School climate and culture

Schools must increasingly serve as safe havens for students, many whom come from dysfunctional families and neighborhoods. Under these circumstances, school climate and culture must be restructured to address a wide range of student needs. Students need to acquire basic academic skills that form the foundation for their acquisition of higher-level skills. Students have a need for security, self-esteem, and belongingness. In addition, schools must instill in students a sense of community and participation that are sorely lacking in today's society. Never before has so much demand been placed on schools, even those that are financially strapped. Yet teachers must ask themselves, if the school does not take responsibility for addressing student needs, who will?

One of the cultural factors that hinders learning and teaching in schools is a climate of competition. Competition in American schools reflects soci

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ch a stage of crisis that the concept of morality is intimately connected to school effectiveness: "Although virtue is a justifiable end in its own right, the evidence from research on school effectiveness . . . and school culture . . . increasingly suggests that effective schools have virtuous qualities that account for a large measure of their success" (Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 99). Teachers must provide students with the moral leadership to overcome the negative pull of certain student subcultures. In many schools, student subcultures create patterns of behavior that hinder learning. Social norms are very powerful. Once they are in place, patterns tend to determine what is and is not acceptable behavior. Negative group norms can be so powerful that they destroy a person's reality: "It is no secret that the norms of the student subculture can often force students to behave in ways that they might not choose otherwise" (Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 101). Such norms encourage antisocial behavior, ranging from skipping classes, smoking or drug abuse on school property, and vandalism, on to a wide range of serious criminal behavior. Only by altering such group norms and substituting positive expectations can educators create a schoo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Daniels Hyde, Kauffman Burbach, La Comunidad, Emmys Unfortunately, Rolheiser Gordon, , Stevahn Hodne, York City, Competition American, Latino Asian, moral education, school climate, climate culture, school climate culture, school culture, cooperative learning, culture climate, school culture climate, daniels hyde 1993, haberman 1997, dewey 1972, cooperative learning environment, american schools, la comunidad, zemelman daniels hyde,
Approximate Word count = 3168
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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