A student was upset. He wasn’t my student. He’s not even in the grade that I teach, but he’s still somebody’s student. And this student happened to be coming out of a classroom near the one where I was delivering my students for my prep. I noticed because he ran past me. I noticed because I heard a supply teacher at the time call his name, and I knew there was a problem. That was when I started walking back to class, and I heard his name on the announcements. I also saw him sitting in an alcove not far from my classroom. So I stopped. I sat down next to him. I thought back to Stuart Shanker‘s Calm, Alert, and Learning book that I read last year, and I forced myself — really forced myself — to keep my voice very low. And in that whisper voice, I asked him, “What’s wrong?” He told me. I listened. I let him calm down, and then I convinced him to walk with me to where he was asked to go. We spoke about staying calm. We spoke about what he could do if he was feeling upset. In those few minutes, on a difficult day, I felt like what I did mattered.

That’s when I started to think about what I did. I kept calm and stayed quiet. This is hard for me.

• I’m a loud person.
• I speak loudly.
• My actions are big.
• I get easily excited, and the more excited I get, the louder I get.
• I’m passionate, and passion can be loud.

I think it’s a good thing to be wrapped up in the true joy of learning, and it’s one of the reasons that I’m thrilled to go and teach every day … because I truly love what I do! For so many of us, this excitement shows, and for me in the classroom, it can often be in my louder words and bigger actions. But that afternoon, I couldn’t help but think of this student. I wonder if “the quiet” helped him, or at least if it did at the time. And so as the day came to an end, and the volume in our classroom got louder, I tried hard to quiet down.

• I turned off the overhead lights.
• I talked less.
• I whispered more. 

In my head, I had to talk myself through this process, but it worked! Overall, the students were calmer, and the environment was calmer. I liked the feel of this!

Fast forward a year, and I think about this experience from last year. I thought that the feeling of calm came from the “quiet” and the “lack of bright lights.” Maybe this helped, but maybe it was about more than this. Maybe the calm came from taking the time to connect with kids. When I sat down on that floor, the child knew that I was there for him. I wasn’t judging him. I wasn’t yelling at him. I was listening to him. I could say the same thing about what happened in our classroom later on that day. As I turned off those lights, lowered my voice, and spoke less, I listened to students as they spoke more. I got down to be with them. I watched them work, and I celebrated with them as they met with success. We didn’t need a big celebration with huge cheers, but just a pat on the back, a high five, or the quiet spoken words of, “Way to go!” Looking back now, I wonder if the “quieting down” was less about the noise and more about the connections.

I ask this because I look at our class from this year. While for me to feel calm, I need less movement and more independent time, this is not true for everyone. Just the other night, my previous vice principal, Kristi, reminded me of this with a comment that she made in response to another post of mine.

I think about our kindergartners. Many students need to be active in order to calm down. Sometimes our class feels the most calm as a large group of students dance to favourite songs or participate in obstacle courses that they create. Watching the many ways that our students calm down makes me question if I was right last year. Does the lack of noise cause problems for some while working for others? Could this also be true about the lack of bright lights? As I mentioned to Kristi in this other post of mine, maybe it’s less about creating one area that works, and more about creating “zones” — from low lights with less noise to bright lights with more noise — to allow all of the children to find the area(s) that work(s) for them. And then, thinking about what happened last year, it’s also about watching children closely, examining their triggers, supporting them in the many ways that allow them to get to “calm,” and being there for them when maybe they can’t “calm down” alone. What do you think? We differentiate when it comes to academic skills. Maybe we need to do this more often for social skills.

Aviva

An Additional Note

As part of my final project for Foundations 4, I am re-exploring some blog posts that I wrote in the past (before taking the courses through The MEHRIT Centre) where I discussed self-regulation. I am updating these posts based on my new learning. Here is a link to the original post — Quieting Down.

After a discussion that I had with Dr. Mary Howard on this last blog post of mine, I decided to include this note at the end of this blog post instead of at the beginning of it. Even without the use of the terminology, this post looks at self-regulation, co-regulation, and how we can support ALL of our students in the classroom.

Aviva