It’s always good to have some kind of classroom reset when coming back to school after a break. But an expected break due to weather might need even more of a reset.
My beautiful state was recently hit hard by Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael. In my town, we were spared the worst of the storm in terms of devastation, but we still missed several days of school. We know that some parts of our state and region are out of school “until further notice”.
I was SO proud of my students today. For our #classroombookaday, we read What Do You Do With a Problem? This book talks about every problem having an opportunity. My fifth graders were all asking, “how can we help?”
If/when your community has been impacted by a natural disaster, here are five ways to build community when you return to school.
1 – Use read-alouds to generate conversation.
2 – Allow students to tell their stories, verbally, in writing, or both.
3 – Try to keep the focus on how your students “survived” and were resilient. How can they extend this resilience into other areas of their lives?
4 – Try to keep the focus on helping others. No matter how bad things are, someone else is always in a worse place.
I was struck by this lesson a few years ago when I was working as an instructional coach in a low-income school in my state. Most of these students received free breakfast and lunch, and backpacks of food for the weekend. Some were homeless. Most students in the school were in a constant state of food insecurity and some were in a state of home insecurity.
Yet, when a tornado hit a school in Oklahoma, these students were all about creating a project to raise money to help the students in Oklahoma. I realized something important — helping others gave them “power”. Not necessarily power OVER other people, but the power to DO something to help others. I was changed forever by seeing their reaction to others’ tragedy.
5 – As important as it is to allow students to talk and share, it is also important to get back on track and into the predictable routines of school as soon as possible. Children (and probably all of us) thrive on structure and routine, so the more quickly you can get “back to normal” in your classroom, the safer the students will feel. This is also a good time to review your classroom expectations and norms, trying to focus on the positive things your students are doing.
Do you have other ideas or suggestions! Please share!