect this kind of environment and there may even be an implied contract between students and faculty that ‘you stay out of my life and I’ll stay out of yours.’ Our classroom groups are temporary, usually a semester at most, contact hours limited and the demands to move on to the next group, the next term, work against long term connections. We are likely to encounter resistance in our students and even in ourselves to the kind of self-disclosure and commitment I’ve proposed. Our resistance may focus on the need to use the little time that we have to provide subject matter knowledge and skill as called for in our contracts. We can also cite that how well our students master the subject we teach is the basis for our own evaluation. It is unlikely in most school settings that anyone will evaluate us on how well we build community in the classroom. And if we are successful in creating community, in spite of all these hurdles, we run the risk of encountering conflict and having to wrestle more directly with difficult people. As Parker Palmer wrote, “In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives!” (Quaker Faith and Practice, 10.19) Given all these reasons for not working at community building, why should we bother? The most important reason for teachers is that this is the best way to improve student learning of the subject. The time invested in discussions where students practice saying clearly what they think and also listen to different ideas, invites deeper understanding than does passive listening or reading of the subject. The experience of engaging in debate about controversial issues is much more likely to be remembered, long after facts are forgotten and outdated. Educational settings may also be one of the few places where our students are likely to encounter community and important relationships. Our secular society has created an environment where many young people grow up without strong ties to religious, neighborhood, or community organizations. Educational institutions have been challenged to offer this context of relationships, traditionally provided by other organizations. Access to public secondary education makes our schools the one place where all students could have some experience of community. In becoming more available, public secondary education and higher education also increases the number and diversity of students that teachers must relate to. We allow the size of our classes to distance us from our students, individually and collectively, instead of accepting the challenge of community. In the case of computer-assisted instruction, and distance learning, students may now have little or no personal interaction, even in an educational setting. If we can reverse this trend, engaging students with their classmates and with us, we will improve not only learning, but also student satisfaction with their education. And students are more likely to leave our classrooms with the willingness and ability to apply what they’ve learned, knowing how to live and work with increasingly diverse groups of people. Finally, building community in the classroom for me comes from my deep conviction as a Quaker that I must let my life speak, and that means preparing students to build a better world, to create community as it ought to be, not as it is. Bibliography Brown, Cheri. 1984. Prejudice Reduction Workshop Model. Washington, DC: National Coalition Building Institute. Bacon, Margaret H. 1986. Mothers of Feminism. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Clark, Mary Jo and Pat Henry. 1998. The Pause Between the Notes: 52 Reflections for The Leader Within. The Indiana leadership Initiative. James, Ashlee. 2000. Unpublished Friendly Consensus Class Assignment. Atlanta, GA: Dekalb Community School. Light, Richard J. 2001. Making the Most of College. Boston, MA: Harvard Press. Palmer, Parker J. 1983. To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Peck, M. Scott. 1987. The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Susskind, Lawrence, Sarah McKearnan, Jennifer Thomas-Larmer, Editors.1999. The Consensus Building Handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Sims, Raji. 2000. Unpublished Friendly Consensus Class Assignment. Atlanta, GA: Dekalb Community School. Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, 1995. Quaker Faith and Practice. Warwick, England: Warwick Printing Company Limited: © Mary Ann Downey, 2001.