Benefits of Responsive Classroom Approach in Schools

A recent three-year study at the University of Virginia showed that students whose school faithfully used Responsive Classroom approaches had higher math and reading standardized test scores.

The University of Virginia study further showed that, in addition to improving student academic achievement, using Responsive Classroom techniques in the classroom led to an increase in student engagement, a decrease in discipline problems in the classroom and school, and an increase in higher-quaity teaching.

The study illustrates the importance of a school dedicating time to creating a classroom climate of trust, support, care, and interdependence as a prerequisite to students pushing and challenging themselves academically.

The basic components of Responsive Classroom are morning meeting (where every child receives and give a sincere welcome greeting to the school day), a proactive approach to discipline (which includes students have input in setting classrrom rules), positive teacher language and support of students, and opportunities for students to have a voice and choice in their learning (empowering them in the learning process and encouraging both critical and creative thought and expression).

In a larger context, Responsive Classroom helps students satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs: first we need our physiological needs satisfied, then safety/love/belonging (what Responsive Classroom provides), followed by esteem and self-actualization. The chance of high academic achievement is greatly reduced in the absence of a safe, nurturing, trusting environment, be it at home or at school.

Noted elementary school expert, Bob Sornson, stresses that students are "motivated by challenge but never too much". By having a classroom environment where students feel safe, known, and understood as individuals, they are more willing to take academic risks and appropriately push and challenge themselves. (There have been numerous studies that illustrate that students when given a choice of assignment will choose the one that best fits their needs and developmental readiness.)

Orchard is very fortunate to have Julie Wingate, a certified teacher-trainer in Responsive Classroom, help lead and inspire our faculty and staff in the benefits of using the Responsive Classroom philosophy and techniques.

Since its founding, Orchard has always had a commitment to the development of the whole child--academically/cognitively/intellectually, socially, emotionally, physically, ethically, organizationally. Yet this recent study quantifies what Orchard has intuitively known: a safe, nurturing classroom in essential for a student's academic and social-emotional growth.

Here are two links that provide a succinct overview of the Responsive Classroom approach Link and classroom examples of Responsive Classroom in action Link.

Neuroscience and Education

For roughly the past 20 years, the field of education has touted how research in neuroscience (how students best learn) will revolutionize classrooms.

Unfortunately there is much misinformation that teachers and parents believe to be true, “neuro-myths” that are believed to be true.

Two neuroscience truths that we all need to embrace are, first, that the brain is less hard-wired from birth than people have believed and, second, different parts of the brain act more interdependently than most of us believed.

In terms of the brain’s interdependence, a metaphor I recently read asks us to think of the different parts of the brain like the letters of the alphabet. By roughly 8 months, the letters have formed in the brain, e.g., the prefrontal cortex or hippocampus, but through experience, these “neural letters” activate in patterns to form “words, sentences, and paragraphs” of thought--in other words, they operate interdependently, not independently.

This is different from what many of us thought about the brain. While the prefrontal cortex controls decision-making and impulse control and the hippocampus stores memory, don’t think that other sections of the brain don’t influence decision-making and memory; again, different sections of the brain work as a team (or as letters) when it comes total brain function.

In education, this belief that one particular area of the brain controls a particular brain function and that the brain is hard-wired from birth led to a myth about dyslexia. While the back left of the brain influences sound processing and children with dyslexia have a poorly functioning back left of the brain, it does not mean that children with dyslexia can’t learn to read. More than one section of the brain influences how one reads; hence, educational interventions can help a child learn to read effectively.

Because the brain is less hard-wired and more flexible and changeable than many of us thought, the home or school environment is vital.

Because there is often not a direct link to neuroscience research, many teachers and parents have formed overly simplistic—or in the extreme wrong—implications in the classroom for how children best learn. In one article I recently read, teachers accepted the validity and accuracy of a bogus scientific research article if it included a picture of a brain scan.

While I've read a few books on neuroscience and the brain, neuroscience remains a vast, confusing topic and its implications for education are still forming.

But what has happened is many of us have taken our limited knowledge and understanding to form faulty, simplistic conclusions about brain research and its implications in the classroom.

Here's a link to a quiz about neuroscience and education See how well you do. (I had a group of heads of school take this quiz at conference this summer and no one cam close to answering all the questions correctly, especially me.): Link to Quiz.

Effective Parenting

Late in the summer, child psychologist and author Madeline Levine, whose new book is Teach Your Children Well, wrote an article in the New York Times about effective parenting.

Her article “Raising Successful Children” opines that the optimal parent is “one who is involved and responsive, who sets high expectations but respects the child’s autonomy.” The result is a child who does better academically, psychologically, and socially compared to parents who are “either permissive and less involved, or controlling and more involved.”

This type of parent does not praise his/her child for their talents and abilities, but for their effort, perseverance and determination.

This type of parent understands that the “central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is autonomous, confident and generally in accord with reality.”

This type of parent understands the importance allowing a child the opportunity to fail and to be unhappy.

“If you can’t stand to see your child unhappy, you are in the wrong business…Small challenges that start in infancy present the opportunities for ‘successful failures’, that is, failures your child can live with and grow from. To rush in too quickly, to shield them, to deprive them of those challenges is to deprive them of the tolls they will need to handle the inevitable, difficult, challenging and sometimes devastating demands of life.”

This type of parent understands the difference between appropriate and inappropriate parental involvement in their child’s life.

This type of parent wants the best for his/her child but also recognizes it is “the child’s job to grow, while yours is to control your anxiety so it doesn’t get in the way of his reasonable moves toward autonomy.”

Finally, this type of parent knows children “thrive best in an environment that is reliable, available, consistent, and non-interfering.”

How Children Succeed

It's never too early to begin identifying books about education I plan to read over Winter Break and beyond.

The other day I read a review in the New York Times Book Review of Paul Tough's book How Children Succeed.

Tough (by the time you finish this blog, you'll see the appropriateness of his name to the thesis of his book) explains that most parents in America subscribe to what he calls the "cognitive hypothesis...that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills--the kind of intelligence that gets measured on I.Q. tests...and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible."

However, Tough wants parents to subscribe (and provides support in his book) to the "character hypothesis--the notion that non-cognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brain power to achieving success."

So how do you develop character in kids?

Tough succinctly states "character is created by encountering and overcoming failure."

His book then focuses on how on children from both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are not offered the opportunity to develop their character.

While from the New York Times review it seems to me Tough might be guilty of over-generalizing the experiences of wealthy and poor kids, his book provides a warning for parents and teachers who at one extreme overly control or too tightly control a child's life and at the other are too laissez faire.

His conclusion is that America is a country "of very privileged children and very poor ones, both deprived of the emotional and intellectual experiences that make for sturdy character."

I'm looking forward to reading this book in full. It follows in the recent educational trend (Dweck, Wagner, Walsh Click) that student character and attitude trump cognitive ability and that schools and home need to offer kids more opportunities to struggle through and deal with setbacks, and learn to persevere and to defer gratification.

Remember, self-esteem comes through practice, competence, and achievement--and, in the progressive education tradition, needs to come from within (intrinsically not extrinsically).

Here's the link to Tough's book on Amazon: Click