“The Responsive Classroom” is an approach to teaching and learning that emphasizes social, emotional and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. “The Responsive Classroom” approach was created by classroom teachers and backed by evidence from independent research and based on the premise that children learn best when they have both academic and social-emotional skills. “The Responsive Classroom” approach, therefore, consists of classroom and school-wide practices for deliberately helping children build academic and social emotional competencies.
Seven principles, informed by the work of educational theorists and the experiences of exemplary classroom teachers, guide the Responsive Classroom approach:
1-The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum;
2-How children learn is as important as what they learn. (Process & Content go hand in hand);
3-The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction;
4-To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills. (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, Self-Control);
5-Knowing the children we teach-individually, culturally and developmentally is as important as knowing the content we teach;
6-Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential to children’s education;
7-How the adults at school work together is as important as their individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community.