A Pile of Apples: How Can Class Meetings Affect the Classroom Community?

Question                    
How do classroom meetings affect the classroom community?  More specifically, will these meetings be an effective use of time?
 
Summary       
I knew that teaching reading responses was very important, but I also knew that teaching community building skills was equally important.  My sense of its importance was reinforced when, soon after the start of the year, a few incidents happened that seemed to make students feel unhappy in the classroom. I began to hold Emergency Meetings when a child would come from recess crying about an incident that happened on the playground or when a child was upset about something that happened to him/her in the classroom.  Soon, I started to notice that something was working. Kids seemed to feel better. The problem was surfaced, discussed, and, many times, resolved.  From that point forward, I began to study the impact of these class meetings in order to find out what students were gaining from them.