About the class

Welcome to Ms. Sokugawa’s classroom.  My classroom is built on the Tribes Learning Model (TLC) that creates a safe and inclusive environment to encourage and enhance learning in each student.  Through Tribes, students gain skills so that they can work collaboratively with others in a respectful and caring environment to reach a particular goal, resulting in knowledgeable, accountable, and responsible individuals.  

Division 22 follow the Tribes Agreements in our classroom, and around the school, to help them be “Safe, Kind, and Fair”.  The points of the Tribes Agreements include the following.  Our Tribes Agreements are posted up on classroom wall so that the students can refer to them at any time.    

1.Attentive Listening  

This means that everyone listens with their ears, eyes, and heart.  When we are listening attentively, there is only one speaker at a time, and everyone is looking at the speaker and listening carefully to what is being said.    

2.Mutual Respect

This means that everyone treats others the way they want to be treated.    

3.Right to Pass/Right to Participate  

This means that everyone needs to make good choices by thinking of what the repercussions for their actions are before doing them.  No one can make a person learn, or do anything, as that is up to the individual to decide.  However, everyone else has the right to learn with minimal disruptions from others.    

4.Appreciations/No Put Downs  

This means that everyone has a right to feel safe in their learning environment without having to hear hurtful words. This includes words that they used about themselves.    

5.Personal Best  

This means that everyone needs to try their best in everything they do by giving their best effort, aiming to learn what is being taught, and not looking for just the perfect score. I also remind them “Don’t stop until you’re proud”. It is listed on my “Quotes” page.  

This picture below is a picture of the ideas the students thought of when I asked them to think about what makes a safe and happy classroom.  

Tribles

The Tribles help to share how we are feeling (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) during our community circle. 

Attentive Listening

  What does Attentive Listening look like, feel like, and sound like. 

TAPS

TAPS (Talking About Personal Space): In our class and school, we need to maintain personal space. Going left to right shows the appropriate level of touch. We should always remember to keep our hands and feet to ourselves (“No touch”), but sometimes we give a friendly touch or invade someone’s space accidentally. As we go further to the right, the touches become less appropriate in a class and school setting. We talked about how we need to keep our hands and feet to ourselves and we can give air high fives, air fist pumps, and air hugs so we do not touch anyone.

At Brentwood Park, our motto is We care for ourselves, care for others, and care for our community. Following the Tribes Agreements helps us to follow the Brentwood Park motto.

I Messages

Using proper “I messages” eliminates judgement by not incorporating the word ‘you’ in the statement. It should sound like, “Please stop. I don’t like it when I get ___.” It takes practice to be able to say these statements.