Why care about classroom culture of hospitality?

K-12 teachers lead the way in creating hospitable classrooms. While I know some college professors who create great classroom vibes (professionally referred to as “classroom culture”), our K12 peers know armies of classroom culture curators. Hospitality is in the details. Why should we care about creating a hospitable classroom? According to author Parker Palmer, it’s for our own good:

Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest. The concept of hospitality arose in ancient times when this reciprocity was easier to see: in nomadic cultures, the food and shelter one gave to a stranger yesterday is the food and shelter one hopes to receive from a stranger tomorrow. By offering hospitality, one participates in the endless reweaving of a social fabric on which all can depend – thus the gift of sustenance for the guest becomes a gift of hope for the host. It is that way in teaching as well: the teacher’s hospitality to the student results in a world more hospitable to the teacher.

[Amazon Affiliate Link] The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer (page 51)

Developing Your Classroom Culture

“… the gift of hope for the host,” that’s us teacher friends. How powerful is the idea of the gift of hope? I began to read The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life after hearing Parker Palmer referenced in my favorite podcast, That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs and the passages on teaching and hospitality stood out from the rest.

Part of my job includes serving as an adviser, so as one who hangs out with college students in our campus ministry , teaches them, and works with them directly on class selection, I hear a lot about classroom environments – the vibe of the room and the nature of the instructor.

So many believe students are all out looking for the easy grading teacher, but y’all that isn’t what my students are searching for. Instead, when I ask about their classroom preferences, I hear more about their desire to be engaged, challenged, and included. What they share comes down to a desire for hospitality.

Breaking Down the Definition of Hospitality

The dictionary defines hospitality as “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” There are several parts to the definition, so let’s get started!

Friendly

First, friendly. As a Kentuckian, I see the fruits of southern hospitality frequently. Crafting warm and inviting environments is a fine art in our world. In the classroom, we can easily create a friendly environment with simple shifts in our focus. These two tips start a great transition to your classroom culture!

• Learn the name of each student: Depending on your school structure this can be a challenge. Five years ago, or so, I attended a leadership academy at which the speaker told us the value of learning people’s names. Someone asked the question I was thinking, “what if we aren’t good at remembering names?” The speaker responded with brutal honesty, “if you really care as you say you do… you can learn their names.” Yikes! The room went quiet (lost the friendly vibe pretty instantly with that response) but, it certainly emphasized the value of learning the names of the people we lead – be it employees or students. For those with several hundred students each year (or each semester), do your best! I tell my students my goal of learning everyone’s name by week three so they can help me. I explain I meet 200 people each semester and I try really hard, so empathy and encouragement help! Then I make it a game – if the entire class can get a 95% or higher on a “Name Your Classmate” quiz we will celebrate – either with pizza or bonus points or a potluck! Building community isn’t just our responsibility as teachers, it is a shared one and we can lead the way!
• Celebrate! We rush a lot these days. I can see people at college graduations rushing to get through the ceremony for all that is to come. Practice soaking in the moments of celebration; ask students to share high points of their day/week. When a test average is high – celebrate it! If a student gets a new job, cheer! Our concern for students can (and in my opinion should) extend beyond the classroom and into their daily lives. Have confetti poppers in your classroom! The mess is minimal, the joy is grand.

Generous Reception

Second, generous reception. Each class session is a fresh start. Our students need a lot of fresh starts (guess what, so do we as teachers)! Building a classroom culture around the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you) by modeling simple actions impact people more than we may recognize.

• Grace: In the syllabus I refer to the term “Gracious Professionalism” from FIRST Robotics. Ultimately, the term means our individual outcomes rise when we do better at working together. Winning at a FIRST robotics competition should come only because you were the best team of the day and not at the expense of another team’s shortcomings. In using the term grace and gracious professionalism in the syllabus, we discuss how those terms are practical for a classroom. We talk about mistakes, apologies, and new days. When a student walks into a grace-centered classroom, walls crumble and engagement really takes hold. Since adding the conversation about grace, plagiarism has dropped. Instead of filling a paper with plagiarized work, the student comes to my office for a conversation, an apology, and asks for a new day. I dig it. I love seeing students grow in responsibility and personal accountability because they know grace is available. Be generous with grace.
• Time, Space, and Sharing Reality: Allowing time at the beginning of the day/class for a check-in goes a long way. It may feel like a “waste” of class time, but often I see students needing to defuse after a hard class or share about a frustration use the time to release and refocus for what we will do in our class session. I’ve modeled this behavior in class, too. After a long and frustrating meeting, my brain would not focus on the class at hand and students could feel the vibe was off. I had to make a choice to either clue them in or try and fake my way out of it. I can argue against my own decision to clue them in, but you know what? It worked out really well. We were several weeks into the semester, as a class we had already shared in some community building conversations, and those students came together to pour into a really valuable class session when I didn’t have it in me – grace is a two-way street. You can also find a snack drawer in my office – students know about it – I get frequent visitors. Be generous with time, space, and sharing (of life and snacks).

Entertainment

Third, entertainment. Not everyone will buy-in to this part of the definition of classroom hospitality – especially my college peers. My college music appreciation teacher strolled into class on the first day and said something to the sorts of (it was 10+ years ago so paraphrasing ), “I believe in the responsibility of Edutainment. If you are bored, I’m not doing my job because these subjects are far from boring. If you are bored, throw a pencil at me or boo – let me know to step it up.” Edutainment.

Now, I don’t go so far as to offer projectiles thrown in my general direction or verbal harassment, but I get the core of his statement. He didn’t fail us. All semester, our 8 am music class would be filled with excitable lectures, group activities, and hands-on projects. He took pressure off of learning, yet our respect for his effort led us to lean-in more. There are so many different strategies to creating entertainment in the classroom and we need to do the hard work of identifying what works for us. If you can create engaging group activities – do that. If you lead small group discussions of the century – do that. We don’t have to use ALL the tools in the teaching tool box, but we do need to find what works with our subject, personality, and student population.

Be our Guest!

Finally, students are guests in our classroom, strangers in a new land. This is especially true for those of us who teach at transition stages. Those can vary depending on your school district structure, but those who teach first year middle school, high school, and college students understand this concept more than others.

The initial experience for a student walking on to a college campus for their freshman year of college can crushingly overwhelming them as the culture completely shifts from the known of their K12 experience. Education utilizes specialized language; different levels of education engage in different pedagogical strategies; technology use changes (Google Classroom; Canvas; Blackboard); discipline and accountability inevitably change with each “level up” in the system. We, as educators, live in this land. The language, systems, and values all make so much sense to us because – friends – we live here.

For a temporary time our students enter our home and we can choose how to engage and encourage our students in this new “strange land.” You will have students who seemingly feel right at home – pop their feet up on the furniture comfortable – and you may need to coach them up on how we live in this world, but for the most part I see students afraid to speak up, fearful of asking questions, and avoiding interactions because the culture is far too different, the language much to complex, and the risk of failure much too high.

Luke 14:7-11  

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Summary

While some students come and sit at the place of honor, most are taking the lowest place – fear, guilt, shame, uncertainty – so much clouds the minds of our students.

When we demonstrate Christ-like hospitality in our classroom culture by knowing their names, celebrating in their successes, graciously managing mistakes, and creating time and space for their humanness we have invited our students into a place of honor, safety, and comfort – ready to be challenged and excited to learn.

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