Why we should build a helping culture in the classroom
“The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others”
Albert Schweitzer
The problem with classroom rules
I had various classroom rules, but none of them worked. “No fighting”, “No disruptive behaviour”, “Be respectful”, “Listen when the teacher is talking”, “ABC rule”, “CCC rule”, and so many more that I can never remember of them. We printed the rules on big A3-size paper and put them on the walls, but nobody seemed to care about them. I tried empowering the students to create class rules, but it did not work either. So, I always had two questions. First is “Why do rules not work?” and the second is “If rules do not work, then what works?”.
One of the reasons why rules do not work for me is there are just too many. Teachers make an average of 1,500 daily decisions (Klein, 2021). On top of these hundreds of decisions, I must consider the consequences when the students break the rules. And very often, it is difficult to think of the best consequences for them. If they argue back, do I send them to the principal office? What if the principal is not free? Do I call the parents? What about the other three students who are not listening to me? And I am in the middle of explaining a concept while trying to make the right decision.
The problem with having too many rules is it makes the students think we do not trust and value them. How would we feel when our school leaders regularly tell us, “Don’t be late for work”; “Don’t forget to explain your concepts clearly”; “Can I look at your lesson plan?”. Just as we would feel our school leaders micromanage us, our students would feel the same way.
One rule — “Help one another”
Nine years ago, I discovered a simple and powerful strategy that could manage the class well and motivate the students to learn. I called it the “Helping one another” rule. I devised the strategies from readings and observing effective teachers in the school.
“Helping others is the way we help ourselves.”
(Oprah Winfrey)
Whenever I observe how effective teachers manage their classes, I notice they invest time in class to build trust and students’ self-efficacy. The most common trait about motivated classes is that there is obvious evidence of students’ empowerment and agency.
The “Help one another” rule aims to build a helping culture in the class. Hence, the rule is not just a class rule but a vision the whole class is working towards. The vision is to build a positive classroom culture in which everyone is helping one another regardless of their starting point because we want to prove to everyone that they each have strengths and can contribute to the betterment of the class.
The vision is at the end of each class; I have much evidence to tell the class, “I am proud of you because everyone is helping one another”. That produces positive energy, and positive energy begets positive energy.
“Help one another” is also a principle that guides me in thinking about what consequences to give. Whenever there is a discipline issue or problem in the class, I do not have to think of whether to call the parents or the discipline master. I think of how I can get the student to help other people. For example, when a student is not listening to the instructions, I will quickly tell him, “I am not going to waste everybody’s time repeating the instructions to you again. Your job is to find out what the instruction is, and as a consequence of not respecting me, you have to help at least one classmate in the practice and report to me.” And that would give me many opportunities to praise that student at the end of the lesson.
A helping culture also follows these two principles of learning:
- Learning is a social, active process
- Learning is emotional
Learning is a social, active process
“People are social beings and want interaction, and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising.”
(Covey, 2013)
In the year I came up with the rule, I had enough of “fire-fighting”. Not only do I have to go around the sports hall to remind students to focus on their practice, but I also have to go around to remind them of the learning cues. Experienced teachers would agree that it is difficult for the students to remind themselves of the learning cues and practice simultaneously. It is easier for the teacher to stand beside the students and remind them. How do you stand beside each of the forty students during a one-hour lesson?
Instead of getting frustrated with the students not achieving the learning outcome, I decided to tell the students to help one another. I told them, “There is no way you will learn backhand serve in one lesson without anyone to support you. I want you to get in pairs; one be the coach, the other practice serving the shuttlecock as many times as possible”. I was pleasantly surprised to see the speed of improvement the students had. After ten minutes, I could see almost all the students able to do backhand serve well.
“Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.”
(Carnegie, 2016)
In neuroscience, there are two types of learning systems in our brain — declarative and procedural learning systems (Whitworth, 2023). Declarative learning is the explicit learning of the information. In this case, the peer coaches repeat the learning cues to their partners. Procedural learning is implicit learning of the skills, which, in this case, practises the service. Students either use the declarative system or the procedural system to learn. They cannot use both systems simultaneously, although they can switch between each system simultaneously. But it is difficult, especially when they are novices.
When students focus on teaching, they only use the declarative system, reminding their friends and themselves of the learning cues or concepts. When practising, they just need to listen for feedback and practice until they achieve the learning outcome. They were not distracted by the other learning system because they only used one learning system at a time. In the book The Inner Game of Tennis, Gallwey (2010) explained that during practice, there is a tension between our conscious (declarative system) and unconscious (procedural system) mind.
The more we try to repeat the learning cues during the serve, the higher the chances we will make a bad serve. When I asked the students to focus on one task (teaching or practising), they had a higher success rate. Higher individual success leads to better classroom discipline because everyone is engaged.
