Jenny Laqua

Building a Culture of Belonging and Respect in Grade 6

Your Design Thinking Challenge: How might we build a classroom culture where all students experience genuine sense of belonging and respect?

The Challenge Landscape

Your Grade 6 class is navigating peer drama, interrupting behaviors, lack of support during presentations, and a collective identity as the “bad class.” Beneath these behaviors lie deeper needs: students are trying to make each other laugh or feel insecure, and they don’t always see or understand the impact of their words. Yet there are already seeds of kindness—students who genuinely care about each other’s wellbeing, who understand when someone is upset, and who feel like they’re making a difference in each other’s lives.

Root Causes Identified

Lack of Awareness: Students don’t see or feel the impact of their words—both mean and kind

Missing Connection: Students aren’t consistently noticing each other’s emotional responses

Disconnection from Impact: When students care about someone’s wellbeing, they’re kind. But they need to SEE and FEEL that connection more often

Your Vision of Success

When genuine respect exists in your classroom, students will:

Notice how their words land on others

Understand the emotional impact of what they say

Feel connected to each other’s wellbeing

Naturally choose kindness because they see the difference it makes

The Pathway Forward: Structured Reflection on Impact

The key insight from our conversation: When students SEE and FEEL the impact of their words—both mean and kind—they naturally move toward respect and care. Your breakthrough strategy is to create weekly reflection moments where students think about the impact of interactions and notice how people responded.

Actionable Steps: December 2025 – April 2026

Phase 1: Set Up & Introduce the Reflection Practice (December 2025)

Week 1: Explain the purpose to students. “We’re going to start noticing the impact of our words—both when we say something kind and when we say something that might hurt. This helps us build a classroom where everyone feels respected.”

Week 1-2: Model what reflection looks like. Share an example of a kind comment and ask aloud: “What was the impact of those words? What did you notice about how people responded?” Do the same with a hurtful comment (age-appropriate, not from your class).

Week 2-3: Set up your Google Form for student submissions. Make it simple and low-pressure. Example prompts: “Share a moment from this week where someone said something kind” or “Share a moment where words might have hurt someone.”

Week 3-4: Start the weekly rhythm. You select 2-3 key moments you observed, and students can submit moments they want to reflect on.

Phase 2: Build the Reflection Routine (January – February 2026)

Weekly Reflection Moments: Once a week (pick a consistent day/time), students individually reflect on selected interactions using these prompts:

“What was the impact of those words?”

“What did you notice about how people responded?”

Mix of Selection: You choose some moments (especially when you see disrespect or kindness), and students can submit moments they want to reflect on via Google Form.

Individual Processing: Students write or think individually—this protects anyone who felt embarrassed and gives them safe space to process.

Follow-Up Conversations: After collecting reflections, have brief one-on-one conversations with a few students. This shows you care, deepens their thinking, and builds connection.

What You’re Listening For: Are they noticing impact? Are they developing empathy? Are they seeing the connection between their words and others’ feelings?

Phase 3: Deepen Awareness & Build Empathy (February – March 2026)

Expand Reflection: As students get comfortable, ask slightly deeper questions: “Why do you think the person responded that way?” or “What might they have been feeling?”

Notice Patterns: Start pointing out patterns you’re seeing in their reflections. “I’m noticing that when we take time to notice each other, people feel more respected.”

Celebrate Awareness: When students show genuine empathy or insight in their reflections, acknowledge it (privately or in class, depending on what feels right). “I noticed in your reflection that you really understood how [person] felt. That’s what respect looks like.”

Peer Connections: Can you connect students who are naturally kind with moments where they can support peers? Empower those 1-2 students who naturally support others.

Address Patterns of Disrespect: If you notice certain students repeatedly making mean comments, use their reflections as teaching moments. “I see you’re noticing the impact now. What do you think you could do differently next time?”

Phase 4: Sustain & Shift Culture (March – April 2026)

Reflect on Progress: Help students see how the culture has shifted. “Do you notice how we’re noticing each other differently now? How people are responding to kind comments?”

Student Leadership: Invite students to help identify moments worth reflecting on. Give them ownership of building respect in the classroom.

Address the “Bad Class” Identity: Use evidence from their reflections to counter this narrative. “Look at all the kind moments we’re noticing. Look at how much you care about each other. That’s not a ‘bad class.'”

Sustain the Ritual: Keep weekly reflection as an ongoing practice. This becomes part of your classroom DNA.

Adjust as Needed: If weekly feels like too much or not enough, adjust. If the Google Form isn’t working, try something else. This is a prototype—be willing to iterate.

Key Principles to Remember

Respect Comes Before Vulnerability: You’re building awareness and connection first, which creates the safety for deeper sharing later (if that becomes relevant).

