I've dreaded my last period class on Monday every week since the second week of school. Students come in ready to get nothing done. There's a lot of craziness and chaos that fills the room. Some days I'm glad I'm a teacher. Other days, I wish I had a desk job.
Recently, my friend sent me an article on students meditating 15 min per day every day. They found amazing results like fewer fights and calmer classrooms and fewer disruptions. I was inspired. I knew I was going to have a tough road ahead because getting a class full of adolescents to quiet down and "clear their minds" is almost impossible. I gave them reasons on why it would help us feel relaxed after a long day and I let them know it might seem awkward at first. I went through a little prompt I had prepared in my head. "Focus on the breath, relax from your head to toe (naming each body part), breathe out bad energy, breathe in good energy..." Several students snickered and mimicked what I said or some other distracting behavior. I could tell that the kids who had started getting into it were quickly distracted. I then set a timer for 1 minute to simply clear their head silently. Kids were almost bursting out laughing. Afterward we went into the warm-up explanation and a problem set. I pulled three students aside individually to re-cap their behavior during the meditation session. A conversation something like this: T: I noticed that you were really laughing and making fun of the session. S: yeah, i know. I couldn't help it. T: I get it. Meditating can be pretty awkward at the beginning. It's just that when you started laughing it was hard for the rest of the class to have their own experience. S: Yeah yeah sorry. T: Especially you, I feel like you have long days and you can get easily stressed. I felt like this would have been particularly useful for you. S: yeah, i guess. T: But if you really feel like it's too much, go ahead and step outside in the hallway until it's over. S: I can do that? T: yeah, I'd rather you do that than distract the whole class. This week, I put meditation monday back on the agenda. Some students scoffed but didn't outwardly make comments. I went through some prompts about focusing on the breath. The students who I had talked to still didn't buy in but they didn't make any disruptive noises, which helped the rest of the class. After some prompts, I set the timer this time for 2 minutes. I made note to them that we were increasing the time. I asked them to keep their minds blank and still for just 2 minutes. Heck, I felt better after the two minutes. The timer rang, and there was a noticeable difference. Less chaos. I think we all felt better. Next week... THREE minutes!
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One of the things I hate about education (as far as I've been in it - which is a short time) is that we spend our time .. a LOT of time... on stuff that really doesn't change how students learn. Not in a big way. I mean yes, these are all good things, but it's not what's most important. WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON STUFF THAT DOESN'T AFFECT HOW KIDS LEARN
Without further ado, my list of time-consuming things that could be spent better: 1. Technology: So what if everyone has an I-pad?? Teachers spend a LOT of time going to training or on their own learning how to use technology that often doesn't affect how students think. Of course some teachers definitely incorporate them as a daily extension of what they do, but often mandates are given about what kinds of technology is to be used only for it to be tossed aside because it doesn't actually help students learn. (This is aside from technical issues like wifi or poor connections). I'm not saying- go back to cavemen times. I'm just saying Steve Jobs doesn't let his kids have I-pads... 2. Assessment. Ever since some big research paper said how you assess matters the most, the only thing people care about is assessing appropriately. I don't even want to think about the hundreds of thousands of man hours that get poured into writing questions, aligning curriculum, creating better standards --- only to find that it didn't actually make that big of a difference when they implemented their new standards with all those extra thoughtful essay questions. That's because HOW something gets taught is more important. (Plus... high test scores is not a philosophy. I have no intention of building my worth as a teacher on if my students can do well on PAARC or ACT.) 3. Curriculum. What gets taught is less important than who's teaching it and how. Trust me, no matter how interesting the topic, there is someone out there who can make it boring and unlearnable. 4. Evaluations. When an evaluator comes into my classroom 3 times, gives me a few words of feedback, and leaves... no one wins! I had to prepare HOURS to show evidence that I'm doing my job. Then I prepare MORE HOURS of my life to show that I'm putting TONS OF HOURS in my profession. Or what about the evaluators?? They're spending HOURS just evaluating so that the system that eats them up will remain appeased. 100% certain my students are not gaining from this labor intensive process. So, what should we spend our time on? 1. Learning to reflect with others. 2. Regular/weekly meeting with course teams specifying how to improve how to teach. (not just what to teach) 3. Seeing each others classrooms and providing informal feedback (not linked to evaluations) 4. Developing a philosophy for our classroom. What do we want our students to be like when they leave? (Not what information we want them to know). 5. Mentoring and being mentored by others to think of classroom strategies 6. Sustained professional development that span years (not hours). 7. Learning more math, deeper math 8. Meditating and reflecting on our days I don't remember who said this but I agree "I was surprised to find that teaching was the one of the least intellectual things I had done." |
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