Week 9: Community-Building article take-aways

Sacra Nevaire Nicholas, “Community-Building in the Classroom: A Process”

Nicholas defines and describes characteristics of genuine communities and argues for the need to build communities in the classroom.

• The author looks to North American Native American tribes and Australian Aboriginal groups for models of cultures built upon successful communities. These cultures’ versions of community are compared with the dominant notion of community in the United States, which relies on logic, judgment, cause-and-effect, and the scientific method. The spiritually and ecologically harmonious indigenous societies are contrasted with the alienation and disenchantment that permeate American society. The type of community modeled by indigenous societies can provide an antidote to the disconnectedness of American culture and a foundation for building a positive community in the classroom.

•  The goal in the creation and maintenance of a genuine community is for its members to seek ways to live with themselves and others in love and peace, based upon respect, caring, trust, commitment, inclusiveness, and empowerment.

•  True communities include a variety of points of view, and conflict and chaos are allowed to happen in constructive ways, creating a richer sense of reality. This is typified by members who “are committed to a struggling together rather than against each other” (425).

•  Caring communities provide a foundation for instruction, discipline, classroom organization, and all the other pedagogical aspects of classroom work. This affects everything from the motivation of students to teacher autonomy, and enhances students’ academic development. The constraints imposed by our current educational system make it hard to achieve caring communities.

•  Instrinsic motivation is linked to creativity and persistence (this point would seem to lead to classroom activities that cultivate creative responses).

• The author lists four stages of community building, based on Peck’s research. These are:

1. Pseudocommunity: members are on their best behavior, but individual differences are ignored. This stage is likely to occur during the first few days of school.
2. Chaos: individual differences are no longer ignored, but the group tries to obliterate these differences unconstructively. This stage is usually reached after a few days in the classroom when students test limits. 
3. Emptiness: a time of emotional surrender to the group, where members let go of the need for control, and build a bridge between “chaos” and “genuine community.” This stage occurs when students feel despair about the class or the teacher. 
4. Genuine community: true community emerges based on peace and acceptance of differences; masks are dropped and members feel safe to express who they really are.

• Some specific community-building ideas include using a “talking pencil” (following Native Americans’ use of a “talking stick/staff,” which regulates who may speak until consensus is reached.

•  Another idea is to limit students to asking one question per day of the teacher, and to ask one another all other questions, which de-centers the power dynamic to give students a sense of shared leadership.

• A true community emphasizes pluralism, with decisions reached by consensus, rather than control. A teacher must be willing to let go of a need to monopolize verbal interactions, to be overly helpful, look like a hero, give quick and easy answers, or promote only their own ideas.

•  One potential problem with encouraging this kind of community is it can be associated with the idea of teaching attitudes and “values.” Another problem is a false dichotomy that is often set up between teaching challenging curriculum or nurturing students’ social well-being; this is a false dilemma because both can occur simultaneously. In fact, the quality of the classroom community may be vital to students’ long-term learning.

Questions:

**When the author states that “schools first must become purposeful communities, where members are bonded through shared values, conceptions, and ideology” (425), I wonder if this is ever possible to actually achieve in the classroom; complete consensus on these issues may not be possible.

**What kinds of activities could be incorporated in the writing classroom to promote genuine communities?