Lightening Up

 

The quote above is about the workplace. And it goes for the classroom as well.

This week I made a commitment to lighten up, to lead with love and joy. Then after reading The Anxious Generation on Tuesday, I knew even more how important this is for all of our well-being. I erased my list of rules off the board (which baffled a couple of students who needed to know why), and proceeded in focusing on my temperament in the classroom.

I don’t miss the rule list. My compass is now within me.

Last November, in a time of high stress, I started a Find Joy Journal in my classroom. I was recording things that brought joy, so that I wasn't just focusing on the negative.

When my world blew up in late January, the Joy Journal disappeared off of my desk and, although it kept calling out to me from its new home in the closet, I ignored it.

Until this week.

I finally got it back out, to begin recording joy again. But things have shifted. I find now I am writing about how I am changing. How I am purposely reacting differently to things that used to drive me nuts. I'm going to list a few of them here and anyone reading may think What was the big deal to start with? Believe me, I'm wondering now myself.

1. Boys constantly having to have their hands on each other. I'm letting it be, and it seems to subside a bit. It always intensified when I complained.

2. Silly things. I have a boy named Leo in 7th period who is hilarious. Instead of shutting him down, I joined in to the laughter. And then everyone got back to work.

3. Fancy hand claps and handshakes. Okay, sometimes they were doing them at inappropriate times...but now I welcome their doing things in unison. It is part of necessary play, as I learned in Haidt's book.  

4. Broken pencils on the floor (usually ones I provided.) If it keeps a kid from shutting down or giving someone else a fat lip, it's done its job. I say this in the wake of a girl who had a pencil in her hand when presenting her project which she was slowing breaking into little pieces. What a way to handle the nerves of public speaking! I've never seen that before.

Needless to say, I found that I didn't get quite as tired when I came home, so that alone makes this experiment worth it.