Conversation Wall

We have a wall in our classroom where students are able to post concerns and kudos for other people's actions in the room. We call it our Issue Bin. On Friday, our "class government" reads them aloud and we discuss all comments as well as problem solve any and all concerns. As you can see to the right we always have more kudos than concerns, which means we have more positive feedback rather than issues that need to be worked out, which makes a teacher happy.

This has been a practice since the beginning of the year and it is well understood by the students. The purpose of this wall is for our classroom to be a community, the wall allows for the students to feel as though they can share their issues and give kudos to those who have treated them well.

In the past couple weeks, I have personally dealt with an issue that I have not really had to deal with until this grade.

When the issue of bullying came up one day in class, it was very obvious that this was an issue that everyone has to face, not just the principal, not just the students, but the parents and teachers alike. Using a tool such as the issue bin allows the class to discuss big issues such as this come to solutions with collaboration, understanding, and guidance from the teacher.

Now we do not have huge bullying issues in our classroom at the moment, however what we do have are students who have feelings and sometimes do not know how to voice them. This wall allows the students to work on and build their understanding of how a conversation like this needs to be performed, the fact that your thoughts and feelings do matter, and how we can all treat each other better.

This issue bin has been a huge eye opener, allowing me to see how you can help, teach, and build confidence in students just with a little communication.