A Positive, Challenging Learning Environment Provides Success for All Students

by Stacie Atliff
This  was first published on lifecoachforteachers.blogspot.com

In my first few years of teaching, it has become very clear to me that creating a positive and inviting environment is half the battle. While content and learning strategies tend to become the main goals, it is vital to realize these goals are more likely to be met when taught in a classroom where students feel safe. A place where students feel encouraged and independent too. After all, isn’t that also part of the learning process? 

            After taking my first initial high school job as a special educator, I quickly realized that the approaches that had worked with my middle school self-contained classes were not going to provide what was needed to encourage my high school students in a co-taught environment. Before, my reward system was a fairly successful tool that encouraged positive behavior. Now, I’m looking at students who are aware they are labeled “special ed” and aren’t as easy to encourage with stamps and small prizes. 

            Can positive rewards still encourage the students I currently teach? Absolutely. I continue to search for new tactics to implement, such as earning classroom roles or rewards chosen by students. But when is working for free time and other rewards not enough? When will we stop devaluing the feeling that comes from raw success?

            This shift in thinking hit me like a freight train a few months into the school year when one of my students came up to me after class. He couldn’t contain his excitement as he told me he earned a B on a chapter test. Of course I already knew his score, but I let him have the excitement of telling me – excitement rarely seen from this particular student. The best part, however, is that I had proof that he actually put forth effort and got on our classroom app to study. In that moment, his excitement was from pure success. He wasn’t getting a “reward.” Instead, he had been rewarded with one of the best test grades he’d likely received in a long time. I wanted to bottle up his feelings as proof for future hard work because, this time, he didn’t guess for a B. He worked hard for that grade and he knew he had earned it.

Like too many other students, I realized, he hasn’t tasted enough success that comes from hard work and effort. This student, like so many others, comes to class with baggage that would weigh anybody down and create a lack of self-confidence. In the eyes of these students, failure is glaring right back at them because they have seen so many things go wrong. Isn’t it our responsibility to help them see things a different way? Are we helping them if we do not do what we can to help them actually feel success and use it as a motivational tool? From respecting authority and rules to passing a challenging class, writing a research paper, or being a good friend at the right time, students can feel success in various forms, both big and small with a little help and support. 

Often times, these students are not praised or encouraged at home and may not know how good it can feel to do the right thing. Although they may not act like it, many of them are dying to form relationships and have somebody believe in them – even if they don’t know it yet. How can students aim for success when they have never achieved it from their own hard work? The solution seems simple, but the path to get there is far from that. Like most questions in the education world, there is not any one right answer but rather a list of strategies that will continue to grow and change. Regardless of the method, it seems that students are desperate at a chance to learn what success is for them and an opportunity to grow from this realization. 

In addition to the positive reward systems or tactics used in the classroom, I want to incorporate a system of determination and respect – for others and oneself. A determination that can be strengthened by helping students achieve success inside and outside of the classroom.  A new type of feeling – that hard work doesn’t have to impede the positive learning environment. Instead, classrooms can become a place where hard work is a positive in the eyes of the students because achieving success is a reward that is more than worthy. It may not help them all, but feeling success from their own hard work is something every student deserves to experience at least once on their journey. Who knows, they may even start to like it.