School is an institution where students learn academic subjects, communication with peers, and form social relationships that will contribute to their entire life as an adult. Teachers must encourage and nurture a positive atmosphere conducive to learning, create viable and engaging lesson plans, while also establishing positive relationships with their students. Many educators and parents rightfully focus on the academic content that schools provide, encompassing large periods of school time dedicated to the memorization and understanding of this content. Unfortunately, this places social development and responsibility as an afterthought in student development as a result. Studies have shown that students who feel a sense of belonging and responsibility to their school and classroom are more motivated, have a stronger bond with their peers, and decreases the negative behavior of students (SPAN). The answer on how to better involve students in the classroom, while at the same time placing emphasis on the positive development of social relationships, must be out there.
One developing strategy in classrooms has emerged to help combat this growing gap in social development, responsibility, and teacher-student relationships has. Teachers have begun to implement and refine the roles of responsibility in the classroom for their students. The idea of assigning students jobs and tasks that they are responsible and have devotion for is not overall a new idea, but the strategy of using these roles to help students develop self-pride, empowering students to feel success in a non-traditional school role, and using these roles to establish a more constant teacher-student relationship is (SPAN). Students want to have a positive relationship with their teachers, yet they often link how their teacher feels about them to their grades. A student who struggles in the academic content more than his peers, may feel that their teacher does not value them as much as a student who consistently grades highly academically. As a result, a student may begin to feel disconnected and isolated from their peers and become incorporated in a negative cycle, struggling with self-doubt in the process.
The use of classroom “jobs” can help re-engage students that may feel disconnected, while allowing them the opportunity to reinforce the value of their own self-worth (Beaty-O’Ferrall). Simple tasks that provide the students the ability to succeed can also encourage them to socialize with one another, establish teamwork and a sense of community, and provides the teacher the ability to evaluate their students in a non traditional way. These roles allow the student the occasion to demonstrate skills they have worked tediously to develop and affords the teacher the ability to acknowledge it in a productive way. The teacher must be cognizant of their students’ potential and comfort in social roles, in order to properly assign them jobs where they will excel. This consistent reinforcement of success strengthens the bond of the classroom community and transfers responsibility to the individual students. Progress has also been shown to promote positive self-image, leadership, and classroom cohesiveness (Schaps).
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Triumph of the classroom job system requires proper implementation and constant refinement by the teacher. The first obstacle a teacher must overcome is to determine how the students will be selected for the jobs. Teachers can use a variety of factors to assign roles, ranging from volunteering based on previous job performance to randomly selecting jobs from a bowl. Educators must also take in to account factors that can affect the ability for students to maintain certain jobs, such as students that may leave school earlier than others and those that may require closer supervision than others. Teachers must also be clear and transparent of the duties that each job holds, establishing the length that each student will hold their respective job. Proven experience from classrooms has found that creating an interactive job board and displaying each student’s name allows smoother transition of jobs among themselves (Sesay-St. Paul).
Maintaining the order and functionality of job system is the educator’s main duty. This role involves monitoring each student’s performance, shuffling positions so students can experience varied assignments, and ensuring the completion of jobs by the assigned students. The educator must be the leader of the classroom, assuring that the sense of community and social bonds are being fortified. Once the students are held to the standard of properly completing their jobs, they will hold themselves and their peers to the same principle. Positive acknowledgement and public encouragement by the teacher throughout the day will also empower the students and foster community relationships.
REFERENCES
Beaty-O’Ferrall, Ellen, Alan Green, and Fred Hanna. Classroom Management Strategies for Difficult Students: Promoting Change through Relationships. Association for Middle Level Education, 2010, https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
Allison, Brynn. Caution! Students at Work: Classroom Jobs for Secondary Students. The Literary Maven, 2016, http://www.theliterarymaven.com/2016/09/classroom-jobs-middle-school-high-school.html. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
Schaps, Eric, Ph.D. The Role of Supportive School Environments in Promoting Academic Success. Ceter for Collabortive Classroom, 2005, https://www.collaborativeclassroom.org/research-articles-and-papers-the-role-of-supportive-school-environments-in-promoting-academic-success. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
Sesay-St. Paul, Mariama. Student Helpers in the High School Classroom. Scholastic Inc, 2017, https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/student-helpers-high-school-classroom. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
Wade, Mary. How to Set up Democratic Classroom Jobs. HonorGradU, 2015, http://honorsgradu.com/how-to-set-up-democratic-classroom. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
Protecting Students: The Importance of Activies for Belonging and Capability. SPAN Idaho. Accessed 1 APR 2017.
