How Effectively Incorporating a Peace Corner Can Transform Your Classroom
As a former teacher if I come into your classroom where children are struggling with challenging behaviors like biting and tantrums, and I suggest incorporating a peace corner, I know what you’ll think. There’s no way it will work...The children will play with the fidgets and that’s rewarding them...Or, they will sit in the peace corner all day instead of choosing work...Or isn’t that basically a time out? Hear me out. New year, new you. The peace corner can function not as a timeout in your classroom, but as “time in.” It can give children invaluable tools on their quest for self regulation and development. It will require some work on your part in the beginning, but has the potential to save you a lot of heartache and frustration in the long run.
“In Positive Discipline: The First Three Years, Jane Nelsen talks about setting up a calm space for an older toddler around 3 years old, a place with some of their favorite things where they can go anytime they need to calm down. This is different from a time-out because the child can decide to go there and how long they would like to stay, and it is never used as a threat.” (Davies, The Montessori Toddler, 127)
What Does It Look Like?
In a classroom a peace corner should be a quiet space with less visual stimuli than the rest of the classroom. Depending on the needs of your children you may have a cube with pillows they can go and look at calming, pleasing books. You may have a shelf with a collection of fidgets, such as a glitter jar, that mesmerize a child and may help him return to homeostasis. Noise cancelling headphones can also be a great option for children who may be too audibly over-stimulated.
How Do You Use a Peace Corner?
The peace corner should never be used as a time out. When a child is upset, rather than getting them worked up, you can ask if they’d like to go to their calm place to begin to calm down. The more you redirect children there and show them the tools provided to begin to self-regulate, the more they will begin to do this on their own over time. It should be noted, however, that the peace corner does require a lot of teacher guidance when first incorporating it into your classroom! Children are always going to gravitate towards new things in the classroom - sometimes all of the children at one time! It’s up to the teacher to put firm guidelines and rules in place with any new furniture or materials so children learn how to use it appropriately over time.
Why Incorporate a Peace Corner
Jane Nelsen suggests peace corners for children around 3 years old, but I have seen peace corners be successful with children as young as 1.5-2 years old. We recently had a classroom experiencing an uptick in biting episodes. After careful observation we came to the conclusion that the cause of the behavior may be environmental. The children had no calm space to go to recharge and they seemed to be overtired and overstimulated with not enough tools to know how to express themselves or calm down appropriately. The teachers in the classroom were skeptical about incorporating a peace corner, but after several months of having this peaceful space in their classroom, they have seen a tremendous decrease in the instances of biting. These teachers have even placed a picture with human faces and emotions underneath where they can talk to the child about emotions they may have felt once they have calmed down. Once a child has calmed down, they are better able to hear us and the tools we have to share.
When we present the child with a carefully prepared environment - one where he is able to explore and make discoveries autonomously and take charge of his own learning - he absorbs lessons on a deeper, more significant level. Having a prepared, quiet area he is guided to to help handle his big emotions gives him the gift of being able to self regulate independently in the future.
“Education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and it is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.” Maria Montessori
