About a month ago John brought up the subject of Socratic circles in CI classes. We were trying to figure out if seating arrangements similar to circles could help at all, although certainly not in the real Socratic way which can’t be done in our field. It was Sean whose comment on this topic let to the positive report below.
I have found that the concept works in my own classroom. In what way? I have a class of 8th graders who exhibit the typical loss of imagination from 6th graders (that downward curve from elementary school to high school where they lose so much of their ability to laugh and have fun.) Only five kids in the class that I have tried this with still have their capacity for play.
So what I did was put the five in a little “circle” – really an arc – close to me. So now the energy in the room is in a space closer to me and separated from the rest of the class by a small but profound distance and only those five get to participate in the creation of the story.
If anyone of the others wants to “play”, they have to get up and bring their chair to the fun part of the room, the “sandbox”. The others are invited, of course, to join us but they have to get up from their regular chairs and carry them into the sandbox when they want to play.
The effect has been remarkable. I am no longer facing a group of mixed up kids. I know who wants to play and who doesn’t want to play. I have effectively separated the players from the non-players. The sandbox functions as a pre-emptive strike. Boring kids are exposed rather dramatically for what thy are – boring. They can no longer hide in the crowd. I won’t let them.
Instead of (in the invisible world) getting away with the subtle manipulation that lots of kids try to put on CI teachers that it is the teaching that is boring, I have turned their energy back around onto them and they sit there, with their sad faces exposed, and they are unable to blame their boredom on me because the sandbox group is in fact having fun without them, so it must be them. In fact, the verb boring in French is a reflexive verb – they bore themselves. I feel so free about that now, because I used to get easily guilted into the “I’m not an interesting enough teacher” self-esteem trap.
Of course, the players love the fact that they are in the sandbox with their friends, and the kids who don’t want to play – they have their own place to be sad and watch and no pressure is on them and everybody knows where the low sucking sound is coming from in the room.
During the story kids who are on the line between being players and watchers routinely get up and join the sandbox. Sometimes they go back out of the “play area”, but usually they stay.
I haven’t needed to set up a sandbox in my other classes, all 7th and 6th graders who all love to play, especially now that the rockin’ Invisibles are being used to start stories.
The message to the grumps is “Hey I get it. You’re too (insert proper adjective depending on the kid) to step up and play. That’s fine. Just sit over there. You’ve been disinvited from the story creation process. I don’t care what you do. Be a grump. But don’t expect me to give you the same energy the other group is getting. It’s a two way street. I’m stepping up, doing my 50%, and you aren’t. So you can watch. I’ll coach those who want to play.”
So doing this with this class has been a good thing. I feel as if I am honoring myself, treating myself with respect, and being firm in my resolve to keep my focus always on my mental health first, and the CI gains second. Really, when I tried to reach classes where mojorific kids were mixed with grumps, it made me feel all drained all the time, and I thought I sucked at TPRS.
Follow up note: just today we had a kick ass class and I pointedly asked some of the kids as they left the room, , “Why was that class so good?” And they said, “You really had it going on today!” And I said, “No, it was because YOU showed up and that was because of those two teachers observing.” I did my half and you, all of you, did your half. It was YOU who showed up. I always show up because I have to.”
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