The Gradeless Classroom: Creating Culture

I spent this summer completely redoing my classroom. I figured in the past two years I have completely revamped my curriculum and my grading process, so the only thing left to redo is the physical environment. Go big or go home, right? On my final course surveys, several students commented that I needed to work on changing the physical environment to match the "feel" my classroom had. I knew if several students mentioned it, it was important enough to change. But this post isn't really about that.

TL; DR: I redecorated my classroom, and now it looks like this:

It is so important to me to establish a classroom culture that will be supportive, nurturing, affirming, and safe for all of my students, so I left school on Friday afternoon in a quandary about how to best establish expectations on the first day. For many years, I was a "go over rules and procedures on the first day" teacher (sometimes on the second and third days too). Two years ago, it was all about books and what we would read. Last year, we played with Play-Doh, and when students were still mentioning that lesson at the end of the year, I knew I was onto something. But new furniture and Play-Doh sounded like a really bad idea to me. I needed a similar plan with a cleaner twist!

Finding My Motto

I have been reading Piecing Me Together, by Renee Watson. It's an absolutely brilliant book, and I can't wait to share it with students. The main character, Jade, lives on the poor side of town, in what used to be known as the Projects in North Portland. She is smart, motivated, creative, but constantly misjudged and underestimated because of where she comes from. Her outlet is to create art, specifically collage, a process she describes like this:

"Lots of people can't find beauty in my neighborhood, but I can. Ever since elementary school, I've been making beauty out of everyday things--candy wrappers, pages of a newspaper, receipts, rip-outs from magazines. I cut and tear, arrange and rearrange, and glue them down, morphing them into something no one else thought they could be."

I work in the same area I grew up in. It is small, rural, country, conservative. We have more churches than restaurants. Many of the families here can trace lineage back over generations to common ancestors. There are good people here, but there is a stubborn streak of anti-intellectualism in many of the inhabitants. Over my sixteen years here as an educator, I have met so many brilliant, creative, passionate people who have done amazing work in the classroom. The thing is, many of those brilliant people end up leaving the very kids they are so passionate about working with; heading into administrative or professional development career paths, or just leaving our little county for greener pastures. I understand the desire to leave, but I wish more of those truly passionate, driven educators would stay in the county. Our kids need them.

So I immediately felt a connection to this passage. Many people can't find beauty in our little corner of the world, but I can. Ever since I came to middle school to teach, I've been making beauty out of ugly attitudes-- hatred of reading, fear of failure, feelings of inadequacy, indifference to the larger world around us. I teach and read, arrange and rearrange, sit down with them and offer help until they get it, eventually morphing them into something they never thought they could be: readers, writers, voices. I shared this quote with my students on the first day of school, and we talked about how we can shape each other and piece our classroom together into something they never thought it could be.

Shaping the Lesson

I offered the quote as a mentor text, and we went through the process of noticing. We talked about language, sentence length, listing, and the use of power words, but we also talked about the deeper meaning underneath, how this passage teaches us to see the beauty in things other people would dismiss as trash. When we finished our discussion, I told the kids that normally I would ask them to write from a mentor text, but in this case we were going to use a more practical approach. Each table got a pile of "trash." I had scraps of old material, pieces of paper, newspaper sales circulars, electrical tape, string, old folders, plastic baggies, a handful of beads; all leftovers from various craft projects over the years.

Students were given this direction:  Your task is to use the techniques the author describes to make something new. You can work as a group or individually. You can borrow items from other tables if they are willing. You can ask Mrs. J for other materials if needed. Be prepared to tell the class what  you made and a little about your process. I also told them that the activity would serve as a metaphor for how class would work this year.

While they were working, I circulated and offered help. I got stuck students started, made suggestions to those who were struggling, praised highly engaged students, and asked early finishers what they could do to make their creations even better. I made a point of answering "Can I..." questions with "yes" as much as possible. I would redirect students to ask other groups for help if I saw they were working on the same things.

The Takeaway 

Some of their creations went south quickly, but some of them made things I would never have thought they could. As they presented their products today, one thing that kept striking me was how different each creation was. Some were abstract, some were concrete, some were flat, others were 3-D. No two creations looked alike. 

After all the presentations were done, I asked students to reflect on the activity and tell me what they expected from class this year. There were so many great answers, but this one was the best:

I expect that we'll be working independently, but there will be lots of opportunities to learn from Mrs. J and from the other students in the class. I liked how there were groups, but we were still supposed to work as a class instead of just 3-4 of us together. I think this class will be like the stuff we made. It might look like a mess, but there's learning going on and we are having lots of fun. 

Now that's a classroom culture I can believe in.

Disclaimer: I realize that this post is not directly related to the gradeless classroom. But the success of gradeless learning depends heavily on how you create your classroom culture. I believe that starting off with the right classroom culture determines the success or failure of your classroom for the year. I hope you'll still find it useful. I think this is the best start to the school year I have had.