>>Elizabeth: So Carrie Ann, what does "conveys" mean?
>>Student: "Conveys" means how he shows.
>>Elizabeth: Awesome, and speaking of showing, we're going to talk
about how you plan on showing your community commitment today.
>>Arria: Because we have community commitments at our school,
we're really pushing our students to be their best selves, because in addition
to the academic achievement that we want our students to reach,
they also have a foundation for character development.
>>Elizabeth: What community commitments do we need to show?
>>Arria: At Springfield Renaissance, we are preparing our students
to be contributors to the world when they graduate,
and while they're here at the school.
If you step into any classroom, you're going to see an intentional focus
on character development, so you're going to see the community commitment.
>>Teacher: We chose responsibility and courage for the character traits today.
>>Elizabeth: Our school has identified these seven character traits
that we think strong citizens should possess.
Respect, responsibility, friendship, courage, self-discipline,
perseverance and cultural sensitivity.
Those are the community commitments.
>>Teacher: We can have the courage to take the responsibility,
to take the information that we learn in school and try
to apply that into our own lives.
>>Arria: The community commitments allow students to get involved in the class,
because they're supported by this community of respect and friendship.
>>Elizabeth: How do we plan on showing our community commitments?
>>I like to let the students pick
which community commitments they think are going to need
to be used during a lesson.
>>Marelise?
>>Student: Responsibility.
>>Elizabeth: Responsibility.
>>I'll oftentimes give them a write up of what we're doing today,
and then you tell me which community commitments you need
to show in order to succeed.
>>Alyssa.
>>Student: Friendship.
>>Elizabeth: Friendship, this is a super important one for today's lesson.
>>They'll say, you know, "I think I'm going to be working with somebody
so I need to show friendship."
And from there, I ask them, "Well, what does it look like, what does it sound
like to show friendship today?"
It's so important to ask students,
to help them understand what your expectations are.
>>Kevin.
>>Student: If you're disagreeing with someone,
you can be kind about it and not be rude.
>>Elizabeth: So often, teachers are like, okay, you need to show X, Y and Z,
but students are left trying to figure out, well, what does she want me to-- ?
What is-- what am I actually supposed to do?
>>How are we going to show perseverance in using up that entire time?
Nyasia?
>>Nyasia: We want to add more an revise more.
>>Elizabeth: So we want to make sure we're going back and adding.
Questions?
All right, let's begin.
>>Nyasia: They help us learn because it keeps us in a very safe environment,
a more kindly, friendly environment, so we can all learn.
We all use each other as our learning tools.
>>Elizabeth: Let's take a second to go back to our community commitments.
>>Student: You were showing respect, because you were listening
to me when I was talking even though it took up the whole time.
>>Arria: Community commitments exists to remind students of,
here are seven character traits that will allow you to be successful
within our school community.
>>Elizabeth: Alyssa.
>>Student: She gave me some cool feedback.
She said that maybe I could like, add less details and get
where I'm trying to get to.
>>Elizabeth: I personally love the community commitments.
That's my favorite part of teaching at Renaissance specifically,
because I think it just makes character building so real.
>>Nyasia: She wasn't being rude, but she was telling her respectfully.