Alongside classroom set-up, curriculum planning, setting routines, and community-building, the K5 faculty has focused on positive school discipline as a priority for our division work this year. Our philosophy is generated primarily from the social curriculum, Responsive Classroom. One of the goals of this curriculum is to build strong and positive student-teacher relationships, and you can be assured of this in any classroom on this campus. Students are treated with respect as a group and teachers make the time to listen and support individual struggles and celebrations.

One of the strategies of Responsive Classroom is to engage the students in creating social agreements that help form a foundational classroom culture in which all children can learn productively, side by side. You will see evidence of these agreements in each classroom. Kate Klaire, Student Life Coordinator, will write in the next few weeks about the thoughtful process taken on by the Student Council to establish All-School Agreements, based on these individual classroom agreements.

During our Professional Development workday, we reflected on these questions:  
Who do we want our students to be out in the world?
What do we believe about our students’ capacity to live by our established agreements?

In answer to these questions, we affirmed a strongly held conviction – that an important component of a child’s education includes the skills required to collaborate in peer groups, listen with an open mind, embrace differences, be accountable for one’s actions, and show compassion. We know that each child has a deep capacity for love, and deserves to shine in a positive light. A school environment established on these beliefs allows our students to take the risks that lead to transformative learning.

As a faculty, we have set three goals:

1. to further develop a sense of respect and caring within our student community.
2. that children accept defined limits in essential areas that ensure the rights of all students in our learning environment.
3. to ensure that teaching and learning continues positively and safely.

To achieve these goals, we are becoming more explicit and consistent in upholding basic expectations of respect and positive engagement among peers and between students and teachers. We intend to honor individual students, and TBS has established a well-deserved reputation in doing just that. Equally important, we will help each student recognize individual responsibility to the larger community. Our work begins in the classrooms, and in the smallest interactions between friends and family members.

We ask for your partnership at home. Families provide the necessary practice for children’s socialization. If a child is expected to respect and show compassion for parents and siblings (typical sibling squabbles aside), they will most likely respond in a similar way when outside the home. When your child brings up a social or ethical conflict, take the time to listen and guide them in reflecting on the impact to all parties involved. This guidance is our work on campus and we are committed to sustaining a school culture in which the norms reflect habits of kindness and consideration.

“Rather than simply reacting to problems, we need to establish an ongoing curriculum in self-control, social participation, and human development.” -Ruth Charney, Teaching Children to Care

Bliss Tobin
Elementary Division Head