In my last post, I shared an initiative which I undertook with my colleague and dear friend, Sonja Gibbs, to incorporate Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in the online environment. We called it "Tranquil Tuesdays" and it functioned as a MS team channel, within our school's learning platform.
But in April 2022, it was decided that school would reopen, so we had to go back to the drawing board, to work out the logistics of transferring Tranquil Tuesdays to the physical setting.
For those of you looking to start a physical club like Tranquil Tuesdays in your own school, I'd like to share with you, some tips to consider, when getting your club/ group off the ground. And yes, I have faith that you'll want to start an initiative like this. Even as you sip your tea (or shot tequila) on this beautiful day of August, that surge on 'educator awesomeness' is rising within you. Your ten hours of well-deserved sleep, every night, since July 8th, is slowly restoring that burnt-out teacher spirit you've been rocking for the last two years. You're getting ready to 'bring it' big-time, come September, and the following tips will help you to do just that.
1. Be mindful of your allowances and limits: The first thing you want to do, is find out the parameters in which you can run the club. Is there a safe space available, with adequate seating and spacing between students? We're still functioning in a pandemic and your students' health and safety should be your number one priority (even if it isn't, for some of the powers that be...but we'll leave that for another article...wink wink.)
Also, find out if you are able to run the club after school or not. For some schools, getting the students off of the compound by a certain time is necessary, if proper sanitisation and fogging is to take place. It was for this reason, that we opted to move Tranquil Tuesdays to a lunchtime period instead of after-school.
2. Adjust your schedule to facilitate new time constraints: We worked with approximately 50 minutes when we were online. That needed to change to 30 minutes in the physical. Why? Our lunch break began at 12:10 and ended at 1:10. We had to factor in giving our boys 20 minutes to eat before we started, and 10 minutes to prepare for the afternoon session of classes. If you're running a Tranquil Tuesdays club, it defeats the purpose to have students feeling rushed and harassed to down a sandwich and juice, go to the club and then run down the corridors to class. Factoring in time to for transitions/ breaks makes it much easier for them to manage their time.
3. Have an open-door policy throughout the sessions: Some students will be at the door as soon as the bell goes. Others, will straggle in sheepishly ten minutes into the session. You, as the facilitator, need to ensure you welcome both groups with equanimity. After all, calmness and cool is what the club is about in the first place, right? Sonja is a master at this, her voice is always soothing and welcoming when the boys come into the room. She puts them at ease instantly and they appreciate that.
4. Start with a light activity: Believe it or not, students come in with a defensive energy. Perhaps they feel like they shouldn't come to a club like this, maybe they don't know what the club is about. Point is, they come in wary, assessing the environment like alert prey. That's why that soothing welcome is so important. You follow it up with a light activity, and for us, that's mindful colouring. We provide a stack of colouring sheets and packs of coloured pencils. They choose a graphic they like, grab some pencils and take a seat. While they colour, we play some Zen music from YouTube in the background, using a projector to showcase beautiful landscapes/ nature scenes.
5. Ease into your topic: So some of these topics are huge! Mindfulness-Based Stress- Reduction (MBSR), Growth Mindset, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)....you don't start with the big guns. Start with a short video or story. One that we really loved was "The Cautious Caterpillar", a resource available at https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-l-526203-the-cautious-caterpillar-ebook. It allowed us to talk about Coping with Change, something that the boys could relate to, as they had anxieties about returning to physical school after two years at home. Again, I have to commend Sonja who narrated the story beautifully...she really has a great voice and she took on that caterpillar like nobody's business.
6. Allow for discussion/ interaction: After the story/ video, have students engage in interactive activities: discussions, pair work, brainstorming solutions to hypothetical situations/ conflicts. According to https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/why.html,
Interactive techniques allow all students to participate. Research has shown that this engagement leads to deeper learning and retention.
Among the other benefits of these techniques, is one that we think, is particularly beneficial to our students and a goal of the club: They "give students practice in developing critical-thinking skills;"
Critical thinking is crucial, yet so overlooked, when it comes to self-management. We want our students to think before they act, especially in situations that challenge them: a peer upsets them, a parent/ teacher corrects them for inappropriate behaviour, they're facing a stressful home situation..like their parent's divorce or a sudden move to a blended family situation. We have even had to deal with students suddenly being ignored by a biological parent, because that parent has a new family and wants to leave the old one behind. After the tears of grief and frustration, students want to know, HOW DO I DEAL WITH THIS? That's where the wisdom you share with them comes in.
7. Allow for private self-reflection: You all know how much I love reflexivity and it's never to soon to start training children to reflect on their actions and how they can choose differently moving forward.
Reflection is an act of looking back in order to process experiences. Metacognition, a type of reflection, is a way of thinking about one’s thinking in order to grow.
As educators, we know the importance of developing metacognition in our students, and reflection allows for "thinking about our thinking". Of course, you don't put it across to your students that way. Instead, provide reflection sheets in simple language. Alternate between check boxes, ticking/ colouring emojis to express feelings, and just including a few lines for any comments they'd like to make. They are tons of resources online. For adolescents, check https://www.teentoolkit.net. They've got nice reflections sheets, activities, affirmations and reminders that all look Instagram ready. That means they're already in a format that teens can relate to.
Remember, don't make sharing of these reflection sheets compulsory. Students must complete them, but they don't have to share them. You are not entitled to seeing what they've written, but you can invite them to share with you, if they want to. Allow them that mental and emotional space to just be with their thoughts and feelings...without bogging them down with the need to talk about what they've written. This isn't an assignment/ worksheet...turn your teacher brain off for a moment and guess what.....REFLECT too! Grab a sheet and complete one yourself! You can benefit as much as your students from this club! You know how many times Sonja and I have ended up colouring to our hearts' content as well?
8. Wind down with a gentle meditation: You want to end your session with a "Mindful Moment". It should not be more than 2-3 minutes. Do a guided meditation with your students, having them close their eyes and pay attention to their breathing. I am usually responsible for this, and I source resources from online and from books. One book that I find particularly useful is : Just Breathe: Meditation, Mindfulness, Movement and More by Mallika Chopra (daughter of Deepak Chopra). It's part of a 'Just Be' series and is excellent for youngsters. Towards the end of the term, I also invested in "5-Minute Mindfulness Meditations for Teens" by Nicole Libin. These are short meditations which can be adapted to an even shorter period of time if need be.
But don't feel pressured to buy a lot of stuff. There's a whole lot of resources online and remember, Pinterest is your friend. Just type in Mindfulness for Teens and tons of stuff will come up. That's where I found: https://http://bitsofpositivity.com, which shares lots of freebies with you.
I know this one was lengthy, but that's because it's packed with all the tips and recommendations you need, to get your mindfulness club going! So stop making excuses and put SEL on the front burner as you prepare for the new academic year.
If we teach students to value their hearts as much as their brains, Emotional Intelligence will finally get the attention it deserves. It's only when students are taught to honour their feelings, are they better able to navigate the often precarious and rocky road of growing up. Let's give them all the help we can, to get to holistic well-being: something that's fast diminishing, but desperately needed, in this ever-changing world.
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