What are the values in a positive classroom culture?

​I am incredibly excited for today’s post and the related freebie I’m giving to you! Today, I’m sharing more about building a thriving classroom culture and what tools, language, and activities you can use to do so. 

As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, “5 secrets to ‘Classroom Management’: Part 1,” I highly recommend using the amazing Values in Action website to help you foster a positive culture in your classroom. Here’s why…
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1. It provides concrete language. Sometimes it can be hard to have students (or even teachers) generate a list of core values for the class. These research-based values give students a chance to learn a wide range of values beyond the basics they typically share (i.e., respect). 
2. It includes character building activities. For each value, the website shares ways to practice the value and offers questions for reflection! 
3. It’s strengths-focused, not deficit-focused. The site is developed from positive psychology research, so the emphasis is on the positive characteristics and values students can exemplify, rather than the things they need to stop doing.
4. It helps students self-assess and build their understanding of themselves. The site has a “survey,” which helps students identify their greatest character strengths. The results are framed positively, all as a list of strengths, with the ones at the top being strongest at the moment, and the ones towards the bottom not being fully realized yet.  
5. The values make awesome wall decor. The freebie I created uses the images from the old version of the website (which is more colorful) and the text (the values) is color-coded based on the categories in which the values are organized. It’s a great reference point for students as you practice and talk about the values, but also if a student is zoning out, having them see the value posters and daydream about those is better than daydreaming about something else. 

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So, at the start of the year, I posted the values on my wall and asked students to take the survey to identify their strongest character strengths. I also used the activities from the site (or made my own) to do a 5 minute Do Now or bellringer activity to start class. This was a way to make sure we didn’t just leave the values on the wall and forget about them the rest of the year. We would also have class appreciation activities in which we would each verbally or in writing share something we appreciated about others in the class, and these values were a great tool to help students concretely identify strengths in their peers.
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Definitely take some time to go to the Values in Action site, and check out what they offer. In the meantime, I want to give you a freebie that I used as wall decor. It helped my class foster a positive culture for learning and it helped me remember this work of character and culture building is just as important as the content I taught. 

Click the button below to download the freebie now! 
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Get the Value Posters Freebie!

​If you know of other teachers who may use this, send them the link to this blog post. Several of my colleagues and I used the same posters in each of our rooms, and it was helpful for multiple grades and subject areas in the school to be familiar with the same strengths-based values language. 

The values in my (& my amazing colleague Kholood's) classroom!

Keep building that positive classroom climate! You and your students will thrive. Don’t forget to think big, act brave, and be your best self. 
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