CLIP 4: Promoting Acceptance
[Annie Bauer - Professor of Early Childhood and Special Education]
Do you know, I think that it is important to recognize that there was no front to that classroom. There was clearly no front, no back; the whole room was a whole. That, I think, that really helped. For one thing it helps the room being a unit. Nobody is in the back room because there is no back of the room. She clearly worked very hard at engaging the whole group and moving around the whole group and making sure that everybody was there. It was a classroom not a front of the room, the back of the room, the side of the room. I think that that's an important . . . one other aspect of structuring the classroom in that way.
The other thing around the students having control of how the classroom is laid out, I think it is fascinating. I would love to see that whole process where they problem through, "Okay, if we decide to make our classroom arranged like a snake, what specifically is that going to look like? What are some of the issues going to be around that? What happens when the other kids come in this room, and they have to figure out how to sit in our snake?" Those kind of problem-solving situations they are in control, but they have to think through the issues. You can give students choice but that means that they have to still problem solve and reflect and use some critical thinking. There's a lot of analysis I think going on there on behalf of the students.
[Steve Kroeger - Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders Specialist]
And clearly her sense...It's kind of complimentary, it's a reciprocal classroom. That there's a clear sense that children are responding to her prompts of respect or just the way she is. That comes through, I think, real significantly in transitions. For example, there were a number of transitions, the getting out one book with the pencils and they didn't need to be sharpened. Kids wanted to sharpen their pencils and just moving from that, then into individual groups.
[Anne Bauer]
I was trying to think the last time I saw a teacher kneeling and pushing a book with her nose.
Yes!
The comfort level of demonstrating something like that is, I thought that was also very clear. She's extremely comfortable with the students, and they're very comfortable with her