Recently, some system staff were asked to help out at a neighbourhood school as a large number of educators would need to be away for part of the day. The school is near me, and so I offered to go and help. I found out that I would be teaching in a Grade 5 class.

Thinking About Relationships

When I got the schedule for the day, I started to think about Self-Reg and relationships. It’s been a long time since I taught Grade 5, and in fact, it was at the end of that school year that I first learned about Shanker Self-Reg®. I remembered how important relationships were when it came to reducing behaviour in the classroom, and I was worried that it would be difficult to develop these relationships as I did not know any of the kids or even the school itself. I started to think about how I might be able to connect with students. My hope was that there would be opportunities for some small group or independent work, and that I could then go around the classroom and get to know the kids. I found an even better opportunity to do this when I arrived at the school and realized that we were going outside for DPA.

Talking With Kids

I will admit that I sometimes struggle with DPA outside, as I find that it takes a long time to get students ready to go outside, and then only some kids actively participate. This was more of an outdoor learning time, but I was okay with that for a variety of reasons.

• There was a huge space for students to move freely.
• There was some great inquiry in action.
• There were lots of pockets of students that I could easily move between, interact with, and observe.

I decided to start over with a couple of students who were playing on the ice. They kept moving back and forth. I watched for a bit, and then I said, “Walking on ice always scares me. I don’t want anyone to fall.” Of course, the students tell me that they wouldn’t fall, but then they start to talk to me about their day. They were explaining the math that they were doing, and this led to us discussing “data management,” and how it changes over the years. The two students remembered when they surveyed children back in kindergarten. They told me that they “never thought about how this is like the math that we’re doing now.” It’s interesting how sometimes, when kids move around, they tell us even more about themselves than we might anticipate.

The Dance Pose

I then saw another group of students playing on a little block of ice over by the portables. I went to talk with them. I mentioned to them that I was still learning everyone’s names, so they introduced themselves. They said, “We’ll do a dance move when we say our names.” They each did a different dance pose to go with their name. They told me that this might make it easier to remember their names — I just needed to remember the dance pose. Then they wanted me to make up my own. Guess what? I still remember their names, so maybe there was something to this movement suggestion. Either way, I love how we could laugh and have fun, while also starting to connect.

The Inquiry In Action

I was then drawn to a group of students lying down in the middle of the field. What were they doing. It looked like they were using something sharp to scrape at the ice. I was tempted to tell them to “stand up and stop,” but then I decided to do what my previous teaching partner, Paula, often did: I went up and started to chat with them about what they were doing. It turns out that they noticed something under the ice, and they were trying to “excavate” it. There was actually some amazing thinking and problem solving in their approach, and they were very careful with their tools, while also being very effective. I realized how easily I could have stopped this incredible inquiry in action, but engaging with them, changed my perspective and my approach.

What Happened Next?

It turned out to be a wonderful couple of hours in this Grade 5 class. I have to wonder if prioritizing relationships and connections first made a difference. How do you put relationships first? What impact have you noticed by doing so? Before learning about Shanker’s Self-Reg, the only thing that I would have been thinking about when I learned about my assignment for the day would be “what am I going to teach?” Now I’m thinking about, “How am I going to connect with kids first?” I kind of love this shift in perspective. What about you?