Healthy Learning Environment

Inclusive

To all students

Regardless of background (SES, race, class, etc.)

Environment that all students feel safe

Must be willing to make changes if a child does not feel it's inclusive to them

Can ask students what they are or are not comfortable with

Believe that all students are capable of learning

Focus on one's ability rather than a disability

Family

Understand that the family plays a role in how the child may come to school

If child is coming to school dysregulated, worth having a conversation with the family to see if extra supports are needed

Beneficial to build a relationship with their families as well in order to have open, honest communication about their child

Brofenbrenner's Ecological model

Explains how the individual is part of larger systems that influence the student's life and overall development

These interact on various levels including: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem

Self-Reg

We cannot come to the classroom dysregulated, or have a dysregulated classroom

5 steps include:

Reframe

Recognize

Reduce the stress

Reflect

Respond

Understanding how to keep yourself and students regulated contributes to a healthy and organized environment. A regulated classroom is a peaceful setting for all involved

Mental Health Literate

Need to know basics

How to respond to children if they are struggling

Know the signs to keep an eye out for

Ability in the classroom

Changes in mood

Frequency

Duration

Mental health strategies

Teach students what mental health is. It's not something that is your fault

Yoga, meditation, breathing exercises

Having these coping mechanisms from a young age can help build resiliency for children when they are faced with adversity

Speak to your class in positive terms about mental health to help foster a more open-minded view of mental illness and those that suffer from one

Stress

Stress plays an important role in how well a student is able to function in the classroom. Stress can be good, but if it's long lasting then this can interfere with the students' learning ability.

Stress is energy consuming. If a child is experiencing chronic stress, this can be detrimental to their learning experiences in the classroom and can also have long-term impacts on their overall health

We all need time for relaxation and restoration, or self reg more generally

Students may freeze when told what to do, but this is not compliance. If this happens, the students needs to come down from this state in order to re-enter the classroom and be successful

Need to think about why the stress is happening for the student, rather than focusing on the behaviour at the surface.

Plasticity

Children demonstrate high levels of plasticity when they are younger. This means that they can adapt to adversity quickly and mold to their environment.

Important to remember because if they are a 'bad' kid, they may just need more support or resources available to them

Valuable not to judge based on what you've heard from past teachers. Form your own opinion because kids can change if you're willing to help them through the process.

Focus on what the child can do, not what they can't

Relationships

Teacher/student relationships are crucial in developing a healthy learning environment for all students

Helps foster a positive relationship with learning

Positive relationships with other students also helps students to feel safe and included in the classroom

Feel they can be authentically themselves

Feedback Loops

Highly engaged behaviours -> increased enjoyment -> increased engagement

Disengaged behaviours -> decreased attainment -> student less engaged

Need to be willing to help students that struggle with disengagement. Figure out what works for each student and be patient

It's easy to focus on the engaged, 'good' students, but there needs to be attention paid to those disengaged students in order to help them learn in whichever way they need

Blue brain/Red brain

Blue brain is the neocortex where learning and thinking occurs. If children are not in the blue brain, or dysregulated, then they are not fully able to activate this portion of the brain which interferes with their learning and classroom experience

Red brain is the limbic centre. When this is activated, the child is not able to learn because they could be in fight-fight or freeze mode. When this happens, we should allow the child to de-escalate until they are able to re-enter their blue brain state.

The amygdala sends signals to the child if the situation they are in are safe or unsafe. You learn from your experiences and use this information to determine what to expect in a given scenario

Need to build relationships with students to figure out how to help children when they are in their red brain. This will not be the same method for each student, but if there is a pre-existing relationship, this may be easier to get the student regulated again.

Routines

Routines help children make the transition to new classes

It helps them know what to expect each day when entering the classroom

Provides a sense of security and stability

Make their environments more predictable without chaos or confusion

We should all have one thing that we do to signal the beginning or end of the day. This helps students to understand what is expected of them at any given moment

For example, start the day with a song and end the day with discussing something they've learned

Thayer Matrix

Energy versus tension matrix

For optimal performance, we need to have students with good energy and low tension. While this is not a guarantee, we need to be willing to learn how to help each student get into that ideal spot on the matrix should they become dysregulated

Low energy and high tension is precarious. When this happens we need to restore students energy

If a child continuously comes to class exhausted, we need to investigate why that may be the case. Allow them to sleep if this is what the child requires to boost their energy