Community Building Article: "Risks and Rewards of Community Building"

Main points from this article:

• Community building in classrooms shows great promise. Students experience being valued, influential, and a contributing member of a "group that is committed to everyone's growth and welfare". Some of the benefits of community in education include: concern for others, democratic values, prosocial conflict-resolution skills, altruistic behavior, intrinsic prosocial motivation and enjoyment of helping others learn.
• Community benefits students in these ways because community develops autonomy, belonging and a sense of competence, all of which are basic human needs.
• Some best practices include: activities that allow students and teachers to get to know one another, collaborative learning, and curricula that engages students in studying the ethical issues at the heart of history and literature.
• Some of the difficulties and risks of community building include the potential to de-emphasize academics in favor of community building and that community building must be done campus-wide - so that community building is a consistent thread through the educational journey for students. Moreover, teachers still need to interject with their ideas and positions, not merely be a guide for discussion. Finally, community building may lead to students having lower scores on assessments of student's prosocial and moral reasoning compared to lower-community comparison schools.