Last year, the third graders in our school racked up far too many incidents of fighting, bullying, and other extreme forms of disrespect. When they came to my classroom for fourth grade, I made a plan that would help me get this group turned around, using Responsive Classroom strategies that teach and support respectful behavior.

Morning Meeting
For starters, many of my morning messages included mention of our goal. I inserted a phrase or sentence in most of our morning charts about being respectful. I also used the greeting and sharing components of Morning Meeting to teach and reinforce respectful behavior.

Example morning messages
October 11, 2010

Good morning, students,

It’s a marvelous Monday! Remember to be kind and honest this week. Wednesday will be a short
day: we will be finished at 1:00 PM. Our library day this week has been changed to Thursday. Most of you have already returned your books.

November 2, 2010

Good morning, class,

Be respectful to others today! If someone is respectful to you, remember it: we’ll celebrate respectful moments later in the day.

November 12, 2010

Good morning, everyone,

We’ll be reading with our “buddies” again today. Remember to be respectful by using kind words with each other.

Respectful sharing
The sharing component of the meeting was frequently dedicated to the subject of respect. I kept the emphasis positive, rather than talk about disrespectful behavior. For example, many of our shares focused on what students were seeing and experiencing around the school that showed respect. I wanted students to get into the habit of noticing respectful behavior. They needed specific examples to make an abstract concept (respect) more concrete (greeting someone with a smile and a friendly, “Good morning”). The Morning Meetings were very helpful in our quest to be more respectful, because they provided daily moments to focus on respect.

Creating class rules
I spent one class period with my group coming to agreement on a few rules we could all live by. I started by explaining that I was on a mission to make sure everyone respected everyone else, and I asked them if they were okay with adopting “respect” as a class rule. They all agreed.

Once a respect rule was established, the rest was easy. We brainstormed a list of many ways respect showed up in classrooms, condensed them down to a few, posted these, and everyone signed it:

Ways to uphold our class agreement:

• Use kind words and be kind to others
• Use voice levels 0, 1, or 2 (as instructed)
• Honor the speaker
• Take care of yourself
• Take care of the community
• Focus

Y-chart of respect
Early in the year, we created a Y-chart about respectful behavior, describing what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like, and we included examples of specific respectful behaviors.

Respect
Feels like: calm, good, safe, happy, appropriate

Sounds like: letting the teacher talk without interrupting, soft voice levels, kind words, e.g. Have a good day. Thank you. You are really good at… Do you think you could help me…

Looks like: raising hands, kids listening, honoring the speaker, working together, studying hard, giving out hugs, being nice

Effective teacher language
I use specific reinforcing language when things are going well. To reinforce respectful acts, I sometimes highlight students who are being respectful by noticing it out loud. For example, if De Vonn holds the door for another student, I say, “De Vonn, thanks for holding the door.” When the class lines up according to our routine, I might say, “I notice we’re lining up quickly and quietly.” This brings students’ attention to each other’s respectful behavior. Each time we check in at the end of the day to celebrate the day’s good things, students have examples of respect they’ve seen during that day.

The social worker helps
I asked our social worker to help once a week by teaching my group a social skills lesson. It’s been great working closely with a colleague to improve the overall health of our community. Topics have included respect, anti-bullying, peaceful conflict resolution, and so on. She has helped the group examine bullying and its effects, and her visits have resulted in increased awareness. Here’s a chart she helped the students create:

Bullying
Hurts someone
Often happens over and over
Is not appropriate
Involves doing or saying something that other people don’t like
Is rude and disrespectful
Is a bad thing to do
Is unacceptable
Using hands or feet to hurt someone
Gossiping/talking behind someone’s back is a form of bullying
Touching can be bullying
Touching private parts is definitely bullying

Word Bullying
Calling names
Inappropriate words
Doesn’t stop when asked

Friendship Bullying
Acting mean or tough
Threatening someone, even if you’re just playing, is bullying
Spreading rumors about your friends is bullying.

We have this chart posted in our room, and I refer to it whenever I see behavior that could lead to bullying, and also sometimes just as a reminder that we are working to eliminate bullying. One of the points I’ve been making is that bullying breaks our respect rule.

Surveys document growth
In September and again in November, I gave everyone a thirteen-item survey about the frequency with which they behaved respectfully and were treated respectfully by others in a variety of situations and contexts. Each question was framed so that “never” answers indicated “I never show/feel respect in this situation,” “sometimes” meant “I sometimes show/feel respect in this situation,” and “almost always” answers indicated, “I almost always show/feel respect in this situation.” By comparing the September-November data, the group expressed improvement on 12 of 13 questions. Their “never” answers decreased from 15 to 4, their “sometimes” answers decreased from 107 to 89, and their “almost always” answers increased from 118 to 147.

Interviews report less bullying, more respect I interviewed five students in September and the same five again in November. Over and over, students mentioned that the group’s behavior was improving. All agreed there was less bullying, disrespect, and name-calling. More helping of others, more and better apologies, more forgiveness, more hugs, and more high-fives were also mentioned by multiple students.

I have shared these results with my students. We all feel our hard work is paying off. Each day they comment about who is showing respect to whom. Fewer and fewer students are mentioning disrespectful behavior, and I believe that is because disrespectful behavior is on the decline.

My efforts to keep it positive and work pro-actively to prevent disrespectful behavior are paying off! Even those students who last year were the most disrespectful have dramatically changed their ways. Students are starting to change their attitudes toward one another. It is great to know that we have come this far this quickly, and I’m looking forward to even greater improvements as the year goes on.

Jennifer Bauer currently teaches 5th graders at Stonebridge Community School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.