The Responsive Classroom Approach is an approach that focuses around building a community within the classroom that is based upon caring relationships.  The approach acknowledges each and every child’s need to feel happiness and meaningfulness within their classroom.  Everyone within the classroom should feel as if they are respected and important members of the community.  In a responsive classroom, decisions are always based upon answering the question, ‘What is best for our children?’
    There are seven fundamental principles that the Responsive Classroom Approach centers around.  They are…

•     The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
 
•    How children learn is as important as what they learn: Process and content go hand in hand.
 
•    The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
 
•    To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
 
•    Knowing the children we teach-individually, culturally, and developmentally-is as important as knowing the content we teach.
 
•    Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential to children's education.
 
•    How the adults at school work together is as important as their individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community.
                                   
                                                (Principles provided by: www.responsiveclassroom.org)




Six Components to the Responsive Classroom Approach




Resources