The Importance of Community

As adults, we know how important it is to be a part of a strong community. We need people to rely on when challenges arise, and people to celebrate with when big events and milestones occur. Hopefully, we’re lucky enough to be able to choose who is in our innermost circle, but more often, we’re part of a larger community that’s dependent upon our location, family, and jobs.

While adults have some choice in what communities they are a part of, kids have less control over the people they spend their days with. Once children hit school age, they become a part of a school community as a whole, as well as individual classroom communities. As kids get older, they’ll begin to make choices about extracurricular activities which naturally lead them into more specific communities. But while they’re in their elementary and middle school years, their classroom communities are pretty much determined for them by the schools.

The Classroom as a Learning Community

When we think about a classroom as a learning community, it really puts an emphasis on the importance of working together and establishing a safe and productive learning environment. Kids learn from very early ages how to collaborate and work together, how to solve problems and advocate for themselves, and how to exist responsibly in a shared space.

We’ve all had our share of experiences in different classroom settings, and it’s safe to say that some memories we have of being a part of a classroom community are better than others. In modern education, there’s a big push for teaching social and emotional learning skills to students early on, to help them navigate big feelings and prepare them to face challenges. Unfortunately, not all classrooms are the same, and some districts and schools do this better than others.

Kids Need Psychologically Safe Communities

Children need communities in which they feel safe to test their wings. This truth may seem obvious, but there is clear support in brain science.

Let’s take the tween and early teen years as an example. At this stage of adolescence, the brain grows at its fastest rate since infancy, but different parts of the brain grow at different rates. Specifically, the prefrontal cortex is one of the slowest regions to develop, leaving pre-teens with little executive functioning ability and more reliance on the amygdala to process emotions and social situations. Simultaneously during this phase of adolescence, kids develop a greater need for independence and peer relationships, spending more time in situations where they may encounter confusing or stressful situations.

Therefore, it is incredibly valuable for children in this age group to have communities that welcome them, value them, and bring them together around common, pro-social purposes. Children of this age need to learn about metacognition (i.e., their ability to think about how they think) and how to evaluate and make good decisions. They also need to be put into low-stakes situations in which they can safely try, make mistakes, learn, and grow from those experiences.

Of course, younger children also need and benefit from these kinds of psychologically safe and positive places. The younger the kids are, the more they require guidance from and closeness to trusted adults, who thus play a greater role in the group. But the principles of “safe to try” communities are ultimately the same.

Creating a Collaborative Community in Your School

There are a lot of classrooms and school districts out there who are creating exceptional community environments within their schools. Students feel safe and appreciated, and are willing to take risks without fear of ridicule or failure.

Some strategies these schools are using include:

• Building positive relationships from the start. When students know that they can trust and respect their teachers and peers, they are far more likely to engage in collaborative learning, and be willing to tackle challenges.
• Celebrating diversity. Students who know that their differences are not only accepted, but celebrated, will feel like a crucial member of the community.
• Establishing and maintaining clear expectations. Keep expectations consistent and responding to situations with the classroom in a predictable way helps students to feel safe within the boundaries of the classroom, knowing that the expectations are there for them to meet.
• Promoting collaboration. Kids love to socialize and work together. Instead of trying to work against this natural desire to communicate and collaborate, incorporating group work and play together is imperative for fostering a productive learning environment within the classroom.
• Providing opportunities for productive struggle. If we want our students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers, we have to provide them not only with the tools to do so, but also with opportunities for authentic struggle. When we engage students in learning through challenging activities, academic puzzles and games, and let them figure things out for themselves, they thrive.

The Power of Community: Silverquicken’s Approach

Silverquicken provides both direct learning (about metacognition, decision analysis, etc.) and low-stakes opportunities to tackle challenges, make mistakes, and grow. Our stories provide safe “observation windows”: in our fictional narrative, our pre-teen heroes demonstrate behaviors and emotions, both positive and negative, that we know our real-life students are experiencing. Thus, our students are provided many avenues for reflection and exploration of relevant issues. Through the activities we engage in and the challenges we tackle together in our classes and clubs, we build Silverquicken communities.

Our principles of Fun, Rigor, and Community are self-reinforcing. Because the relationships within our communities are built out of tackling fun, difficult challenges, our kids learn to work together toward a common goal, drawing on and recognizing each other’s contributions. Thus, the fun and the rigor of Silverquicken reinforce this goal of building positive communities. In turn, the community aspect of Silverquicken makes the experience more fun and further enables the rigor of our challenges (for instance, if you get stuck on a challenge, you know your group will be there to help).

{{Create a community of Silverquicken Solvers in your classroom today!}}

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What type of communities do you thrive in? Is your classroom or school a safe and productive learning community for your students or children?

There are so many things that we, as adults, can do to create a positive environment for our children–one where they feel safe and respected, and free to make mistakes and grow.

Some of the most impactful things we can do to foster this power of community in our classrooms include:

• Building positive relationships
• Celebrating diversity
• Establishing and maintaining clear expectations
• Promoting collaboration
• Providing opportunities for productive struggle

Our latest blog talks about the importance of communities for students, and provides some tips for how to cultivate a positive community for your students.

What would you add to our list?