Chanting OM with Bellringer Meditation
This past summer I had a lot of things to look forward to as a second year teacher: the
upcoming completion of my master’s degree, twice as many classes in my prefered content area,
and the opportunity to collaborate on a new RTI venture. The plans that I had made in the
summer were largely in response to this RTI class.
During one hour of the day, four teachers have a section of Freshmen English scheduled. Normally, these four teachers would have a class full of 20 kiddos that range in ability form Pre-AP bound, to on the edge of an IEP qualification. Those periphery kids -- those that don’t qualify for services with an IEP, but are falling through the cracks and end up failing English 1, or moving on to English 2 sorely behind their peers -- are the focus of the RTI program. Our goal, as administration explained it, was to catch-up these kids’ ability up to their peer’s ability (keep them from failing English 1) so they could be successful in English 2 and the EOC their sophomore year. With the help of administration, school counselors, 8th grade English teaches, and the high school English department chair, 16 students were identified as at risk for falling behind in English 1 and put into a special RTI classroom.
This classroom was created by eliminating one of those four teacher’s roster during 2nd hour so she could assist the three other teachers with those RTI identified students who were split between my classroom and two of my colleagues. The fourth teacher rotates -- we call her the floater -- between the three of us to help intervene on the behave of those RTI students. On some days the floater co-teaches, while on other days she pulls students to reteach, reassess, or catch-up on missed work.
Now that it is March, we have a plethora of data which indicates this model is working. None of the RTI kids have failed. And to further the goals of RTI, we are restructuring the classroom and teachers’ roles to benefit the most kids. I love my RTI kids, and I love to sing the praises on their writing.
But nothing I researched or planned this summer had anything to do with my RTI kiddo’s success.
I spent this past summer researching mindfulness in education. I first became interested in mindfulness when my partner -- a professional counselor -- recommended I use techniques like box breathing, meditation, grounding, and progressive muscle relaxation to deal with my anxiety. Previously, my cooperating teacher during my student teaching had meditated with her CT class (a class that held a higher number of students with an IEP receiving services for English). When I saw mindfulness working in these two capacities, I hoped some research could help me build a toolbox of the best methods to help my RTI class.
I drew upon all kinds of mindful practices to help prepare myself for whatever kid I met in August. I collected techniques that would help with recursive reading and writing if I found students who could not find words for their thoughts; I gathered silent, self-directed techniques to help kids who struggled to quell self-doubt and anxiety during assignments; and I found ways to use mindfulness as a method of classroom management.
I was prepared for anything. I was excited. I just knew my kids were going to love it. I came in day one, ready to get my kids breathing and grounding and buying into this mindful writing thing. I had this grand vision that kids would come into my class and instantly begin meditating and they’d love it so much that they would beg for the hour to begin and they’d be having these great writing moments growing out of that meditation and maybe they’d even download meditation music and use it while they wrote at home (which, of course they would want to do, because English class would be the coolest class of the day).
Instead I met blank faces and might as well have been meditating to the droning repetition of “Bueller.” Not one of my kids bought into this hippie-dippie start to their day and I could feel all this silent breathing (which, wasn’t so silent with their guppy, opened mouths) turning into nap time. It wasn’t working. In fact, the opposite was happening. It was like they were losing their thoughts in the silence and could not put them into words, much less onto a piece of paper. I have a few theories about why it did not work:
The class dynamic was already quiet, so there was no need to foster a quiet space to think; the kids didn’t need a self-guided coping mechanism to overcome doubt and anxiety -- with a floater teacher, the student-to-teacher ratio meant I could stand right next to a kid as a coach to eliminate that anxiety; and because RTI meant to us the opportunity to redo most assignments, students were being given the opportunity by the structure of the class to think/read/write recursively. Though I did use some of my mindful techniques on a one-to-one basis, especially with encouraging kids to sit silently to ruminate on a topic before writing, my vision of a classroom chanting OM with bellringer meditation just wasn’t coming true.
At least not in my RTI class, where I thought it would be most helpful.
My 7th-hour -- the last class of the day -- they bought it.
Each day, they start asking before the bell rings “can we meditate today.” I watch them use breathing exercises while testing and before they begin writing. Everyday we share the journals they keep about the connects they made about texts during meditation.
I have a couple of theories about why mindfulness has worked for my 7th hour, but not my RTI kiddos. Ultimately, all those theories come down to dynamic and personality. And that’s both exciting and scary to me. On the one hand I’m really thankful and grateful that my researched helped at all -- for anyone. On the other, it makes me nervous that the class I prepared for did not have the personality for what I wanted to do. The year is coming to a wrap quickly; I’ve come to terms with mindfulness working and not working this year, but now I’m starting to worry about next year. Will any of the kids respond next year? What happens if they don’t? Do I have a well-prepared toolbox if they do not respond to mindfulness? I think I do, but I thought I had the perfect toolbox for this year and, well, that wasn’t 100% true.
