Article Three: The Learning Climate

“In memory, everything seems to happen to music.”

-The Glass Menagerie, By Tennessee Williams

When I hear a few songs, I am instantly transported back to a specific place and time in
my life. Music has amazing power to help us connect, empathize, and experience a world that
may be different than our own. I believe that our learning environments should have a
soundtrack that our students will hear, years from now, and remember the knowledge gained.
The music in our classrooms isn’t, in most cases, literal notes, melodies and phrases. But rather,
the music of the learning climate is the relationships that are developed between teachers and
students, peers, and the atmosphere created within the classroom itself.
Ron Ritchhart refers to this music of the learning climate as a culture of thinking and
states that, “A culture of thinking produces the feelings, energy, and even joy that can propel
learning forward and motivate us to do what at times can be hard and challenging mental work”
(5). Before we can expect our students to focus and feel comfortable completing the tasks before
them, we need to ensure that the environment and learning climate is conducive to such tasks.
How do we create this culture? Is it something that happens over night? Can we flip a switch and
instantly have a ‘cultured classroom’? I believe that communication and listening to our students
is the best way to facilitate the creation of a classroom culture conducive to learning. This starts
even before a school year has started. Students need to feel as though their teacher is looking
forward to and excited about being in their lives for the next school year. By communicating
with our students and their families, and learning about our students before we meet them, our
connections can start as soon as students walk through the door on the first day of school. Our
students can help establish the culture of thinking by taking the lead as learners. Ritchhart states,
“independent learners are internally motivated to be reflective, resourceful, and effective as they
strive to accomplish worthwhile endeavors when working in isolation or with others — even
when challenges arise, they preserve” (55). When students are comfortable advocating for
themselves as learners, they are more likely to collaborate effectively with their peers. I believe
that having expectations in our classrooms helps establish this culture of thinking by holding
students accountable for ensuring that the classroom is a safe and comfortable space. These
expectations become the background music underscoring the soundtrack of our classrooms.
Once the basic expectations are set for establishing an environment where each student
can grow and flourish, I believe that we need to teach our students how to grow through their
learning process. Ritchhart refers to this as ‘Fixed vs. Growth Mindset’. As educators, we must
encourage our students to work through tough questions and problems to expand their worldview
using the growth mindset. If we don’t pose challenging questions and explorations for our
students, we are encouraging a fixed mindset that does little to expand on the knowledge our
students already obtain. They way we craft and carry out our curriculum in our classrooms has a
lot to do with the development of this mindset. Ritchhart suggests that, “Curriculum is something
that is enacted with students” (6). As educators, if our goal is to help students learn and
understand new concepts and ideas, we cannot expect to force curriculum on our students
without a level on participation ourselves. I believe that curriculum should be developed in
collaboration and in response to the needs, interests and desires of our students. When we can
tailor the lesson plans and learning to link with the worlds our students are coming from,
students will feel more agency in their learning and the culture of the learning environment
becomes less authoritative and more collaborative.
Giving learners agency and choice in how they process new information creates a
different and often new storyline for some learners. Ritchhart speaks about the “culture of
schools as a group of people enacting a story” (21). I believe that we have the power as educators
to create and continue stories for our students surrounding their education based on the language
we use to frame students’ roles in the classroom, as well as the ‘music’ we create with our
classroom environment. Our word choice and language plays a large role in how the music of
our classroom is heard by our students. Ritchhart states that, “Our talk shapes our focus, and our
focus directs our energies, which will shape our actions” (16). Every word and every choice we
make in our classrooms carries meaning and weight for our students. I believe that if we want
our students to succeed, we must frame their roles in our classroom for success. As a future
theater educator, I want all of my students to see themselves as ‘theatre artists’, not just actors or
technicians. I believe that theater is an art that we each have unique ways of connecting with, so I
will address my students as artists when they arrive to rehearsals, set builds, and in the
classroom. I believe that by framing the actions students take by giving them roles and using
language that elevates their status from just being a student, that students will take more pride in
their work, and begin to see themselves as artists. If I can see them that way, why can’t they?
Students are capable of so much more than just what is expected of them based on their age or
their grade level. If we place students in a collaborative role like an artist, the barriers between
teacher and student are further broken down, and the music of the classroom environment
becomes more fluid and lyrical as students start to form an identity for themselves.