Classroom Community

I started reading a book by Rafe Esquith called Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire. It focuses on his particular strategies toward creating a classroom community built upon mutual trust and respect. I personally love his philosophies and plan to implement them in the future but I have yet to see this type of practice used in an actual classroom first hand. Most of the teachers that I have observed continue to believe that they are dictators and a quiet classroom filled with obedient children is an accurate measure of teaching success. I disagree completely. Children should be given an opportunity to interact with each other at every available opportunity as this interaction is the basis for forming bonds built upon trust and respect. When I begin student teaching in the fall, I really, really hope that I am assigned to a teacher that values this type of practice so I may see how to implement it for my own class.