Non-Threatening
Environments in Education
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post
176
When one steps into a
classroom, what is the most common behavior that can be sensed and witnessed?
Though overgeneralizations should not be made to try to account for the kind of
environment that is most common, say, in Costa Rican language classrooms, a researcher
is bound to identify either threatening or non-threatening atmospheres that no
doubt will have an incidence in the quality of learning expected from students
sitting in class. The question that ought to bugle in the instructors’ ears is,
how can I provide my pupils a non-threatening environment to help them learn?
After working on mindfulness in the
last six months of the year with SIT TESOL scholar, Mary Sholl, I have come to
fully comprehend the necessity to strive for the creation of “safe, creative,
reflective, and fun environments that enable … learners to really focus on
their learning” (SpiralMana.Org, n.d.). Mindfulness in what we do in education
is a door to create non-threatening environments that can foster student
learning in the classroom and beyond its boundaries. Being aware of what others
think and feel is a way to become mindful of what we do to our students within
the class setting.
The
checklist/rubric provided above is just a way to self-assess how mindful we are
in regards to the practices that Watson (n.d.) suggests reviewing to create a
non-threatening classroom environment. My idea behind this rubric-like
checklist is to help myself and others to mindfully reflect, as taught by Mary
Sholl, upon areas that can affect the well-being of students in class: 1) teacher social presence in class, 2) allowing students to gain confidence with
you, the teacher, 3) sharing bits of
our lives to become members of a learning community, 4) respect for differences and variety present
in class, 5) embracing tolerance
rather than bullying the one who is different, 6) the fostering of teamwork and cooperation to achieve goals, 7) the importance of focusing on the right
psychological traits of each student, 8) the promotion of two-way respect among all class members, 9) copying with difficulties or hardships
learners may be facing, and 10) the
promotion of confidence and self-esteem.
As pointed out by Finch (2001,
October), “given the tendency of language classrooms to promote debilitative
anxiety, the promotion of a low-stress language learning environment must be an
important priority for the teacher.” In the end this is going back to the
premises of learning outlined by Krashen’s affective filter; whatever we teachers
do in class that affects the natural synergy present in the classroom will
trigger a peak in anxiety that will not help the learner to achieve the
learning goals proposed by the teacher in his/her lesson plan. The whole
curricula will be affected, and our lack of mindfulness will ruin the learning
process for the students who will –no doubt- feel threatened in an environment
that is not friendly for them.
Centro Espiral Mana.
(n.d.). What do we believe about learning and how do we put those beliefs into
practice. Retrieved on 2015, June 20 from the Centro Espiral Mana webpage at http://www.espiralmana.org/our-philosophies-of-learning.html
Finch, Andrew. (2001,
October). The Non-Threatening Learning Environment. Retrieved on 2015, June 20 from
the Academia.Edu webpage at http://www.academia.edu/6022977/The_Non-threatening_Learning_Environment
Watson, S. (n.d.). How
to Create a Non-Threatening, Welcome Classroom Environment. Retrieved
on 2015, June 20 from the About.Education webpage at http://specialed.about.com/od/teacherchecklists/a/classroom.htm
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