Highs and Lows of Working with Young Learners

This week was a busy one. There were a lot of after-school obligations (i.e. our area teacher-librarian meeting on Tuesday, speaking at the TDSB Media AQ course on Wednesday, the last 2019 Marriage Prep class on Thursday, and several other meetings that were postponed or just couldn't be squeezed into my schedule). My reflections for this week, however, will focus on the students and how interacting with them can be extremely unpredictable and can fluctuate between being quite rewarding and utterly frustrating.

A High Moment = Incredible Student Comics at Comic Club (Monday)

Many of my student clubs are winding down, because "April-May-June" is a hectic month. One that won't end until April vanishes is Comics Club. For this two-month chunk, the club is for Grades 1-3. I wasn't sure how successful it would be for our primary division students, but the members who have not quit have really enjoyed it. The original plan was to focus on a month for reading and a month for writing, but a few students respectfully pushed against that agenda and asked if they could spend more time writing / creating their comics. Whom am I to disagree? I didn't do any explicit teaching in this club and it took some of the Grade 1s a while to understand how to communicate effectively with their pictures in the panels. However, it's been great to see these epic comic books evolve. The photos are of a) two Grade 2s making their comics side by side, b) a photo of one page of a Grade 1 student's comic, and c) the beginning of a Grade 3 student's comic on Pixton.

A High Moment = Kindergarten Students Can Sew! (Thursday)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the kindergarten students and I were exploring STEAM-themed extensions to the Blue Spruce nominated picture books we've been reading. Last week, some of Mrs. Commisso's Grade 2 students advocated for themselves and ask that we spend some more time just reading the Blue Spruce books for pleasure - a request I happily obliged! For one of the nominated 2019 Blue Spruce books, I Love My Purse, Melanie Mulcaster's recommendation was to have students make their own purses or bags. I decided to put a slightly different spin on the task. Students chose what fabric they wanted to use. Together, individual students and I sewed the material - using a sewing machine! - into a pouch and then they had to figure out how to add handles. 

Thank goodness I had other adults to keep an eye on the other students as they built with Keva Planks and rods and connectors. That gave me the opportunity to work one-on-one with the kindergarten students on the sewing machine. They pushed the pedal and I steered the fabric, and it worked! I also loved how creative students got with deciding how to make straps. We only got through a few, but each one was a bit different. 

A Low Moment = Flailing Fists (Wednesday)

I won't go into detail on this low point, but I had to pry a student off another and remove him from the library as he pummeled one of his classmates. A supply teacher watched the rest of the class as I sat with the young boxer-in-training, unable to say anything to him in his agitated state, just patting his back while he seethed and eventually settled down. 

A Low Moment = 40 Minutes of Rage (Friday)

Our classes at the school where I work aren't known for having a lot of "behaviour issues", but that doesn't mean that they are challenge-free. Friday afternoon gave me back-to-back moments where I was emotionally fatigued. The first was a student who could not calm down. He was irate since lunch and was overflowing with fury when he came in with his class. I couldn't approach him. I offered him any of the calming tools we have available and he hotly refused. He stamped around the library. He growled. He scowled. His fellow students were extremely accommodating; they gave up their "block" seats to him because they thought it'd make him happy. It didn't. He pushed over chairs. He didn't want another place or spot to calm down. All the strategies he'd been taught or offered were either forgotten or useless. He yelled "I don't know what to do!" but didn't want to come near me to get help (where I was explaining to 5 other students who may have been equally as confused but weren't having temper tantrums). When he finally came over and I quietly explained that all he had to do was copy some words from the chart paper, he insisted that he didn't know how to copy. It must be exhausting for him to stay angry and agitated for so long. He left the class almost as mad as he was when he walked in.

A Low Moment = Hijacking the Class (Friday)

The very next period, I had a class that has a student that needs a lot of attention and strategies to help her cope with tasks that we consider reasonable and doable at this age. She really did not want to listen to the story and she tried her hardest to make sure no one else got to hear the story either. Each attention-getting trick she used escalated things more and more. It went from the rude comments ("You're boring." / "This is boring" / "Blah blah blah") to using her agenda as a drum to screaming and slamming the door. I ignored the comments. I used my "I" statements to state how annoyed I was becoming. I took away the agenda. In the end, I had to buzz the office for backup and evacuate the class to another area of the library. I had to give up reading the book and settle for an extended book exchange. I was so frazzled that I was quivering by the end. I felt terrible. Our SNA and principal reassured me that sometimes calling the office is exactly what I have to do, but I hate feeling that the one student is totally manipulating what happens in the class and the tone. 

A High Moment = Helping a Teacher-Librarian Out (Friday)

There are many ways to exit a dis-regulated state. One of the ways that I deal with stressful situations is to write about them (like on this blog) and to talk about them with others. I talked about it with the very next class that I had - the kindergarteners. In response, they were absolutely fantastic! They made a point of listening extra-attentively. This class also took care of the book exchange process for me, and they did it very well!

I'm not the only one who faces highs and lows during a teaching week. In fact, at our teacher-librarian meeting, we talked about stress busters. The wonderful Tracey Donaldson even gave out prizes of essential oil scented jars so that teacher-librarians can de-stress too! My Friday afternoon made me think about my good friends Moyah Walker and Jennifer Derr, and how this same week, they sacrificed their own time to help students in need, even when the students are the ones who place themselves in difficult situations.

I don't have any wise words to end this post. I wish I understood why so many of our students seem to have such difficulties regulating their behaviour and emotions. What I do know is that, even though teaching is a tough job, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. To end on an upbeat note, I'll conclude with copies of some letters I received from some of the students as part of their letter-writing unit, and some of my replies.