Elizabeth Footit Simon: So Carrie Ann, what does “conveys” mean?

Student: “Conveys” means how he shows.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Awesome, and speaking of showing, we’re going to talk about how you plan on showing your community commitments today.

Arria Coburn: Because we have community commitments at our school, we’re really pushing our students to be their best selves, because in addition to the academic achievement that we want our students to reach, they also have a foundation for character development.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: What community commitments do we need to show?

Arria Coburn: At Springfield Renaissance, we are preparing our students to be contributors to the world when they graduate, and while they’re here at the school. If you step into any classroom, you’re going to see an intentional focus on character development, so you’re going to see the community commitment.

Teacher: We chose responsibility and courage for the character traits today.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Our school has identified these seven character traits that we think strong citizens should possess. Respect, responsibility, friendship, courage, self-discipline, perseverance and cultural sensitivity. Those are the community commitments.

Teacher: We can have the courage to take the responsibility, to take the information that we learn in school and try to apply that into our own lives.

Arria Coburn: The community commitments allow students to get involved in the class, because they’re supported by this community of respect and friendship.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: How do we plan on showing our community commitments?

I like to let the students pick which community commitments they think are going to need to be used during a lesson.

Marelise?

Marelise: Responsibility.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Responsibility.

I’ll oftentimes give them a write up of what we’re doing today, and then you tell me which community commitments you need to show in order to succeed.

Alyssa.

Alyssa: Friendship.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Friendship, this is a super important one for today’s lesson.

They’ll say, you know, “I think I’m going to be working with somebody so I need to show friendship.” And from there, I ask them, “Well, what does it look like, what does it sound like to show friendship today?” It’s so important to ask students, to help them understand what your expectations are.

Kevin.

Kevin: If you’re disagreeing with someone, you can be kind about it and not be rude.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: So often, teachers are like, okay, you need to show X, Y and Z, but students are left trying to figure out, well, what does she want me to–? What is– what am I actually supposed to do?

How are we going to show perseverance in using up that entire time?

Nyasia?

Nyasia: We want to add more an revise more.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: So we want to make sure we’re going back and adding. Questions? All right, let’s begin.

Nyasia: They help us learn because it keeps us in a very safe environment, a more kindly, friendly environment, so we can all learn. We all use each other as our learning tools.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Let’s take a second to go back to our community commitment.

Student: You were showing respect, because you were listening to me whenever I was talking although it took up a little time, finally.

Arria Coburn: Community commitment exists to remind students of, here are seven character traits that will allow you to be successful within our school community.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: Alyssa.

Alyssa: She gave me some cool feedback. She said that maybe I could like, add less details and get where I’m trying to get to.

Elizabeth Footit Simon: I personally love the community commitments. That’s my favorite part of teaching at Renaissance specifically, because I think it just makes character building so real.

Nyasia: She wasn’t being rude, but she was telling her respectfully.

Schools That Work

The Springfield Renaissance School