Yellow Quadrant: Relationships

The upper-left quadrant emphasizes relationships and the creation of a cohesive learning organization. Practices in the yellow quadrant are grounded in the idea that students need to feel a sense of belonging. The implicit goal is collaborative capacity. Learning is characterized as a collective process that is accelerated by building trust. The objective is for students to become a team characterized by mutual respect with an emphasis on learning together. The culture is marked by positive relationships. The teacher tends to be empathic and able to work with the individual concerns of each student. The time orientation is more long-term, and the teacher invests time in building relationships. The classroom organization is a clan or network of trusting relationships. A key process is the facilitation of collective dialogue. Instead of telling, the teacher asks meaningful questions and listens. In such a classroom, transactional assumptions of justice are replaced by the practice of positive regard. One teacher, for example, told us, “When a student is disrespectful, I correct them while modeling complete respect for the student.”

As is the case with each of these quadrants, a strongly enacted perspective can become a liability. The risk in the extreme application of a yellow quadrant theory of action is that excessive concern can turn into coddling, collusion, and work avoidance. When this happens the classroom becomes less effective. The blue quadrant in particular can help teachers avoid moving into this negative zone.