Learning-Orientated

Classrooms are interesting habitats. Twenty-five (or more!), little humans and one adult growing and learning together for over twenty hours a week. They construct a micro-culture of their own. Each with their own daily actioned routines, accepted ways of interacting, and upheld beliefs carried out, consciously or not.

Classrooms and their occupants curate and maintain their cultures through the values they consistently uphold and the messages they repeatedly send. Ron Richhart calls this process Enculturation. The consistent and reoccurring in our classroom environments is what is internalised and manifested as culture, much in the same way as what occurs at the whole school level.

Traditionally, classrooms have been predominantly work-orientated. As Ron Ritchart describes, students do ‘the work’, teachers and parents are ‘monitors of the work’, and the 'language of work' upholds these messages. In this paradigm, learning is a passive process that occurs where we seek a ‘productive output’ that is completed quickly to the appropriate standard and is, most importantly, correct. At Griffin, exploring Ritchhart's work was unsettling and inspired an immediate response in our classrooms. We sought to rewrite this outdated industrial narrative, allowing a new story of creative learning to emerge.

Classrooms can be transformed from life-draining 'workplaces' into life-giving learning habitats. At Griffin, we aspire to cultivate classrooms where learning is seen as the learner’s work, habitats where teachers and parents are ‘monitors for the learning’. We use Intentional Language to reinforce our belief that learning is about developing understanding and skills, not just knowledge. In our learning-orientated classrooms, we value that learning is an active process that is defined by changes in thinking. We don't aspire for our classrooms to be quiet, instead, we aim for an unmistakable hum, one that communicates deep curiosity and truly joyful and active learning.

By shifting our focus from 'work' to 'learning', we sought to consciously begin to curate a different learning story, a different learning environment. The real work, however, must begin with us. We, as educators, must shift our mindset, our stance, how we view our role. In order to transform our classrooms, we must first transform ourselves knowing that, if consciously curated, classrooms might manifest a culture that ignites learning with far greater potential.

Next: Under the Influence