I've been trying to figure out why it's so tough for me to coordinate my two grades in terms of math lessons, when the expectations between two consecutive grades are so similar, and I'm using two consecutive grades of the same company's math publication as my main resource. I've been experimenting with alternating grade expectations while simply teaching the whole class, teaching one and then extending for the other, large group learning, etc, figuring maybe it was my teaching style and planning that was the problem. However, I realized Friday evening that I didn't fully have the correspondences of the two grades' workbooks figured out, so I hadn't been working with the full gamut of lessons and practice tasks available. Now that I've marked out most of the lesson-to-lesson correspondences, the work of two or three hours this weekend, math should be less time-consuming to plan. This little epiphany gave me quite the burst of energy!
Another thing I figured out was that I can use elements of the Daily 5, which my colleagues and I are investigating, to improve my classroom management and my students' self-control. The Daily 5 has teachers help students build stamina for sustained reading by starting with very short reading periods (basically only as long as they're able to do it for without help) and increasing the amount by very small degrees with each practice, all the while encouraging students by letting them know how much better they did than last time and challenging them to beat their record. On Friday, I experimented with using this stamina-building technique during a math lesson -- challenging them to get through a 5-minute lesson with what they already know is appropriate behaviour. Suddenly, the lesson was much better attended, and the children much less fidgety and more able to learn. I think I will continue my independent inquiry into using the Daily 5 stamina-building technique as general classroom management practice.
I've had a suggestion recently to look into Acceptance and Commitment therapy, which I understand involves observing and recognizing your thoughts and feelings and states, but then rather than trying to change those that trouble you, simply accepting them and then letting them go. There was also the idea of acknowledging the difference between "fact" and "reality". It sounded like something worth checking out. I like the idea of accepting and becoming comfortable with things about yourself, even ones that you don't necessarily like and maybe wish were different. I mean, we do this (mostly) for our friends and loved ones. It's hard, for me at least, to know what I don't like about me, without wanting to immediately change it! But if I were one of my friends I would make the effort, right? Anyway, as such, I've slightly changed the focus of my non-judgment task. The point here is to be comfortable with myself, and to quiet some of the constant murmur in my head. Much of this murmur results not from being judgmental in and of itself, but from the feelings that result when I judge. As such, I'm going to try this whole observing, accepting, releasing idea. The idea will be to observe my feelings, thoughts, etc., and then accept them and let them go. If I have feelings about those feelings (i.e. guilt about being judgmental), those, too, are observed, accepted and released. Hopefully this will give me a way to be who I am and feel what I feel, without getting caught up in unhelpful anxiety cycles.
A recommendation for a book talking about this therapy that I received was The Happiness Trap. It sounded very in tune with my outlook -- although I do have to be careful about books that seem to "get" me too much, since they tend to validate my constant navel-gazing, some less helpfully than others. Either way, reading will have to wait. For now, we'll practice "Observe, Accept, Release".
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