safe

A few thoughts from the education intern ~
How to create a safe environment. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. As an educator (of any kind) you can't do anything unless you first have a safe environment. By safe I mean both physically and mentally. If students fear for their physical safety how are they going to learn anything (check Maslov's heirarchy of needs)? So if you want to create an environment condusive to learning the first thing you have to do is make sure that the students are and feel physically safe.
Next you have to make the environment safe for them psychologically as well. Education, whether theatrical or not, is (or at least should be), about taking chances. If we don't raise our hands and take the chance that we might have the wrong answer then we won't learn anything. How can someone learn in a classroom where they are made to fear asking questions, speaking out, voicing their ideas? Just talking at someone doesn't cut it. You could lead a dictatorial type classroom in which all of the kids are perfect angels and never act out. Sure, great, but are they learning anything? How can you tell if all you do is talk at them and never let them talk?
People, in an educational setting, have to know that it is okay to fail. That we learn the most from our failures. That the bigger the chance you take the bigger the failure, and it should be better to fail fantastically than to never do anything at all.
I am speaking in pretty braod terms here. It's fairly cliche and stuff we have all heard before. But actually applying in a classroom or with a group of kids is much more difficult than it seems. I have always known that creating a safe environment was important, and by far one of the most important things to me as a teacher, but I am used to teaching at a place where said environment has already been created, supported, established, and I just have to continue that tradition in my own classroom. This is still hard, you see, but still easier than starting from scratch.
Here we have a group of teenagers, my ideal age group to work with. I think that they all feel physically safe. I don't think anyone in Westport, CT is worried about their physical safety (except when a pedestrian crossing the street). I don't think anyone in this building is worried about their physical safety, this place has been fully renovated, the roof isn't going to cave in, the stairs aren't going to collapse (all though one of the apprenti noticed that the elevator was over due for its inspection.
In our classes with these apprentices we keep telling them that they are in a safe environment, but I can't help but ask the question, are we talking about something that we have neglected to create?
Which brings me back to the question: How do you create a safe environment?
More thoughts on this topic to come.
~ Laura J