Empowering Students: Building Confidence in Learning Environments

Helping Students Find Their Confidence Again

How the right environment, support, and opportunities for success can change the way students see themselves as learners

A young boy wearing a blue shirt is sitting at a table, focused on writing in his workbook with a yellow pencil.

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For many students with learning differences, school has not always been a place where they have felt successful. Repeated frustration can eventually shape not only how students approach learning, but how they see themselves as learners.

At Hillside, rebuilding that confidence is part of the learning process.

“I think one of the most important things we do at Hillside is help students shift from seeing themselves as ‘not good at school’ to understanding that they simply learn differently,” says Julie Harakal, Assistant Head of School and Director of Curriculum. “With the right instruction, strategies, and environment, they are capable learners.”

Creating the Conditions for Success

Confidence isn’t built by simply telling students they can succeed. They need opportunities to experience that success for themselves.

Hillside’s small classes, individualized support, and understanding of learning differences allow teachers to meet students where they are while still challenging them to grow.

“For many of our students, confidence and independence grow together,” Julie explains. “When students are provided with explicit instruction, appropriate interventions, manageable levels of challenge, and opportunities to experience authentic success, they begin to take academic risks they may have previously avoided.”

Sometimes those successes are big. Other times, they look like raising a hand, trying a new strategy, working independently, or returning to something that once felt too difficult.

“Each success builds confidence, and that confidence gives them the motivation to take on the next challenge,” says Jason Seggern, Head of School.

A classroom scene with a teacher standing in front of a whiteboard, engaging with students. Several students raise their hands to participate, while the teacher appears to be explaining a lesson on words.

Making the Environment Work for the Learner

Creating opportunities for success also means paying attention to the environment in which students learn.

This year, Hillside teachers are taking an intentional look at classroom spaces and considering what students truly need to see, access, and focus on throughout the day. Reducing unnecessary visual distractions, organizing materials, and creating predictable spaces can make it easier for students to direct their attention toward learning.

Art Teacher Laura Gelsomini has put that thinking into practice in her classroom.

“Due to the nature of creativity, the art room can be a very distracting place for our students,” Laura explains. “This year, I have made a more concerted effort to stow projects away and cover the more visually stimulating sections of the art room.”

Rather than removing what makes the art room creative, she makes the students’ current work the focus.

“By making our projects the most interesting thing in the room, the kids stay engaged and excited.”

A teacher engages with students in a classroom, using a human skeleton model for a lesson. One student raises their hand to ask a question, while others attentively listen.

Building Confidence—and Independence

The ultimate goal is not to remove every challenge. It is to help students develop the tools to approach challenges differently.

“The goal is not for students to become dependent on support,” Julie explains, “but to understand which strategies and tools work for them and to begin using those tools independently.”

Through classroom instruction, Guidance, and Executive Function classes, students begin recognizing their strengths, understanding how they learn, and becoming more comfortable advocating for what they need.

Belonging plays an important role, too. At Hillside, students are surrounded by peers who understand what it is like to learn differently.

“When students feel understood, safe, and valued for what they bring to the classroom, they have more capacity to take risks, make mistakes, and grow,” Julie says.

Two young girls play together on a playground, with one girl giving a victory sign while being carried on the back of the other girl. Other children are seen in the background engaging with the playground equipment. They are all wearing blue shirts.

Over time, those experiences begin to change the story students tell themselves about school.

“Ultimately, I think Hillside builds confidence by giving students repeated evidence that they can be successful,” Julie says. “We aren’t lowering the bar for students; we’re giving them the instruction, strategies, and access they need to reach it.”

And sometimes that change begins with something very small: a student who once approached a challenge thinking “I can’t” beginning to believe “I know what I can try.”