Protection Matters: Individual reflection protects students who’ve been hurt while still creating awareness for everyone.

You Go First: Model what reflection looks like. Show students how to notice impact with curiosity, not judgment.

One-on-One Conversations Are Powerful: Those brief check-ins after reflections build relationship and deepen learning.

Notice Both Mean AND Kind: Reflecting on kindness is just as important as reflecting on harm. It reinforces what you want to see more of.

This is Design Thinking in Action: You’re prototyping a new culture. Be willing to adjust based on what you learn about your students.

Success Indicators

By April 2026, you’ll know this is working when you notice:

Students becoming more aware of how their words land on others

Fewer mean comments and interrupting (because they’re seeing the impact)

More supportive comments during presentations

Students voluntarily noticing and commenting on each other’s feelings

A shift in how students talk about themselves and their class (less “bad class” narrative)

Genuine moments of peer support and kindness becoming more frequent

Students showing empathy in their reflections—understanding why people responded the way they did

Implementation Tips

Google Form Template: Keep it simple. Two questions: “What moment do you want to reflect on?” and “Why does this moment matter?” Students can submit anonymously or with their name.

Timing: Pick a consistent day/time for weekly reflections (e.g., every Friday, 10 minutes). Consistency helps it become a habit.

One-on-One Chats: These don’t need to be long—5 minutes is enough. Just show you read their reflection and ask a follow-up question.

Classroom Norms: You’ve already co-designed agreements with this class. Reference them when reflecting: “Remember our agreement about listening? Let’s think about how that showed up this week.”

Final Reflection

Your HMW question is about belonging and respect. By creating structures where students notice the impact of their words and feel connected to each other’s wellbeing, you’re not just solving a behavior problem. You’re building the foundation for a learning community where every student can thrive. And you’re doing it in a way that protects students while building genuine awareness and empathy. That’s powerful work. 🌱

The Eisenhower Matrix was supposed to help me organize my tasks. What it actually did was illuminate something I’d been sensing but hadn’t quite named: the gap between the teacher I am and the teacher I’m becoming.

As I sorted my work into urgent versus important, a familiar pattern emerged. The things I most wanted to achieve – customizing lessons for my students’ needs, creating engaging and student-led experiences – kept getting nudged aside by daily demands. Student conflicts, marking deadlines, and interruptions would pull my attention, and my intentional planning would slip to tomorrow’s to-do list, again and again.

But here’s what the exercise revealed: I believe deeply that customizing lessons would help students be more engaged, more confident, and would ease the behavior challenges I’m seeing in my classroom. When I look out at my students, especially at the end of the day, I notice the signs of disengagement. I see restlessness during math independent practice and “think-pair-shares” that drift off-topic. And I know in my educator’s heart that engaging material is one of the keys to effective classroom management.

The matrix helped me recognize a truth: as a new teacher, everything feels important. But not everything serves my deeper purpose.

What Matters Most

Coming into this career, the teacher I wanted to be was one who ensured all students felt heard, seen, and valued. I’ve been building this through relationships – a strength of mine – but I’m understanding now that another crucial piece is how and what the teaching and learning looks like.

I want teaching to feel authentic to me so my passion can shine through, and meaningful to my students so they feel less “taught-at” from a top-down perspective and more considered, more significant in their learning. When I imagine success, I see students being curious, asking questions, making connections, and solving problems with confidence. I see them leaning in rather than checking out.

For me, this feels like guiding the current of their learning with confident intention. For all of us, it would mean feeling stable, confident, and mutually significant in the learning process.

My Commitment

This year, my North Star is creating learning experiences where my authentic passion meets my students’ need to feel considered and significant – moving from “taught-at” to “learning-with.”

My first concrete step: carving out one hour every Sunday evening for protected planning time. This isn’t just prep time – it’s sacred space to look at the week ahead and think deeply about how my students will access content, how I might differentiate, and what opportunities exist for meaningful collaboration and reflection. It’s time to create those lesson hooks that spark curiosity rather than compliance.

I’m blocking this time in my calendar like an unmovable appointment with my future self. I’m exploring the possibility of a colleague joining virtually for mutual accountability and shared wisdom.

This matters because our school culture is relationship-based, and I’m learning that intentional curriculum design fits into that foundation. When my planning is purposeful, my classroom community feels less disjointed and more whole. The ripple effects of this one change could transform not just my teaching, but my students’ entire learning experience.

As a new teacher, I’m still learning what deserves my time and creative energy. But this I know: my students deserve a teacher whose passion shines through intentional design, and I deserve to feel the deep satisfaction of guiding learning with confident purpose.

The daily demands will still be there. But now I have a North Star to guide me back to what matters most.