Ever since I saw the power of peer coaching, I started entering the class, looking at the students as my assistant teachers. And students like to be empowered to help their friends. That makes the rule even more effortless to administer. Social learning theory states that humans learn socially, not just intellectually (Bandura, 1977).
For example, I once had to relieve a class I had never taught. Before I entered the classroom, my colleagues told me to beware of 6 students who often defy teachers’ instructions. Using the “help one another rule”, I started the class by telling them “, I heard there are many students in this class who are good at sports. The lesson today is not going to be easy. I need your help.” After that, I split the class into six groups and asked the six “defiant” students to be the coaches of their groups. I gave the learning cues to the coaches and asked them to lead the class while I went around the class to assess the learning.
To my surprise, that was one of the best experiences in my career because the peer coaches were so motivated to help their friends.
Students are defiant because they hardly receive positive affirmation from anyone (Levings, 2020). “Selecting” these students to be the coaches might be one of the few positive affirmations and trust given to them in their lives.
Learning is emotional
“There is no separation of mind and emotion; emotions, thinking, and learning are all linked”
(Jensen & McConchie, 2020)
I use the same approach as the teacher in charge of the school’s water polo club. Every day, I remind the students to help one another because empowering every student to help one another is more efficient than waiting for me to give the instruction.
Once, I had to make a marketing video for the water polo club. I wanted to make a video of students saying what they like about joining the club. One by one, the students share the highlights of every training. Interestingly, most students talked about one thing — They enjoyed going to training because their teammates were always helping them!
That video left a deep impression on me. I often felt guilty about pushing the students to encourage one another to work hard and not giving them time to enjoy bonding. Self-determination theory states that three factors, autonomy, competence, and relatedness, increase the intrinsic motivation to learn (Cherry, 2022b). Empowering the students to help one another satisfies the three factors.
“When students feel safe and supported, they are truly ready and able to learn”
(Weaver & Wilding, 2013)
In one of the school collaborations, where we inquired about using inquiry-based learning (IBL) in the classroom, we asked the students to think about possible learning cues in badminton. When working in pairs, we notice that students are more confident contributing learning cues and ideas. When we asked the students, they said they felt satisfied while helping their classmates. As such, they are motivated to think of possible cues so that they can guide.
“Everyone can be great because everyone can serve.”
(Martin Luther King Jr.)
There are two explanations for their increase in motivation. Firstly, students derive intense intrinsic satisfaction from helping others (Elias, 2018). Secondly, looking at how their partner is hitting serves as a visual demonstration to scaffold their discussion (University of San Diego, n.d.). Therefore, a helping culture also encourages collaborative learning among the students.
To motivate them to help one another, the students must also feel safe. If they are always making mistakes, their classmates might constantly give feedback, which can be demoralising. The challenge of the task should match the student’s skills. One advantage of having a helping culture is that every student is responsible for their friends learning. If they see that their friend cannot achieve much success, they must work together to modify the task to make it achievable for everyone.
When challenges and skills match, the students can attain optimal experience in practising the skill (Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). And students will find the joy of learning. The joy of learning leads to a high engagement level, plus the fact that everyone is helping one another gives the teacher more reasons to praise the class!
Conclusion
“It is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is.”
(Pablo Ruiz Picasso)
To build a helping culture, we have to motivate the students to do it. Not just encourage. When we encourage them, we give them the impression that they have a choice. When we motivate, we tell them this is a vision we will achieve together. “Because it takes a village to raise a child, and we are the village”, and “I cannot help each of you because we only have one hour, and everyone has different needs.
Explaining the why is an excellent way to motivate the students to work together. As Sinek (2011) shares in his book Start with WHY, the WHY is their reason for being, and the WHY is why anyone should care. It is not easy to tell the students that learning is social, but it is easy to explain to them that everyone needs help and everyone can help.
A famous short story about Dr Howard Kelly talks about how kindness begets kindness. Whenever I began encouraging the whole class to help one another, only a few students would have the courage to help their friends. But because they want to return the favour, they help their friends in ways. After they help their friends, they become more confident in that topic, so they help other classmates. And other classmates started to help back.
When the mission of every lesson is to develop the culture, it creates a ripple effect that everyone starts to be kind to one another. When some students are kind, they inspire others to be kind, creating a ripple effect that spreads outwards. Touching others’ lives and inspiring kindness everywhere the wave goes (Allen, 2020).
Reference
Allen, B. (2020, May 1). Kindness is a Ripple Effect. BBJFamilyFoundation. https://www.barbarabarringtonjones.org/single-post/kindness-is-a-ripple-effect#:~:text=When%20we%20are%20KIND%2C%20we,kindness%20everywhere%20the%20wave%20goes.
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