Reading, Writing, and Community: How Educators Can Help Students Thrive

It is especially important in education for students to have a sense of belonging as they try to build self-confidence, develop friendships, and learn how to succeed in life.

Research has shown that students who feel like they belong experience numerous positive outcomes. Among those: They’re more likely to be engaged, confident, and successful academically. The connections that bring a sense of belonging come in many forms in classroom and campus settings, and Dr. Tracee Perryman (https://doctor-p.com/), author of Elevating Futures: A Model For Empowering Black Elementary Student Success, says it’s incumbent upon education leaders to foster that sense of belonging.

“We must lead our children in building a positive social climate for themselves, teaching them how to recognize and build empathy in their peers, how to make their peers feel affirmed when they’re down, and how to be proactive,” Perryman says.

“As an educator, you have the opportunity to model and discuss how to do that with your students. Ask your students, ‘If you see a student sitting alone in the cafeteria, what can you do about it? How can you make somebody’s day better?’ It is important to build that awareness early and affirm them for managing themselves, managing their classrooms, and being an integral part of creating a positive environment.”

While Dr. Perryman’s education program is tailored to Black students’ particular needs in order to foster their sense of inclusion and belonging, her principles can have a positive impact on all students. She offers the following ways for school leaders to foster that feeling among their students:

• Avoid harsh discipline that isolates students. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that students’ sense of connectedness to their school environment is lower in schools that employ harsh and punitive discipline than in schools that encourage a climate of caring and supportive interpersonal relationships and give students a voice in decision-making. That report also revealed that those schools where students felt more supported and connected had significantly lower drug use and delinquency.

“We should be fostering a unified positive classroom and school environment from the beginning,” Dr. Perryman says, “rather than waiting on a child to do something wrong and then attempting to teach the positive alternative through discipline.”

• Encourage group affiliation. “A sense of group affiliation allows children who are struggling and unable to hit certain benchmarks individually to experience a sense of accomplishment as part of a group,” Dr. Perryman says. That group sense of accomplishment, she says, promotes student buy-in to academics because they know that they can make a contribution as a member of a team. “A student who is not motivated to try to do their best on a test because they know they won’t be able to score high may be motivated to do their best if they know it will improve their group’s overall score.”
• Present a unifying message – through music and dance. “Music and dance are activities that connect students not only to one another, but also to their families and the community at large,” Dr. Perryman says. Students identify with lyrics that send a positive message of unity and joy, she adds, and singing and dancing together strengthens their bonds and their pride in their community.
• Lead children in the expression of daily affirmations. Dr. Perryman says this is an effective way to provide students with the skills to develop their empathy for others and a sense of responsibility for the greater good. “Lead children with statements tied to thinking of others,” she said, “such as, ‘I can help make someone’s day better by…’ and they fill in the blank.”
• Focus on the words “harmony” and “family.” Dr. Perryman says a sense of belonging is developed by focusing on the concepts of family and harmony. She says teachers should write the words on the board and discuss each, prompting responses from the class with questions such as: “Have you heard of the word harmony? Can you put it in a sentence? What does it mean to have harmony? What does family mean to you? Do you feel harmony with your family?”

“Fostering a sense of belonging starts with school leaders making sure they have an inclusive environment – one that encourages students and empowers them to help their fellow students, to lift each other,” Dr. Perryman says. “In doing so they will see that everything doesn’t have to come from the top down; that individually and collectively they can contribute to their circle.”

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