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It’s How We Feel
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11 thoughts on “It’s How We Feel”
Great reminder, Ben. I’d like to add that we need to have a clear working definition of “happiness” so that we and our students don’t think that CI classes must be entertaining all the time. Happiness is more than one’s mood. You can have a bad day and still be happy, if we define it in a deeper sense of living our lives in accordance with what is best in us. That is, living as fully of a human life as possible, focused on our humanity and that of those around us, making that humanity the priority over all non-human (technology for its own sake) or sub-human (temptations to objectify and disrespect each other) interactions.
John, I love that definition of happiness. Just love it. Now I’m off to go find some humanity to enjoy in my most difficult class of 8th graders! (Frequent quick quizzes are definitely helping with those guys.)
Thanks Erin, but I must give credit to Aristotle, from whom I stole/paraphrased it. His Nicomachean Ethics contains extended discussions of the concept. I’m working on a comprehensible translation of some of his writings, including those important discussions.
Nothing like frequent quizzes and dictee’s to bring out the humanity (or at least suppress the inhumanity) in a group of difficult 8th graders. Best of luck.
Nicely implied there John : suppressing the inhumanity of those around us, since we are the adults and they are children, contributes to the level of humanity in the classroom, to the sense of overall happiness.
And I find that giving those quick quizzes after only twenty minutes of class, and a second quiz at the end of class if I have time and if my quiz writer has been able to cobble one together, indeed suppresses the bad behavior from the CI I offered after the first quiz, and the good behavior can come up more through the cracks of the overall tension laden classrooms many of us work in.
I would take this chance to plug – as well as more frequent quizzing – my idea of ten minute timed bursts of 99% CI, as discussed in previous posts here.
And thank you for clarifying that happiness is not about entertainment.
I like John’s definition of happiness. I also like the idea of doing what we do with joy. Here are some ideas about joy:
Joy is a state of mind and an orientation of the heart. It is a settled state of contentment, confidence and hope.
Joy is true contentment that comes from internal factors, not external circumstances.
Joy is the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.
Thank you for posting articles about joy. It helps me remember to be joyful. How sad is it that I need a reminder. But how wonderful that when I am reminded, my classes go so much better! Maybe being joyful in the classroom is a skill that needs to be practiced, but like other skills required for managing a classroom full of squirrly and snarly students can be learned and can start to feel more natural as time goes on.
My happiness is knowing that my class is a place unlike any other class in my school. My students come in excited and feeling good about the next 50 minutes of their life. I still following Ben’s strategy or motto or code of “hanging out in the language”. Building relationships , showing relevance and challenging with rigor is my administration answer but to my students I’m a gardener. Happiness is also sticking it to the man. When being forced to give a speaking part to my level 1 students as a part of their midterm exam I played nice but stored some ammo. I gave them a story to read from last year and then I circled the story with the class and individuals. They did great because they didn’t worry about skills, just enjoyed a story about a boy who likes movies and wanted red and purple friends who like pizza. I didn’t give my students the story ahead of time with questions to prepare and memorize, giving them a false sense of security and them not realizing that they will forget everything the next day. Sorry but I have some serious anger at my department heads who only communicate with me by email even though they are right next door to me. Cowards who can’t think for themselves and teach the same way they did 20 years ago. At the end of the day I have joy because everything I desire. Thank you everyone for being the rock!
When I reread this article on happiness/joy I realize it sounds a bit cavalier to suggest that we, of all people in all careers at this time in our country, should be happy when we teach. I think I should have said we should try to be happy.
If we just try it we will get help, even on the hardest days with the biggest jerks – that is my belief. So I correct my suggestion to read: let us strive to be happy in our classrooms. That’s enough.
As I said above, being happy in our classrooms right now is quite impossible, in my opinion. There is just too much bullshit going on. Schools are very dark places these days. Kids are in crisis, in deep pain. Many of us are as well. So trying is enough, more than enough. God bless all of us, and bless our hearts.
