Responsive Classroom
As part of implementing our School values of promoting safe, challenging and caring classrooms, teachers use practical strategies from The Responsive Classroom approach. Underlying this approach are basic child development principles that go hand in hand with Harbor values. There is a set of social skills that children need in order to be successful academically and socially, including cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. The Harbor School faculty and staff understand the important responsibility of helping children learn these social skills and to take good care of themselves, of each other, and of their classrooms.
The Harbor School program stresses the importance and value of good communication skills. Each child is warmly greeted as he or she enters the school and the classroom. Each classroom begins the day with a “Morning Meeting” that serves as a transition from home to school, helps the children to feel welcome and known, and creates a climate of trust. Morning Meeting provides opportunities for the children to practice the skills of greeting, listening, responding and group problem solving. Each class writes and posts a set of classroom rules to teach expected behavior and to promote a positive social and academic learning environment.
Teachers use positive role modeling to help children learn constructive ways to express their feelings and opinions. When differences occur, children are given appropriate alternatives to consider and are actively engaged in the problem solving process. Such techniques help to enhance the self-esteem of children as they acquire practical skills for working with others and becoming an integral part of their classroom community.
Classroom management is based upon setting clear expectations for children and using developmentally appropriate approaches to guiding behavior such as redirection or conflict resolution strategies. The School’s policy is to avoid punishment and humiliation. The purpose is to teach appropriate social skills and self-discipline, and the approach must always be diagnostic rather than pejorative.