All Things CLASS

Hi CLC members,

I hope you had a fantastic week! I received an email from an educator who is new to CLASS and our community. She would love some advice about how to improve interactions in her classroom. I told her I'd post on her behalf, as I'm sure our community members have lots of stories of impact! Please share below any tips you'd share with someone new to CLASS and how you've noticed the power of interactions in your environment.

Best,

Allison

Interactions are more meaningful when the teacher is genuinely interested in the child as an individual. Observe and listen to them, what are they interested in, what are their likes and dislikes, what is their temperament, what are they exited about, what scares them? When you have a good idea who they are as a person then you can incorporate that knowledge into your interactions and make the child feel valued as an individual and more confident to participate and be a member of the classroom community. It can be as simple as while the teacher reads a book about dogs she pauses and says, "Susie, you have a dog at home, is it like the dog in the story?", or while getting ready to go outside and play hide and seek say, " I have noticed before that Johnny likes to play hide and seek, can you give us some good ideas where to hide?"