This thread, to me, is of upmost critical importance to our success at this method. We have all sorts of strategies at our fingertips here that we can study and use and apply in our classrooms, like focusing on SLOW, Staying in Bounds, Checking for Understanding, but it is my position that all of those things that we learn here with our minds will be better activated, will come more to life, will lift the sails of our instruction higher and our careers will billow, if we involve our hearts to teach as well as our minds.
It is not by accident that Laurie’s website dedicated to comprehensible input is entitled “Hearts for Teaching”. Laurie is one of our true leaders in this work and go read what is on there today:
http://blog.heartsforteaching.com/
And then there is an article from John on the poet Seamus Heaney that ties in with all of this so John remind me to get that article you sent me up here in the next few days if you don’t see it up here by Sunday.
When I read what Carly and Hayne wrote, it gave me an insight that happiness, joy, or just the attempt to bring then into our teaching, just the striving for them, is a pathway to the heart quality that we have talked about as being such a big part of comprehensible input instruction.
Hayne’s description of trying to do that in spite of a very impersonal and robotic situation in his building, is particularly poignant to read, as was the simplicity of Carly’s comment about joy.
Reading both of their comments makes me understand that the importance of bringing the heart quality into our CI instruction is in a way not even an option any more – at its core the method is a heart method. Just now I went into the archives here to see how many comments there are on this blog since 2007 and there are 24,909 of them, and these two, because they point to how we can develop as teachers using our hearts as well as our minds, are among the most important. Wow.
What Hayne said about setting up the speaking part of the test in favor of his students with so many reps on something they already knew and therefore could rock was genius. In doing that, he struck a strong blow to the hardened vessel of archaic testing that defined the last century, where kids are shamed. I test in the same way during exam week, always just doing a story during the exam period so, like Hayne, my kids take the exam (the quiz on the story) with confidence. Why do it the old way, with all those multiple choice questions? That just seems stupid.
Here are my favorite sentences from what Carly and Hayne wrote:
Carly:
…maybe being joyful in the classroom is a skill that needs to be practiced, but like other skills required for managing a classroom full of squirrly and snarly students can be learned and can start to feel more natural as time goes on….
Hayne:
…my students come in excited and feeling good about the next 50 minutes of their life….
…to my students I’m a gardener…..
…I didn’t give my students the story ahead of time with questions to prepare and memorize, giving them a false sense of security and them not realizing that they will forget everything the next day….
hi Hayne–
Hang in there. I had a department head like that. The advantage for you of such an asshole way of behaving (on Adminz and Headz’ part) is that you have it all in writing. Validation from kids, and from teachers who inspire their kids, is all that matters. Let the Grinderz grind away, say I, and pay them no heed.
Blaine Ray told me that at one point his school/Board/whatever mandated the explicit teaching of grammar. This was in the mid-’90s when they were using the Dime texts, which are the very essence of the Grammar Grind and quite possibly the stupidest language textbooks ever created. Blaine made a kid stand at the front of the room during the first 5 mins of class and read the grammar explanation aloud, then went back to doing his thing. Play nice– nice! 😉
Thanks for the support. I think the main issue is jealousy. I do have the reputation of being an easy teacher. I tell my kids the story about the equipment. I read it somewhere on here. I explain that it seems easy because you are not hauling the camper with the cheap Ford escort. Focusing on your interest and cool stuff instead of grammar is easy. The brain does all the sorting out for you. I heard Ken Robinson give a talk about creativity in education. He called doing worksheets and exercises ‘clerical work’. When my kids tell that they do workbook pages in level 2, I refer to it as playing Bob Cratchit. I do realize that I’m responsible to my students but I just want to be left alone. I don’t send shitty emails about their methods don’t do anything to help kids aquire language or how the kids are bored out of their mind. If the kids are paying attention, they are either 4%ers or scared.