Hi Everyone,
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How are you?
I left school this week, even though it was a short week, feeling like I had run a marathon. I was sore, tired, and worn out! Luckily, there was a good drink and yummy dinner waiting for me. I have been running a marathon of sorts because we have lots of back-to-back classes this year, along with quite a few extracurricular activities.
I've also been trying something new with my morning meditation. Last year, I would meditate before work because I really needed that quiet time to myself. This year, I've started adding some stretching and gentle exercise while I meditate, and it is going well. My body seems happier. My feet are quite often sore by the time I get home after standing all day, so I've decided that morning is probably the best time to give them a little attention.
I'm still working on this idea of Calm Flow.
The good news is that part of meditating is that it makes you realize what calm actually feels like. You might think you know what calm is, but do you? I'm honestly not sure I did.
Yes, there were times when I felt relaxed or calm, but meditation has helped me become much more aware of it. I can recognize the feeling now. I notice what happens in my body, my breathing, my thoughts. I notice the difference between being calm and simply having nothing going wrong.
And that has made me think about my classroom.
I recently read ____this book, and the author talks about how important it is for teachers to bring a certain energy into the classroom. The idea sounds so simple. LOL! Bring your calm into the room.
I'm actually pretty good at this with my first couple of classes.
By the end of the day, however, when a class isn't listening, students are getting out of their seats, and I've already explained the same thing three times...well, let's just say my calm can disappear pretty quickly.
Friday was a perfect example.
I had a fourth-grade class. There are lots of good students in this group, but there are also a few who really, really struggle to stay in their seats and listen. We were learning a new painting technique using analogous colors—colors that are close together on the color wheel.
I gave each student a tray with two colors. They were going to paint one color on one half of their paper and the other color on the opposite half, allowing the colors to blend together in the middle. Yellow and red, for example, would create orange where they met.
Simple enough, right?
Except I specifically did not give them water.
This technique doesn't need water. I wanted the paint to blend directly on the paper, and I had a reason for setting it up that way.
Well...
Students started getting up.
They started filling bowls with water.
They weren't listening.
And I lost my cool.
I picked up the water bowls, dumped the water into the sink, and said, probably louder than necessary, "We don't need or want water. PLEASE LISTEN!"
Ahhh.
So much for Calm Flow.
The frustrating thing is that it worked. I had their attention. We could start again.
And that's the part I've been thinking about ever since.
What exactly does regulation look like in a classroom?
Is it never getting frustrated? Never raising your voice? Always being perfectly calm?
I don't think so.
Maybe regulation is noticing that you've lost your calm—and finding your way back.
Because I'm still learning this too.
We are using these painted papers to make chameleons, and they are going to be very fun. The students are excited about them. But sometimes that excitement turns into rushing. They want to get to the finished product, and suddenly listening to directions feels like it is getting in the way.
Maybe showing them where we were headed was part of the problem.
Hmmmm.
Maybe the next step in Calm Flow isn't figuring out how to make my students calm.
Maybe it's figuring out how to stay regulated myself when they aren't.
That's a much harder lesson.
And apparently, I'm still in art class too.