I’m only a second year teacher. I’m still learning A LOT. And I think from this experience I’ve learned the importance of the class’ personality...and how important it is I continue to practice box breathing as I worry about kids responding to mindfulness in the future.
During one hour of the day, four teachers have a section of Freshmen English scheduled. Normally, these four teachers would have a class full of 20 kiddos that range in ability form Pre-AP bound, to on the edge of an IEP qualification. Those periphery kids -- those that don’t qualify for services with an IEP, but are falling through the cracks and end up failing English 1, or moving on to English 2 sorely behind their peers -- are the focus of the RTI program. Our goal, as administration explained it, was to catch-up these kids’ ability up to their peer’s ability (keep them from failing English 1) so they could be successful in English 2 and the EOC their sophomore year. With the help of administration, school counselors, 8th grade English teaches, and the high school English department chair, 16 students were identified as at risk for falling behind in English 1 and put into a special RTI classroom.
This classroom was created by eliminating one of those four teacher’s roster during 2nd hour so she could assist the three other teachers with those RTI identified students who were split between my classroom and two of my colleagues. The fourth teacher rotates -- we call her the floater -- between the three of us to help intervene on the behave of those RTI students. On some days the floater co-teaches, while on other days she pulls students to reteach, reassess, or catch-up on missed work.
Now that it is March, we have a plethora of data which indicates this model is working. None of the RTI kids have failed. And to further the goals of RTI, we are restructuring the classroom and teachers’ roles to benefit the most kids. I love my RTI kids, and I love to sing the praises on their writing.
But nothing I researched or planned this summer had anything to do with my RTI kiddo’s success.
I spent this past summer researching mindfulness in education. I first became interested in mindfulness when my partner -- a professional counselor -- recommended I use techniques like box breathing, meditation, grounding, and progressive muscle relaxation to deal with my anxiety. Previously, my cooperating teacher during my student teaching had meditated with her CT class (a class that held a higher number of students with an IEP receiving services for English). When I saw mindfulness working in these two capacities, I hoped some research could help me build a toolbox of the best methods to help my RTI class.
I drew upon all kinds of mindful practices to help prepare myself for whatever kid I met in August. I collected techniques that would help with recursive reading and writing if I found students who could not find words for their thoughts; I gathered silent, self-directed techniques to help kids who struggled to quell self-doubt and anxiety during assignments; and I found ways to use mindfulness as a method of classroom management.
I was prepared for anything. I was excited. I just knew my kids were going to love it. I came in day one, ready to get my kids breathing and grounding and buying into this mindful writing thing. I had this grand vision that kids would come into my class and instantly begin meditating and they’d love it so much that they would beg for the hour to begin and they’d be having these great writing moments growing out of that meditation and maybe they’d even download meditation music and use it while they wrote at home (which, of course they would want to do, because English class would be the coolest class of the day).
Instead I met blank faces and might as well have been meditating to the droning repetition of “Bueller.” Not one of my kids bought into this hippie-dippie start to their day and I could feel all this silent breathing (which, wasn’t so silent with their guppy, opened mouths) turning into nap time. It wasn’t working. In fact, the opposite was happening. It was like they were losing their thoughts in the silence and could not put them into words, much less onto a piece of paper. I have a few theories about why it did not work:
The class dynamic was already quiet, so there was no need to foster a quiet space to think; the kids didn’t need a self-guided coping mechanism to overcome doubt and anxiety -- with a floater teacher, the student-to-teacher ratio meant I could stand right next to a kid as a coach to eliminate that anxiety; and because RTI meant to us the opportunity to redo most assignments, students were being given the opportunity by the structure of the class to think/read/write recursively. Though I did use some of my mindful techniques on a one-to-one basis, especially with encouraging kids to sit silently to ruminate on a topic before writing, my vision of a classroom chanting OM with bellringer meditation just wasn’t coming true.
At least not in my RTI class, where I thought it would be most helpful.
My 7th-hour -- the last class of the day -- they bought it.
Each day, they start asking before the bell rings “can we meditate today.” I watch them use breathing exercises while testing and before they begin writing. Everyday we share the journals they keep about the connects they made about texts during meditation.
I have a couple of theories about why mindfulness has worked for my 7th hour, but not my RTI kiddos. Ultimately, all those theories come down to dynamic and personality. And that’s both exciting and scary to me. On the one hand I’m really thankful and grateful that my researched helped at all -- for anyone. On the other, it makes me nervous that the class I prepared for did not have the personality for what I wanted to do. The year is coming to a wrap quickly; I’ve come to terms with mindfulness working and not working this year, but now I’m starting to worry about next year. Will any of the kids respond next year? What happens if they don’t? Do I have a well-prepared toolbox if they do not respond to mindfulness? I think I do, but I thought I had the perfect toolbox for this year and, well, that wasn’t 100% true.
I’m only a second year teacher. I’m still learning A LOT. And I think from this experience I’ve learned the importance of the class’ personality...and how important it is I continue to practice box breathing as I worry about kids responding to mindfulness in the future.
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