Mindfulness Mondays
November 25th, 2019
Through observation, I realized that students struggled with self-regulation and controlling their stress and emotions. It is essential that students are given opportunities to explore healthy strategies to control their emotions and to learn how to be self-regulating. That is why I decided to implement “Mindfulness Monday” into the students schedule. I was apprehensive of their initial reaction, since they have never done anything quite like this. Nonetheless, I was pleased to notice that all the students were very engaged and excited to participate in “Mindfulness Monday”. One strategy consisted of supplying students with daily mindful journals, where students may be asked to free write or be given explicit instruction as to what to write that day. This instruction was altered based on the feeling in the classroom. This demonstrates not only my commitment to the students but also an example of my classroom management skills. This activity gave the students an opportunity to express what they may be dealing with, in a safe space without judgement. Students really utilized these journals and made goals for themselves, some of which strived for being better at controlling their anger that week. Some expressing their concern about issues they were facing at home or at school. As a result, as the educator, I now had the knowledge of what each student was facing the moment they come into my classroom. Each student received feedback and advice if necessary. In the future, in order to improve these lessons, I would make sure that these lessons came after either physical activity or recess, as an attempt to wind down. This shows my commitment to the students and my commitment to building relationships with students. With this, I realized the mood students were in and adjusted lessons accordingly. No good learning can come from bad relationships with students, and if they feel that you care about what they are dealing with, they are all the more willing to engage in their learning journey with you.
Student Advocacy
Student Mindfulness written entry
December 12th, 2019.
As an educator, my philosophy reflects building positive relationships with my students and in doing so, I promote inclusion inside and outside the classroom and have a zero tolerance policy for bullying. After introducing the Mindfulness lessons, some students developed a level of trust in our professional relationship. As a result, this allowed a student to privately confide in me and explain, the amount of bullying that she has endured since moving to this school. In the future, in order to improve this scenario, I would have documented the conversation with the student, for future reference in case needed by administration. Coming from a women’s shelter with her sister and mother, this student sometimes did not have the basic needs or resources to focus in class or participate in activities with her classmates. In addition to alerting the associate teacher and administrator, I accommodated this student, by providing mitts, and lending her skates to participate in class activities. In addition, I also provided this student with one-on-one assistance with curricular material taught in class and differentiated instruction to ensure she is meeting curriculum expectations. As a result, at the end of the five week practicum block, I was overwhelmed with joy when I received this journal entry from this student. I committed to this student and in return it allowed her to feel like she was in a safe learning environment. In the future, I would like to create a template of questions that encourage students to self-reflect each time they write a journal entry, to build students self-regulating and self-monitoring skills.