How do you build classroom communities committed to educational goals? It takes time, at-
tention to broad goals, and concern with the details of daily living. In chapter 4, I discuss expe-
riences at Camp Hurley that helped me understand the importance of relationships between
students and teachers and their impact on young people. One of the things I learned as a coun-
selor and young teacher is that communities always exist, but they do not always include the
people in nominal authority (teachers) or a commitment to the goals of dominant institutions
(educational achievement). When a group or class appears chaotic, it is often because adoles-
cents have coalesced around their own agenda and leadership, like the group that ran away to
see what the rain was doing to their drainage ditch. The struggle for teachers is not just to
build classroom communities, but to build communities committed to educational achieve-
ment. I believe this requires the creation of democratic communities with student leaders and
community members who feel they are part of the decision-making process.
In my experience, as students develop relationships with each other and their teachers,
interest in the topics being explored, confidence that they will not be put down, and are con-
vinced that their ideas will be heard, they develop a commitment to the success of the class,
to questioning and knowing. They take responsibility for themselves and each other and be-
come a community of learners. As an increasing number of students become committed to
the class as a democratic community, they draw their classmates in with them. Students
who initially were suspicious or aloof follow the leadership of their peers and get swept up
in the maelstrom.
On the surface, some of the things that build classroom community seem like minor
things. Yet, they are the things that ordinary people do for each other. When a teacher gives
a student a break or helps them out of a jam, all the other students seem to know and care
about what happened. When a teacher lends out pens, treats students with respect, loans
someone money for lunch or the bus, plays ball with students after school, attends a school
play or game, or visits a family struck by a tragedy, the teacher is saying to his or her stu-
dents that we are all human, we are all family, and we must stand together. By example, the
teacher is modeling for students what it means to be a community member and inviting stu-
dents to join. One of the defining moments in the movieStand and Deliver(1988) is when
Jaime Escalante, the math teacher, visits a restaurant to persuade its owner to allow his
daughter to return to school.

CHAPTER

6

COMMUNITY:HOW DO YOU BUILD

CLASSROOM COMMUNITIES COMMITTED

TO EDUCATIONAL GOALS?

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