Over the summer, I flew home to my parents, who live across the country from me. Groggy from jet lag, one morning I awoke to the scraping sound of wheels against pavement. When I looked out the window, I was delighted to see my parents’ neighbor hauling their trash can back down the long driveway to its designated spot at the side of the house.
I can recall when the young neighbors moved in next door to my aging parents. My parents were helpful and warm to these neighbors when they were the new kids on the block. Ten years later, the young neighbors continue to return the favor. With a 30-year age difference, I wouldn’t call them friends but rather good neighbors.
This made me wonder about what being “neighborly” would look like in a classroom setting. Like moving to a new neighborhood, each year students enter a new classroom with a new teacher and a number of new classmates. From the beginning of the year, teachers are tasked with turning this newly assembled class into a harmonious community. Cultivating positive student-to-student relationships often takes up a lot of teacher time in the beginning and throughout the year.
Reflecting on the value of community and knowing it’s a lot to expect students to jump right into becoming friends with all their new classmates, I tried something a little different this year—a gentler, more reasonable approach. With a focus on building a thriving community of learners, I set out to teach my fourth-grade students how to be good neighbors.
By shifting the focus from being a good friend to being a good neighbor, teachers can remove false expectations of fast friendships. Cultivating neighborly behaviors can contribute to a harmonious classroom community and pave the wave to new authentic friendships in the future.
Friends and Neighbors
Unlike with friends, we cannot choose our neighbors. This is true in our communities and our classrooms. Like a neighborhood, a classroom comprises a variety of personalities, interests, and ability levels that all need to coexist peacefully in a small walled community.
At times, teachers have to field requests from anxious parents to have their child placed in a classroom with their friends. While it is understandable for parents to want their child to be happy, it’s not reflective of true communities. Educators are in a unique position to teach young people the value of community and equip them with the skills to be good neighbors. Being a good neighbor is a timeless skill that will continue to be helpful outside the classroom and throughout a student’s life.
What makes a good neighbor?
Good neighbors understand and invest in the inherent value of community. Being respectful, trustworthy, and helpful are some qualities exhibited by good neighbors.
These are also attributes of good friends. If a student can first learn the skills involved in a neighborly relationship with their classmates, then they can also learn how to become a better friend.
Ask students to share ways they can show respect and trust toward a classmate. Co-constructing a list of neighborly behaviors will help give examples for students to follow and teachers to reference when students are not getting along.
Working with younger students? For students in lower grades who are not yet writing, this activity can easily be done orally. The teacher can ask questions and record responses about what students feel they’re good at, what they need help with, and how they show respect to their classmates. Drawing neighborly behaviors is also a great way to develop younger learners’ understanding of community.
At the beginning of the year, have students take a strengths inventory. This inventory will ask students to identify their positive attributes and areas of expertise. It will also ask students to identify areas where they could use a little help, which encourages students to think deeply about what they’re good at as well as areas where they can use support.
Once students have identified their unique strengths and weaknesses, it’s time to create a community board. Present students with a simple sentence frame, such as “If you need help in… I can help you” or “I need help in…; can you help me?” The community board is divided into “Help Wanted” and “Resources Available” sides, and it lets students connect with classmates both as helpers and as those seeking help. The community board is then placed in the classroom, advertising strengths and needs of community members—in this case, the students.
I teach my students that the community board is the first place students should go for help. This empowers them to use their strengths to help the classroom community thrive. In this way, students become good neighbors by helping and receiving help from their classmates.
This also builds self confidence in students. When students help their classmates, they feel good about themselves, and because everyone has different skills, everyone has a chance to be a helper. Through this, students come to appreciate each member of the community as a valuable resource that has unique strengths to offer.
In addition to building a harmonious community, here are some other compelling reasons to rethink how we approach relationship-building in school.
Increase inclusivity: When every member of a community has an opportunity to contribute, each member feels valued and appreciated. When students are provided a way to share strengths, they have more opportunities to help each other. This helping behavior is beneficial for both the helper and the helped.
Develop lifelong habits: When students learn that each member of a community has something to offer, they appreciate the importance of working together to move forward. Working together also builds appreciation of the diverse members of their community. Explicitly talking about topics such as trust, helpfulness, and respect can help students not only be better classmates but also build friendship skills.
While enjoying a trusting relationship with neighbors has been linked to many benefits such as increased happiness, health, and civic involvement, social trust has been on the decline. Explicitly teaching students how to be a good neighbor may not only help build harmonious classroom communities but also have beneficial effects far beyond the classroom.
