Student Leadership 15
Exploring the “Class Meeting” idea for Leadership Development.
The purposes of a Class Meeting include:
– Broadening the horizons of young people by considering issues beyond themselves
– Developing good character during interactions with others
– Developing skills of listening, thinking, speaking and understanding
– Making thoughtful contributions in both discussion and action to contemporary issues within the classroom, the school and beyond.
Class Meeting Discussions might include things like:
How might we make changes in our school to ensure a better environment?
How might we develop better hospitality for parents and visitors in our classroom and our school?
What should our attitude and relationship be to leaders in our community?
In what ways can we make everyone feel included in our class and school community?
How can we serve and support people who are experiencing difficulty?
Facilitating Discussion in Class Meetings
Provide lots of ways to express and acknowledge each other’s comments, beliefs, ideas and contributions; these can be displayed around the room.
– That was a good idea because…
– Thanks for sharing your thoughts
– Why do you think that?
– Can you tell us more about that?
– How did you come to think that way?
– Why is that of interest to you?
– Have you had personal experience?
– Why do you think this issue is important?
– So you are saying….
– So you believe….
– Building on the last point
– Might it work better if….
Ideas to encourage respectful participation:
– Children may have a card with their name written on one side. At the start of the meeting all the names are facing down and when a child would like to contribute, they turn their card displaying their name to the chairperson
– An item is passed around the circle; when it reaches each person, they decide whether to comment, or pass the object to the next person.
– Children simply put their hand up
– Children may stand up when they wish to speak
– Any system that the teacher and children find is fair
– The Chairperson has the responsibility of regulating and choosing who is speaking
Let’s add some more thought to this concept next week
Blessings
Brian