Yesterday, I had the great joy of hosting a training session for a cool group of PK-2 after school teaching artists with the non-profit organization I work for, Big Thought. My goal as facilitator was to isolate the challenges the teachers are facing in their classrooms, and then lend my own advice and solicit the advice of the group to find solutions to the issues they are facing. The teaching artists named the following as the main challenges: |
- Disengagement
- "Spazzing Out" in class
- ADHD (diagnosed or undiagnosed)
- Abuse - verbal or physical
- Shutting Down (not working, communicating, hiding in a corner, being unresponsive, etc.)
When you have a room packed with stressed-out kids, your lesson must be highly engaging and fun! | One thing we discussed was the need to write all lessons from the child's perspective. NEVER start writing a lesson thinking, "I need to teach x, y, and z." DO start writing lessons thinking "the kids would LOVE to learn about a, b, and c...and then I can work in x, y, and z while we're at it!" |
Tips for Getting Kids to Drive Questioning: | One of my personal goals for the group was to get the lessons to be a bit more student-driven. To that end, the teaching artists came up with the following list of ideas to get the kids to drive questioning and critique:
This last one is kind of funny but totally works. It's like when someone can't think of a word, and you desperately want to help them so you try to finish their sentence for them. Do that to the kids. Just leave the question hanging! |
"Do you wonder how he painted it?"
"Ooooh George, that's a great question!
What do you think of George's question, guys?
How DO you think he painted it?"
BOOM! A 1st grader just drove the questioning.
"HOW WOULD IT LOOK IN THE DAYTIME?!"
"WHOA, Maria, that's a cool question, I totally never would have thought of that!"
...and just keep going. See how many kids can keep it up.
Settling Your Glitter: A tool for calming down
It's important to talk through this process with the children. Ideally, every child should have his/her own glitter bottle to keep in the classroom and use as a tool for calming down. This can be used whenever the child is feeling overwhelmed in any capacity: angry, sad, frustrated, or even overly excited. If the child's emotions are clouding her ability to think clearly, work effectively, find solutions, solve problems, work out conflicts with others, etc., the glitter bottle can help! Eventually, she can learn to recognize when she is feeling overwhelmed and simply walk over to where her glitter bottle is kept, take it to a quiet area of the classroom, settle her glitter, and when she is focused again, put the bottle away and move on about her work day. (Right about now some of your brains are exploding and you're ready to run out for glitter supplies, aren't you?)
Here is the recipe:
- A small water bottle
- Glitter glue
- Glitter
- Paper cone cups (get from a doctor's office or buy on Amazon)
- Have the kids open remove the label from their bottle
- Take the cap off the bottle
- Take a sip of water, to make room for the glitter glue and glitter to go in
- Squeeze glitter glue into the water bottle hard for about 4 seconds
- Cut the end off the cone cup, to make a funnel
- Insert the funnel into the water bottle
- Shake glitter into the funnel for about 6 seconds (about 2 tablespoons)
- Put a little glitter glue into the edge of the cap, and screw it back on, to glue it in place
- Shake it up really well!
Abuse and Shutting DownSo what do you see in Michael's picture? Many of us teach in schools where the children are victims of extreme violence in their homes. They may be neglected. They may be malnourished. They may be forced to move from place to place, and that is of course completely out of their control, and frustrating. This can cause anger. | |
At my first school, many years ago, a fifth grade boy and two of his siblings arrived around February, and he had already lived in 14 states in his 11 short years. He had other siblings living in Florida, and he rarely saw them. He was a very, very angry boy and was very beautiful; I used to say he looked like a cougar. He had the same type of fierceness about him. He was sent to the principal's office on his first day, for fighting. He had immense trust issues but was surprisingly advanced in some subjects, given how often he had moved. | He was forced to move again by April, just when he was finally making progress. He had begun to settle in and stop fighting with his classmates. He was actually making some friends and beginning to trust us. I cried bitterly when I discovered he was gone. Many of our students are angry, and they have a right to be. We have to be understanding of that. When they lash out, we must see past the immediate "wrongdoing" and look through, into their eyes, into their soul, address what we perceive they might be feeling, and ask the right question, which is not: |
"WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" | but rather: | "how can I help?" |
A child who lashes out can benefit from multiple strategies: a more engaging lesson (yes, don't fight it...an engaged person is not a bored person and therefore has no time to think of how irritated/frustrated/angry she is); a glitter bottle; an opportunity to draw or talk about what is upsetting her; or simply some quiet time with a stuffed animal. Seriously. Sometimes even an older child can benefit from that.
Let me know in the comments below if any of these strategies, or others, work for you.
xox jkh