As the demographics in our school and district began to change, I noticed a need for teachers and students to learn more about each other in an authentic way. Not only were teachers and students not connecting, students were having a hard time getting along in both academic and social settings; bullying was increasing and teachers were reporting more difficulties with students in the classroom. A colleague and I began talking about what we were doing in our classrooms to combat these same issues, we began sharing our ideas with others and decided that putting out ideas together in a more formal way would be valuable to other teachers in our building. We created this curriculum over the summer and presented it to our staff in the fall. At the beginning of the school year we sat down with brain-based researcher, Horacio Sanchez who provided us with critiques on our work. Since then, we have revised Sharing Circles twice and presented it to other schools in the district at a district wide professional development workshop. Our hope is to expand the curriculum to reach beyond elementary schools to middle and high schools as well.
The Purpose of Sharing Circles… 1. Students will acknowledge and appreciate the good and admirable qualities in ourselves and each other. 2. Students will learn to respect, trust and share our feelings with each other. 3. Students will be kind to each other not matter where we are. 4. Students will help each other feel like we belong to a loving family, and we will have fun together. 5. Students will care for each other, help each other feel safe, and learn together in our loving family. 6. Students will share and discuss our problems and learn how to solve them peacefully.