Teaching is a Practice

This week I slowed down a little and thought a lot about what I've been learning in the IMMOOC  and  in my classroom.  In terms of technology, our student blog, La Classe de Madame Rea has given the  kids a pace to publish their work and thoughts. Initially the students took photos of trees at our school with iPads, and we published them with their thoughts on the blog.  This will be a year-long project linked to the Science curriculum.  Here's what excited me the most: the photos are REALLY GOOD! The kids have an innate sense of composition that isn't hindered by overthinking.  That's art at it's best.  We received some comments from colleagues in the IMMOOC, at school and from a few parents.  This week the students will take some more photos of the trees, as the fall colours have really come out since their first photos.

Generally speaking, I have been taking the risk of being more flexible as an educator. If some of my students are more comfortable sitting on a chair at the edge of the carpet, rather than on the carpet,  I let them. At first I had told them chairs couldn't be used at the carpet for whole group discussions,  but then I noticed that some of them had better focus in their chair.  They were also less likely to start distracting their friends with jokes and physical play. That's win-win for all of us!

My vice-principal and I teach a yoga club for Grade 2's once a week. We are both certified yoga teachers and are happy to take time with these kids to enjoy the peaceful retreat of yoga in the middle of the school day.  In my classroom, I had been having my students do some mindfulness videos on Go Noodle on the FLOW channel, each day after first recess. The kids were always calmer afterwards. This week on yoga club day,  my students asked when I would teach them yoga too.  I decided to teach them right then, in place of FLOW. The results were astounding. My students were settled and grounded as we began the day's math activity. They were much more focussed than usual and there was less distracting behaviour. They were ready to learn and explore in a way they hadn't been before. So we now do a daily yoga practice of 10-15 minutes after 1st recess and before Math. In the past I would have been concerned about time "lost" to yoga, but now I can see how much deeper their learning can be, so it's worth it! We still do FLOW, but at the end of some high energy Go Noodle videos, or when we just need to take a few breaths together before getting on with our day.

It's because I've been paying attention to my students and reflecting that I have been able to make these changes to improve. With this in mind I will be building more reflection time into my students' day. The student blog gives them an opportunity to reflect on their work before publishing. It pushed them to be selective of their photos, and to think about why they chose a particular photo to be shared with the world.

This weekend I began reading Stuart Shanker's book, Calm, Alert , and Learning, and I watched nearly 3 hours of his keynotes, workshops and TED Talk on YouTube.  As I began learning about Self-Regulation and how to help kids in my own classroom, I felt badly for not knowing any of this before.  I see now that though my approach has always been well-meaning, it was not always ideal.  Just as I was beginning to let guilt take over, I heard my yoga teacher's voice saying, "Yoga is a PRACTICE." There is no perfection in yoga. You practice and slowly improve, but you will always be PRACTICING. Then I remembered that as educators we reflect on our "Teaching Practice", and there is also no such thing as a perfect teacher.  Just as my students need to be in the Learning Pit and work their way out of it, I have jumped into the pit myself, and am starting to find my way out. It's not easy.  There's no escalator!  It's going to take some time and some hard work, but I know I can make it out eventually.