"Behaviour is the language of trauma. Children will show you before they tell you that they are in distress." - Micere Keels
"The time was not lost, it was invested in surviving an historic period of time in their lives - in our lives. The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need to be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post-pandemic world." - Teresa Thayer Snyder
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As the pandemic continues to stretch in front of us with no clear 'end' in sight, schools are coming to terms with the multiple changes living through this historic, worldwide event has generated for adults and, for us most significantly, for our students.
Quite honestly, when all this began a year ago, I don't think I knew anyone who anticipated the breadth and depth of changes that were rolling towards us - strange viruses had happened before (SARS comes to mind, or H1N1) and we had taken them in stride in Canada. I remember having brief conversations around the quality of our medical care and public health systems and really not being too concerned at all about long term impacts on the school - or our lifestyles - at all.
Hindsight makes me wonder at the naivety of that thinking - so many things have happened since then that have revealed challenges to fundamental supports in our world, including our health care system, our economic system, our lifestyles and to our education system all at the same time, in a historical confluence that has been both humbling and inspiring. The idea of being on 'solid ground' no longer exists as we constantly adjust our thinking to ever-shifting new information and events, both on a worldwide scale as well as on a microscopic level inside our school.
Last week I wrote about some cracks in resiliency beginning to become visible amongst our students as the winter months have arrived, with the COVID-19 realities still stretching forward in front of us for a considerably longer time than ever anticipated. I noted some of the new behaviours and conversations we've seen creeping onto the landscape gradually over the past few months that are becoming more prevalent and persistent as time passes:
- children resisting learning - not wanting to participate in specific learning tasks
- children who are expressing or acting out feelings of being anxious ('I'm worried, I'm afraid, what if...)
- sometimes children will say they are bored, or tired or don't like doing a particular learning activity
- children are struggling to read body language, solve problems in peaceful ways, or are misreading social situations
- learners are exhibiting a wide variety of learning gaps that are not consistent across the school population - we are discovering interruptions in learning and understanding that are different child to child
- questions specific to school are being asked much more frequently (Will we need to stay home again and learn online? What happens if someone gets sick - do we all need to go home? What if my teacher gets sick and has to stay home? Will school stop for a long time again?)
- children are beginning to vocalize the things they miss - like swimming, birthday parties, going to hockey or skating, seeing grandparents, etc - while this is not unexpected it is a relatively fresh phenomenon expressed in a variety of ways (Remember when...When COVID is over the first thing I want to do...I miss my....I wonder if I will ever get to....again)
As teachers, we are exploring strategies that will both reassure and support our learners as they move through the various nuances of feelings that are surfacing as the restrictions and constraints on learning seem to have become permanent for our young students. It is a tightrope walk for sure, trying to reassure while honouring the questions and feelings, trying to keep school as 'typical' as possible while also acknowledging school is nowhere near the 'same' experience some of them have loved before - while others have only this experience as a way of understanding what 'school' is all about.
Coming to school every day with a cluster of children to absorb and demand your time and attention is, without a doubt, a happy distraction from the realities of a life constrained on every front. As a staff, we have all become accustomed to the masks, sanitizing, distancing, cohorting schedules, stay-in-place expectations, restricted use of student supplies, controlled use of washrooms and hallways and the staggered entry/exits that have defined this school year. And we are grappling with the changes in teaching and learning, the spectrum of learner needs that is more diverse than anything we have experienced before and the absence of opportunities for shared experiences with peers and parents, doing our best to ensure constrained learning is an engaging, personalized and interesting as possible.
The next level of nuance in these pandemic teaching circumstances is supporting and understanding the students when they do begin to exhibit signs of emotional distress, and to work with families to better recognize, appreciate and sustain students when small emotional displays or expressions of concern do pop up.
A key strategy for supporting learners to successfully navigate their emotional responses to school during the pandemic is to better understand where their concerns are rooted. Sometimes this is relatively clear when a child can express their concerns verbally while other times it takes a bit of exploring and talking to discover where a child's anxieties may be focused. There are some general starting places where adults can begin when a child either acts out or expresses a worry, fear or anxiety.
'I'm bored...'
For example, we know that when a child says "I'm bored" they are typically referring to the level of activity associated with learning rather than the actual content or task. At EHS, students who attended pre-pandemic were hands-on, active learners every single day, engaged in group projects, in working in the Maker Space, accessing the Learning Commons as needed, being part of weekly Wonder Times, participating in a variety of Ignite early morning activities designed to calm brains and bodies in preparation for active learning. Today in our school, virtually none of these opportunities exist for students. While there are a few opportunities for engaging (either masked and/or distanced) in learning with others in a child's specific cohort, opportunities for hands-on learning are extremely limited with daily school work much more focused on paper-and-pencil type of tasks. Interactions with children outside of their cohort do not exist anymore. Ignite activities when children enter school are restricted as well to individual activities. The Learning Commons is off limits at all times, even for choosing a new book to read. The Maker Space is a mask-free zone without the usual active, group-focused design and building activities many children thrive on as learners. Children are bored because they learn best when both bodies and minds are engaged in learning at the same time.
How do we support learners who are expressing these concerns about being bored with learning?
First, we listen and honour that expression, acknowledging that it is very real for that child in that moment. There is no one 'magic' solution to supporting any child whose emotions are becoming visibly demonstrated, but listening is always a great place to begin!
