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How do you imbed the fruit of the Spirit into your classroom? Or, if you haven’t previously considered this, how might you go about it now?
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We co-constructed norms with the students in our classroom based on anchor values. Inevitably the values that aligned with the fruit of the Spirit would surface and then we would discuss what it looked like to live them in community. I would generalize examples of Christ’s behavior as models, in hopes that one day they would meet Him for themselves and go, “That man in all Ms. Sinclair’s examples was Jesus!”
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The fruit of the Spirit is embedded into our daily interactions with others and my classroom environment. We actively work towards love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. In particular, I seek to show love for students by connecting with each one personally and demonstrating that I’m glad they are there. I call students out for behavior that does not demonstrate kindness and self-control or that does not promote peace. I apologize to students when it comes to my attention that I have not acted with the fruit of the Spirit.
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In my classroom, at the beginning of the year, we sit down together and come up with “agreements” on how we should act in class. This has helped my students with not only knowing the rules but feeling as if they were part of the reasoning behind it.
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I have noticed other teachers that give “fruit of Spirit” reward papers, little slips of paper to put on a wall. I don’t care for the approach. I’m not fond of those kinds of rewards in any subject, and it especially doesn’t sit well with me with this. I think just discussions about interactions that we’ve seen, or talking about how we can let the Spirit work more in our lives so that we have a genuine love and peace about us.
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I try to embed joy and gentleness in the classroom by encouraging the students to cheer up and push through in a rigorous classroom.