**Post #3 in a series of posts about brain science.**
See post 1, Why is This So Hard?, here and post 2, Brain Intervals, Calming our Amygdalas and Creating a Safety Zone, here.
In my last brain science post, Brain Intervals: Calming our Amygdalas and Creating a Safety Zone, I discussed using Brain Intervals to co-regulate the brain states of our students. This is a group strategy that works very well to get a class on track. But we’ve also all experienced situations where one or two dominant, negative attitudes take over the class atmosphere and make our jobs extremely difficult. What do we do then? (I had this situation the year I was assigned 220 students. You can read about How I Won Over Alfredo here.)
Before we get into the details of the 2 X 10 strategy, I want to remind us of a few things:
- Teaching this year is HARD. Much harder than any of us anticipated.
- Being a student this year is equally HARD. Much harder than any student anticipated.
- None of us has been trained to teach during a pandemic, we are all feeling our way as we go along.
- We don’t like feeling like first year teachers (two years in a row).
- We are ALL (students and teachers alike) operating from our reserves – there is nowhere else to go to dig deep and carry on. We have dug to the bottom of the well.
- MANY teachers have added responsibilities on TOP of the added responsibilities from last year.
- Many schools have changed schedules from block to straight classes, from straight classes to block, from straight classes to shorter classes…. the variations are endless. We no sooner become accustomed to a routine, only to find the routine has changed. (When we have dysregulated brain states our brains crave routine.)
- We love our students and we love what we do. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be sticking it out.
- We DO have options to ‘do something else’ – we CHOOSE not to do something else.
- So, so, so many of us have spouses and friends who are encouraging us on the daily to take that option and DO something else that makes more money and has way less stress. But again, we love what we do and don’t truly WANT to do something else.
- Did I mention how freaking HARD it is to teach this year???
And perhaps the most important point of all:
Every class of students we have from now until the foreseeable future will be a class that has been interrupted by Covid-19.
We have a very short window of opportunity to get this right.
Introducing the 2 X 10 strategy
What do we do best as language teachers? When I look around at all the amazing language teachers in my district and at other schools I’ve taught and at friends from around the country, I see adults who are genuinely interested in people. Not just the people from our target cultures, but people. We are pro’s at building relationships because we are so interested in learning about others. We gradually build trust in our classrooms so student affective filters don’t raise and acquisition can occur. Well, the 2 X 10 strategy is a more focused version of what we naturally do over time in our classrooms – build relationships. Students feel seen, heard, and valued.
What do students need more of right now at this very minute? Feeling seen, heard, and valued. Their amygdalas (fight / flight) are on high alert and have taken over the functioning of their prefrontal cortexes (thinking / analyzing). When the amygdala is in charge, the only variable that matters is safety. Your classroom can become a student safety zone. Only once the amygdala has identified your space as a safe one, will it become calm and allow learning to take place.
Setting up the 2 X 10
In the 2 X 10, we identify a student who is “setting the tone” in our classroom. That student might have a tough exterior or they might be the class clown who is always interrupting. They might also be the one sitting near a friend, constantly chatting instead of paying attention. If you are like me, you have classrooms full of these kids. Not every class, and not every kid. But because of the way scheduling works out, a large number of them end up in one class. At any rate, we identify one student who if they were on board, others might follow.
Have a 2 minute conversation with that student 10 days in a row. Get to know him or her. Find out what sport, club, group, job, whatever they are participating in and be genuinely interested in their lives. Make sure that student feels seen, heard, and valued. You will start to see a slight positive change in that student’s behavior. Their amygdala will begin to associate safety with your classroom space and learning can take place.
Once you have met with one student for 10 days, meet with another one, then another, and another until you have made every single student feel seen, heard, and valued. These meetings can take place in the hallway between classes, during your bell ringer time, while you have students in groups, during lunch, or any other time you can carve out 2 minutes. Mine almost always happen during passing periods.
This is a simple strategy and I will admit that it is time consuming. But I can attest that it is a VERY powerful time investment. Imagine if every teacher in the building was doing 2 X 10. Many of us would be meeting with the same students – my goodness, all that seeing, hearing, and valuing! I know how special I feel when I am seen, heard, and valued. How empowering would it be for all of our students to feel the same???
I encourage you to give this strategy a try and let me know it goes! It’s not a perfect solution by any means, but it is a great start.
