General: Community expectations and behavior – TeachingWorks Resource Library

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Fostering a classroom environment that disrupts inequity

In this four class session unit, novices consider how the structures and social environments of schooling contribute to the reproduction of racism in the classroom. They develop a mindset for equitable, just, and culturally-affirming practice for managing classroom dilemmas, and learn to acknowledge children's competence, carry out organizational routines with attention to equity, and engage in restorative individual conversations with children.

Unit Overview

Introduction, learning goals, and unit summary

Unit Overview

This overview introduces a four class period unit focused on establishing a classroom environment that preserves student dignity and disrupts inequity. The overview provides contexts, details learning goals, and outlines activities for each class period.

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Day 1

Identity and patterns of injustice in the classroom

Day 1

Novice teachers will use a "social identity wheel" to make connections between their own identities, those of students, and patterns of broader social inequity. Novice teachers will watch videos to identify ways that common features of classroom environment might privilege particular norms and ways of being, and consider ways to cultivate classroom environments that disrupt inequity.

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Day 2

Acknowledging competence

Day 2

Novice teachers will watch classroom video, noticing students' status and positioning. Then, they will examine student work to practice seeing and publicly acknowledging competence.

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Day 3

Organizational routines

Day 3

Novice teachers will consider the purposes of organizational routines and the ways in which organizational routines might reinforce dominant ways of being and doing. Through video analysis, novice teachers examine the function of two organizational routines and the messages they send to children. Then, they practice introducing an organizational routine.

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Day 4

Restorative conferences

Day 4

Novice teachers problematize common punishment practices and consider alternatives. The teacher educator introduces proactive structures and norms and restorative practices. Novice teachers rehearse individual restorative conversations.

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