3 Steps to Build a Winning Classroom Culture

The culture of your classroom is more important than you are. Whoa. Let that sink in. Now think about it logically; there are thirty of them and only one of you. Some rough calculations would suggest that you are about 3% of the humanity in that room. Obviously, your role is different, but the culture that you create will outweigh you infinitely. Below, I will outline three statements that will change your classroom culture into a culture of striving.

1. Look for the best IN each other

You must train your students to look for the best IN each other. And they will absolutely not do this naturally. If you ever watch teenage boys play video games while chatting incessantly over their headsets, 99% of their talk will be negative toward one another. Even if they see someone do something great, their natural response is to one-up them. You must train your students to verbalize when they see the best in each other. And you must model it. It is a joke in my class that there is no such thing as an over-achiever. That term is so derogatory toward the students who naturally strive.

You should never want someone who went out of their way to prepare for a task to be viewed as a suck-up or teachers pet. They are achievers. They saw the bar, and they jumped over it. At the end of each quiz, I will announce out loud the achievers. I pick a score that represents a good performance, and I announce the achievers. I specifically remember one day announcing the achievers and seeing a funny look on one girl's face. She was usually quiet and distant. She was the dark-artsy type who was struggling in chemistry. But not on this day. She got to hear her name listed as an achiever! She was so excited. Her friends high-fived her. I got an email from the parent thanking me. She had achieved. I recognized it. (Yes, I know there are political issues surrounding sharing student scores. I don't share scores. I congratulate achievers. Call me old school, but I think it's healthy.)

Now there will be some students that don't "achieve" in the same manner. Set them up for success. Let them achieve. I will frequently have students do problems and share answers. In order to help the struggling students, I will feed them their question early, check their answer before they share, and congratulate them when they win. Publicly. With eye contact. With sincerity. It may be true that I held their hand through the process, but the public recognition is real. See the best in your students. And model for them how to find it in each other.

2. Do your best FOR each other.

I coach basketball. As a coach, I have heard that culture is what happens when the coach isn't in the gym. In order to build a classroom culture that continues on when you are out of the room the students must feel some level of responsibility toward one another. This is really challenging to do in the science classroom. But when you are able to create scenarios where the students must work for each other, the stakes get raised.

Have students write practice problems for each other. They know when they are giving their partner junk questions. And if you train your students to recognize junk, and not allow it, the bar gets raised. They have to work hard FOR each other. Of course if would be easier to write a practice problem that is dumb. But if my partner requires quality, then I have to do my BEST for them.

I also encourage doing your best FOR someone by using competition in the lab. I have already written a blog post about this. As lab groups compete for points based on outcomes, every decision becomes more important. You hear things like, "did you rinse that stirring rod with deionized water?" That is not something you usually hear. High school students don't think that way. Unless they are trained. And who better to train them than a peer who is striving together for a common goal.

As the teacher, you must also give them your best. Trust me, I know the feeling of rolling into a class feeling unprepared. Or giving less than my best effort. But when the students are expected to give their best FOR each other, I have to do it to. It raises the bar in my own mind. And my effort follows. I am a Christian and strive to live a disciplined life. I still remember in my early teaching days I had one particular student that would ask me each day what scripture I had read that morning. I knew, without a doubt, that Luke would ask me. And so, when my alarm went off early for my study, and I wanted to hit snooze, my mind would picture that skinny kid with moppy black hair walking up to me at lunch. I better have an answer. So I got up. I gave my best.

3. Expect the best FROM each other.

This final point is really a natural consequence of creating a healthy culture using the first two. When students look for the best IN each other and do their best FOR each other, it becomes natural to expect the best FROM each other. Holding a high standard in the classroom seems obvious. I expect my students to perform. And as of this writing, I am on the eve of AP scores being released. I expect my students to pass. They expect that from each other. When you have worked and intentionally developed a culture of striving, it makes those who don't give their best stand out. In that awkward, I-don't-want-to-be-THAT-kid sort of way. Over time, the students will appreciate the camaraderie that comes from giving their best FOR each other and expecting the best FROM each other.

My high-school son shared a class with a notorious trouble maker, let's call him Cletus. My son would come home almost daily describing the negative exploits of Cletus in the other class. My son would ask, in anticipation, "What does Cletus do in your class?"

He does what he is supposed to.

That seems impossible! He spends all his time messing around and being problematic in another room, but in mine, he is great.

Probing deeper, my son asked "Do you have to yell at him a lot?"

Nope. The culture is set. His classmates expect the best FROM him. When he doesn't perform, he becomes the outlier. And not the outlier like the cool-funny-naughty type. The outlier that feels the weight of requirement from his classmates. And all of a sud

den, my job is so much easier. I spend more time building culture, and less time fighting the degradation of it. Why? Because the students expect the best FROM each other.

So fellow teacher, consider this brief note your call to action. Go forth and build your culture of striving. Train. Model. Correct. Overcome. I know you can do it. I can see the best IN you.

Interested in increasing engagement in your chemistry classroom? Try Up & Atom, the card game that helps students compare grams, atoms, and moles in a fun and strategic way.