Road Tested / What Our Classroom Walls Communicate

What we do know from education research is that students will do their best work where they feel most comfortable. Many times that's at home, in their room, where they have a say in the decorations and floor plan. Why can't we give students that opportunity in their classrooms? If they spend more time in school for nine and a half months than they do anywhere else, shouldn't the environment put students in the best possible position to succeed?

I wrestled with many of these questions early in my teaching career, as I unpacked my motivational slogan posters and put them in the same spots each fall. What finally changed my mind-set was when some former students came to visit, and said, "The room looks exactly the same as it did when we were in here!" The message I inferred from their comment was, "You haven't changed. You haven't grown." As an educator who prided myself on risk taking, I was embarrassed that students who hadn't been in my room in years remembered exactly what it looked like.

You know what else looks the same each year? Prisons. I didn't want my students to feel that they were trapped in the room each day. How could I have missed that the room needed to reflect growth and change, too?

In the past 14 years, I've learned the importance of trusting students by releasing responsibility for their learning to them as often as possible. That includes involving them in room setup. Now, prior to the beginning of each school year, I hang posters on the walls with questions on them, but nothing else. Examples include "What does independent reading look and sound like?," "What are role models?," and "What are our classroom rules?" When the year begins, we spend time each day discussing these questions, and students take turns adding their responses on sticky notes.

Over time, we create additional posters that anchor how we approach learning (and one another): first we brainstorm and categorize ideas, and then we debate how to word them positively. Instead of stating, "We will not talk or misbehave on the rug," students state, "We will pay attention to the speaker and focus on the task at hand." By the time we get into different academic content areas, students have already learned how to share their thoughts and ideas, disagree respectfully, collaborate with their peers, and compromise during whole-class and small-group discussions about the academic and social environment.

They've also created something together that's theirs. They own it—and what's more powerful than that?

When setting up your classroom, keep in mind who the classroom is really for and whether the environment engages your students. This approach begins with student-made anchor charts hanging on the wall—even if they simply provide a reminder of the quiet signal or bathroom rules.