Creating an Emotionally Safe Classroom

The holidays are over and school is back. Teachers have worked hard over the holidays to get their classroom ready. The social media posts of their classrooms look all bright and nice. I remember my teacher colleagues spending lots of time and money (especially in IKEA!) making sure that the classroom looked fun and inviting. What I’m curious about is how many teachers have reflected not on the external vision of the classroom but the internal vision. “How can I make my classroom safe this year?”. I don’t mean physical safety but emotional safety. 

I know that in many conversations with my teacher colleagues that question or being curious about creating an emotionally safe classroom was never considered. I think they thought that it was just a given that they provided that. 

So, what does an emotional safe classroom look like or feel like? 

The best way we can create a nurturing and safe classroom is for teachers to care for themselves. Noticing and naming the sensations experienced in their bodies, perhaps where they feel tight, tense, stressed, bottled up, numb. I once read that the vital difference between a good teacher and a superior teacher is the one who self reflects.

I wonder if there is self reflection from teachers asking themselves before they start the day in the classroom “how do I want to show up today and be in relationship with my students?” or at the end of the day “what did my behaviour communicate today? Safety or fear?”

“Did I project my feelings of stress into the classroom today?”

“How did I communicate?”  “Was my language shameful?”. 

Self-awareness also involves an understanding of how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours impact our interactions with our students. Not only does increased self-awareness mean we have a more accurate understanding of our own emotional processes and behaviours, but also how we affect students and how their behaviours affect us. Students who are experiencing stress, or who are displaying challenging behaviours, have a way of activating unresolved issues in our own lives, which makes teachers respond from our lower brain region. 

What happens in such cases is that teachers feel the need to remain in control of a situation, while the students with behavioural challenges also want to remain in control, and that ultimately leads to unproductive power struggles. 

Teachers owe it to themselves and the students to be aware of their own emotional dysregulation and learn to respond in a regulated manner that minimises the frequency and intensity of counterproductive power struggles.

Emotionally unaware teachers, as a result, find themselves stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, fatigued, and quite possibly burned out. Teacher stress can adversely affect other teachers, the students, and therefore not create an emotionally safe classroom.  The trust of the neuroception of safety within the classroom has been broken. 

To survive and thrive in the classroom, teachers must develop self reflection and awareness of their own emotional triggers, and to develop regulation strategies not just for themselves but for their students too. 

Look out on the QIPT website for the Emotionally Informed classroom training that is coming soon for all teachers and daycare educators. www.qipt.com.au