Dr. Michele Borba is one my go-to resources for suggestions when we are supporting students who are exhibiting any kind of emotional distress. She suggests using a 'Talk. Stop. Listen. Talk. Stop. Listen.' strategy with kids - with an emphasis on listen. Through the 'Talk' phase, teachers can as questions or offer suggestions as to why a child is expressing boredom as a feeling (such as asking what is different about this year's learning from last year, for example), as well as ideas for making the learning more active that the child might not think of on their own. While many of our learning activities are restricted to paper and pencil, there is also room for acting out ideas through Reader's Theatre or mini-plays, learning to draw in a different way (eg. 3D drawing or using shapes), building structures such as dioramas at home to demonstrate understanding, making use of video or other digital strategies to capture learning, etc. The key is to listen, to talk to parents and support their efforts to help children understand the root causes of 'boredom' and to try and build room for alternative demonstrations of learning within the constrained classroom.
'I don't want to do...'
Some of our youngest learners are struggling to adapt to daily constrained learning - being able to sit still in a similar place for an extended period of time, listening to instructions, following models and then trying a task on their own is a multiple-step process that takes time to get used to. For many of our grade 1 students, for example, time spent in Kindergarten in the classroom where routines were established and expectations reinforced for 'how to be a student' was reduced by 1/3 and then, stretched over summer, by another two months. That's a long time for 5-year-old to remember how to behave like a student - especially when the last few months of Kindergarten are the ones typically most focused on acquiring 'getting ready for grade 1' skills and strategies.
A constrained pandemic teaching arrangement brought inexperienced learners into a fairly intense learning environment with a multitude of 'rules' and expectations no grade 1 students had ever had to contend with before - masks, sanitizing, cohorting, no general playground or play time, etc. Our little ones have risen to the occasion dramatically well, learning to cope with these expectations without complaint and adjust to being in a controlled environment pretty much every minute of the day. And, when listening to the teacher seems to take too long, or the learning tasks are difficult or take a great deal of energy or time, investing in yet more 'musts' seems like just too much to do for someone whose body is itching to jump around, sing or just play.
As teachers, this is a challenge in a constrained classroom because our options for sustaining a controlled learning environment while finding a way to engage every learner is a tall order to say the least! Our learners are coming to school without a consistent set of background experiences and without predictable previous learning experiences that we have come to rely on as scaffolds to guide our learners through the various learning stages and graded content. Our support ladders have been disturbed and we are working hard to adjust our teaching strategies to absorb a much wider range of abilities and work styles than would typically come to us in an average school year.
We start with listening to the children, talking to them as well, as we try to uncover where the 'hard parts' are that are resulting in resistance towards engaging in tasks. Sometimes we've talked too long and they have tuned out from the actual instructions or directions on what they are expected to do - I don't think there is a teacher anywhere on the planet who has not experienced 'teacher over talk'! In our zeal to ensure everyone understands the next steps, we explain and explain and explain...Sometimes we need to learn to pause and this pandemic year has certainly been instructive for all of us in learning not to 'teacher over talk'! Sometimes the task is really just too complex or unfamiliar and requires additional scaffolding or coaching. Sometimes we need to chunk tasks into several smaller units and take a break in between to celebrate accomplishments before attempting yet another step in the process of learning a new skill. Sometimes we just need to take a break and get bodies moving in a quick, desk-side body break.
These are all differentiation strategies teachers know and use daily in any regular teaching context - adapting them without including movement to a small group setting or access to the Maker Space, Learning Commons or other alternative learning space makes offering opportunities for differentiating tasks a much greater challenge when we are all confined to one room and one space in that room. Additional learning tools cannot be shared (such as games, ipads) without cleaning and sanitizing in between; meeting together as an informal small group of students to get a little extra support is almost impossible when there are no additional spaces in the room to join together. Sometimes we need to find a digital solution (like an online game or listening activity) and that requires a whole other level of sanitizing too.
Teachers are adapting, sharing ideas, trying new strategies that will both scaffold and engage our learners who are resisting taking up constrained learning activities. We are coaching and encouraging whenever possible. Dr. Timothy Shanahan has always championed use of the 'Triple P' strategy for encouraging students - Pause. Prompt. Praise. and we are making great use of this strategy as children are nudged to lean into the work of reading, writing, making sense of complex tasks. Teachers are sharing scaffolding ideas with each other and with parents, recognizing the need for impromptu body breaks and trying a wide variety of small tweaks with every day tasks to promote student engagement with everyday learning activities currently constrained and restrictive for children who have a great need to run, jump, talk, laugh and play in an environment where that is no longer an option.
It is clear there is no one 'way' to gather all our learners together and ensure they are successfully adapting to the many, many changes the pandemic has shaped in our school. As teachers, we are constantly learning and adapting all the time too, trying to make sense of this new reality that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon all of us. We are all in this together in so many ways, and adapting to how we might best support learners who are displaying unanticipated emotions through this pandemic year is just one of the ways we are all coming together to make sense of 'school' in this new era.
Next blog entry I will explore strategies for supporting learners who are struggling with social interactions, anxieties and all the things they are missing as a result of COVID-19. Following that, my plan is to look forward a bit to what we might be able to do in preparation for post-pandemic learning. Things have changed and they will necessitate bigger changes overall. We didn't have an opportunity to anticipate the immense shifts in teaching and learning that all but swamped us these past 10 months, but we do have a clear path to anticipating what might come afterwards when we are all back to in-school, uninterrupted learning together without constraints.
In the meantime, we will continue to support students to the best of our ability, adapting and adjusting our practices as required, in consultation and communication with our parents. We are truly all in this together and our greatest opportunities for building success with students rests with sharing our stories and experiences with one another.
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School
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