Jen wrote this a few days ago here as a comment. I made it into a post:
The gulf between research and real live classroom / school requirements for teachers. I am not saying we can’t bridge it to a large extent. Our children are suffering. We do not really know their lives in the other 23 hours of the day. Many have built walls of steel around themselves in order to survive / cope with whatever cards they have been dealt.
CI is healing indeed. But not all of the students are ready for CI. They don’t know how to receive it. They resist it by default, because that is their pattern. I have been back and forth with a parent all semester. The student is really dug into his rut. He can’t be open to the process…it’s too vulnerable, and he puts all his energy into avoiding and hiding. I mentioned to mom “It seems to me that his whole school career has been all about trying to hide. He can’t receive assistance. He feels called out / picked on. Any of my attempts to engage him, give him an active job, help, etc. are met with huge resistance.” She confirmed my suspicion that it’s all about his ingrained lack of confidence.
That was longwinded way of saying that CI in its simplest and purest form will take time to achieve, because it takes awhile to get kids on board, to show them that they are innately worthy and capable and have unique gifts to share. For me, watching Tina gives me a compass. I strive to keep the clutter out of my teaching. I am more and more convinced that less is more. I like to roll in, begin class in silence (FVR then some sort of mindfulness practice), tell a story and call it good. But kids are kids and they sometimes say “we do the same thing every day.” So there is a need (even if I am not bound by a textbook or other required specific targets) for kids to at least perceive variety. I’m finding SL truly relaxing. For the most part my students respond well to it. I am excited to begin a new semester with SL as the core. I want to tell 100 stories, as Beniko recommends. I think I may try this and keep track of it, be up front with the kids, get them on board…”you are going to hear 100 stories!!!”
AND…as much as I am supported by my admin, parents etc. I am still unsure of how this will all shake out in terms of being employed. I am truly exhausted this year because we now have extra duties because of last year’s budget cuts. We are short 10 teaching and staff members. There are zero ZERO substitute teachers in the district, so we have to sub for each other. Any given day I can lose my prep with no warning. These are the types of things that cannot be accounted for in the pure SLA world of research.
I don’t think any of us think that “extra activities” lead to acquisition. We know the research. But we do sometimes need to add things into an 80 or 90 min. block to shift the energy and “feed the need.”