Resolve to Create a Safe and Brave Space for Students

We are thrilled to feature the important voices and work of the many organizations and individuals that make up the Massachusetts Civic Learning Coalition on our blog. This post was written by Elizabeth Carroll, New England Program Director with Facing History and Ourselves, an MCLC founding member.

January is a time for new beginnings. But as the pandemic rages on through an already-challenging school year, how can teachers introduce the energy of a fresh start? This January, try contracting, or re-contracting, in your classroom.

At Facing History and Ourselves, we often talk about the need to create a learning environment that is both safe and brave. Classrooms must be inclusive spaces where students can reflect, explore their identities, and connect who they are to what they are learning in a community that nurtures a sense of belonging. Only when that fundamental safety exists can we expect young people to engage courageously in discussions and learning that may push them out of their comfort zones.

So, how can teachers foster this type of culture in their classrooms? We at Facing History always begin with the foundational strategy of contracting: discussing and agreeing upon shared expectations for how students and their teacher will interact with one another.

This process is often incorporated into the beginning of a new school year. Indeed, it is a central focus of our Back to School toolkit. But January is actually a wonderful time to revisit or even introduce contracting for the first time, if you have not already done so. Just as people set new intentions for 2022, you can ground the second half of the school year in a common understanding of how you will engage with one another in your classroom.

If you have not contracted yet, one advantage of beginning the process now is that you have gotten to know your students, and they have gotten to know you and one another. Hopefully you have built trust through the fall that can support an authentic contracting process. If you did a version of contracting at the beginning of the fall, now is the perfect time to revisit that.

A classroom contract should always be a living document, a set of norms that you constantly come back to and check in with. As the year goes on, you may use the contract to prepare for engaging with a particularly difficult topic in class discussion. And you may add or change agreements in the contract as you learn together about what will support that safe, brave classroom space.

When we at Facing History prepare to introduce contracting with a group of educators, we often start by sharing Beth Strano’s Untitled Poem:

There is no such thing as a “safe space” —
We exist in the real world.
We all carry scars and have caused wounds.
This space
seeks to turn down the volume of the world outside,
and amplify voices that have to fight to be heard elsewhere,
This space will not be perfect.
It will not always be what we wish it to be
But
It will be our space together,
and we will work on it side by side.

After reading the poem, we invite people to share one word or phrase that sticks out to them. As you read the poem, what word or phrase sticks out to you, and why?

We then share our own suggested list of norms, inviting people to suggest additions to the list. Offering a list of suggestions is one way to go about contracting. Here are the expectations, or norms, that our Facing History New England program team tends to share as a starting place:

       ●          Listen with intention

       ●          Be reflective and curious

       ●          Challenge the idea and not the person

       ●          Share talking time

       ●          Avoid generalizations (use “I” statements)

       ●          Affirm others

       ●          Be honest and thoughtful

       ●          Acknowledge intention and take responsibility for impact

Another approach you can take with your students would be to co-create the list of norms together, asking them to generate the ideas. And if there are any norms you believe should be reflected in some way, offer those as suggestions in the course of the co-creation process.

Find more ideas for how to structure your classroom contracting through this teaching strategy and classroom video of a middle school teacher leading his class through a contracting process.

However you decide to approach contracting, or re-contracting, you can use this interactive process to galvanize your class’s sense of cohesion and commitment to being a strong, safe and brave community in these uncertain times. With your classroom contract in place, you can feel prepared to support your students in approaching any number of challenging topics, such as the first anniversary of the Capitol Insurrection and other current events.

Find more ideas for fostering civil discourse in this blog post: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter?