6 Powerful Ways To Build Community

In my previous article, I covered three conditions that best build classroom community. To review, they are:

  • The presence of an enticing goal.
  • Every class member is needed to achieve the goal.
  • A chance of failure.

Much like the close-knit bonds developed on a successful athletic team, these conditions allow teamwork and camaraderie to happen naturally.

Your students, then, will work together and care for each other because they want to, not because you tell them to.

This is an important distinction.

The former develops lasting friendships, adds leverage to classroom management, and has the power to awaken the most jaded students. The latter is temporary and full of frustration.

All three conditions can be incorporated easily into any classroom. Here is a list of six ideas to get you started.

1. Find A Rival

Having a classroom to compete against offers ready-made goals and countless opportunities to build community. I prefer regular contests of Capture the Flag because it rewards the team that works best together and is easy to get every student involved. But any game or competition that requires your students to work together against a common foe will do.

2. Perform

Take advantage of opportunities to perform at school events, holiday shows, or parent meetings. Sing, dance, or act out a scene from a read aloud. Performing in front of an audience with the chance that it might not go well can be an exciting goal.

3. Compete

Anytime there is a competition among classrooms—best attendance, fewest number of behavior referrals, penny drives—whatever it is, use it as a goal to unite your class around.

4. Achieve

Create a fixed academic goal for your class to pursue. It can be the number of books read, perfect scores on spelling quizzes, percentage improvement on math tests, or whatever you choose. Linking everyone’s performance together into a single goal is an effective community builder, especially if you allow your students time for group study.

5. Serve

Beautify the school by growing a garden, painting a mural, or cleaning up campus. Your students will feel good about helping their school, and you’ll have a rewarding goal for them to rally around.

6. Have Fun

Toilet paper your rival classroom. Have a lip sync contest. Make giant bubbles with glycerin and soap. No, these activities don’t meet all three conditions for building community. But having fun belongs in its own category. It breaks down social and cultural barriers like nothing else and is a language every student understands.

These ideas can have a powerful effect on your classroom community. However, there is one key ingredient you must include in order to get the most out of each of them.

Your enthusiasm.

It’s important to sell each of the goals you decide on and make them enticing enough to your students that they’ll shake like wet Chihuahuas. They must be excited and want to achieve the goals you set for them.

I know there may be some concern regarding the emphasis on competition, but it’s simply a means to an end.

It isn’t winning or losing that builds community. It is working together toward an exciting goal that creates camaraderie, encourages teamwork, and causes a strong sense of belonging.

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