What is respect?
When creating a respect lesson plan and activities, it’s important that you, as the teacher, have a clear understanding of what respect IS and IS NOT. This will allow you to form an ideas of how to explain your own simplified definition of respect in a classroom to your students. This post will go into detail about how I do this as well as include a FREE INSTANT DOWNLOAD!
Often times, we confuse “compliance” with “respect”. These are actually two different things. After looking at various definitions, here are my own simplified definitions for each.
What does respect in a classroom look like?
You can spot respect in a classroom from a mile away! It isn’t a silent room with students doing exactly what they’re told.
A respectful classroom is a classroom where…
– being respectful has been taught as a social and emotional learning (sel) skill.
– you can see mutual care when you witness interactions between all community members. This includes teacher to student interactions, student to teacher interactions and student to student interactions.
– all community members take responsibility for the physical classroom environment.
– students are responsible for their own decisions and strive to be their best self.
How to teach respect in a classroom:
When you’re talking with elementary and upper elementary students, it’s not enough to just tell them to “be respectful”. Instead, you need to break it down for them. Have classroom discussions about:
- What or who should they respect?
- What does that look like, sounds like, feel like?
- Why is it important?
Strategies to ensure your students are being respectful in your classroom:
- Model it yourself as the teacher – When you’re making a responsible choice, be intentional about sharing that this your students. Talk out loud as you do things. For example, as you finish using the white board you might lay down your marker in a random place and then say, “Wait, I can’t put this here! I’ll never remember where it is when I need it later. Plus, if I don’t put things in their place it will leave our classroom looking like a mess!” You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll hear your students doing the same thing!
- Role play – This is such an important step to reinforcing these behaviors. You can have the students role play how to enter the classroom and unpack in the morning. Maybe you’ll have them role play a disagreement with another student on the playground. There are endless options.
- Positive Reinforcement – Use positive reinforcement as you notice respectful behavior in the classroom. This doesn’t mean you have to go get a treasure chest and constantly give away toys and candy. I find that my kids are so proud when they get a simple certificate to take home and show their family. Tip: It’s an extra bonus if they get to choose a scratch and sniff sticker also!
Don’t reinvent the wheel!
Grace Over Grades has already created a respect lesson and activities! This resource includes a lesson plan, correlating slides, 2 activities and positive reinforcement interventions ready to use with your class!
This lesson explicitly teaches everything mentioned above using bright and engaging slides that go right along with the lesson plan. It offers many opportunities for your class to have discussions and share their own reflections about respect in a classroom.
Once the lesson is over, you can move onto the summative assessment to see just how well your students understood the lesson. Once they complete the assessment, they earn their very own “I Am respectful” crown to proudly around school and home.
Finally, encourage the use of respect in your classroom all year long with the “Caught Being Respectful” cards. When my students earn a card, they also get excited to choose a sticker from our sticker box (scratch and sniff are a huge hit). They usually collect these stickers on their take-home binder or planner.
This unit literally has NO PREP except printing the activities you plan to use. The lesson plan is laid out step by step with accompanying slides, so there really isn’t much need to study the lesson before hand. Just pull up the slides and start teaching!
You can do this!
You’ll always find respect in a classroom that has a teacher who took the time to explicitly teach about being respectful. Resist the urge to put it off due to curriculum demands. I promise you that once you have a respectful classroom, your lessons will be much more productive. You might even find yourself with extra time!
Here are the Downloadable Files for the Bye Bye Blurting Activity:
Respect SEL Lesson – Lesson Plan (Members Only)
Respect SEL Lesson – Lesson Slides (Members Only)
Respect SEL Lesson – Summative Assessment (Members Only)
Respect SEL Lesson – Student Celebration Crowns (Members Only)
Respect SEL Lesson – Student Certificates (PDF)
Looking for a deal? Did you know you can get access to this along with EVERY other resources Grace Over Grades have ever made? Join our Membership to enjoy UNLIMITED downloads!
If you found this post helpful, you might also like to read about using CALM DOWN CORNERS or BYE BYE BLURTING.
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