Involving Learners in the Classroom?

This blog will be dealing with the meaningful involvement of learners in your classroom. By just looking at this sentence in bold many ideas should jump to mind. Taking the word “classroom” for example could lure both negative and positive thoughts. When I hear the word classroom I think of a freezing room in the winter months and a boiling hot in the summer (I went to school in the Free State). I do not have a very good connotation with the word. Thinking about it makes me think of times when i had so much fear instilled by a teacher, or when i wrote terrible tests or even when I sat there without an idea why I am actually there. I do not recall anything positive about ever being in a classroom at school.

This is something which I would want to change when I enter the teaching profession in 2017. A classroom should be a place where learners want to go to. They should be excited to go to any classroom and to go to school.  They should not be scared of going because they are afraid of saying or doing something wrong.

Going to school can really be a tedious process at times. Learners do not want to necessarily be there – but obviously they have to be there. It is our job as teachers to make them as excited as possible for going to school and entering YOUR classroom. All people want to have a sense of belonging. Everyone wants to feel that they are important and their opinions and voices are heard. It is therefore really important to involve the children in the classroom.

There are various ways in which I will try to involve the learners in my class. I have recently of the idea about asking the learners what they want the classroom rules to be and then using that I can make a poster with the rules on and paste it on the wall. They can help you paint pictures on the walls. They can make posters about their personal life and put that up. In this way learners will really feel part of the classroom.

I firmly believe that the way you treat learners are the way that they will treat you. What you give is what you get. Respect for the learners in your classroom is one of the most important qualities that you will ever need. They will feel this respect even by you as the teacher not saying a single word, but rather through your actions. In an article written by Abby Wills she tries to create a controlled classroom environment and manages to do this by simply putting bowls of water on the tables and asking the learners not to mess water on the water. They then respond by quietly moving the tables and chairs around. She also does not use a loud tone of voice which automatically results in the learners being quieter.

Teachers need to realise they do not know everything and that there is a lot that one can learn from school children. Another way to involve learners is to ask them how they would like a lesson to be prepared. Instead of the conventional way of the teacher standing in front and conforming to one way teaching.

Involving learners in your classroom goes beyond just the content and curriculum. One needs to know about their personal life – show an interest in what they do, where they come from and what they enjoy. know about their best way of learning. Know which part of the work they have a passion for. Take all this information and work with it. If you are not involving learners in a meaningful way in your classroom you might as well just be speaking to the walls.