MGI 17 Day Two

Town Meeting/Team Meeting

As I continue day 2 of thinking about this mindfulness and resiliency idea, I am happy that my existing structure in my classroom includes Morning Meeting.  I have a personal love of music, and I have enjoyed the way each morning starts with music.  I need to do more music in my classroom.  As I ease students into the idea that mindfulness is not meditation (why do kids feel the need to get in the meditation pose?), music seems like a great way to start the process.

Growth Mindset Post from last year - I'm including this so I have the notes on Growth Mindset but I still really want to identify and focus on the word Resiliency.  Ok, so now at the end of the day this has changed.  I have addressed this at the end of this post!

Student Chat

I met with 3 students, Tulasha, Skylar, and Cameron about how mindfulness and growth mindset happened in their schools.  Some highlights:

Resources they mentioned: Second Step, Mind Yeti, Class Dojo - I have used Mind Yeti though my class was more fond of GoNoodle which has a mindfulness channel

Sitting or lying down for mindfulness was most common.  Music was used in some of the cases.  I joked about how my students seem to have to get in a meditation pose, and only one of them joked about it, the others said their classmates don't do that.

One student talked about the benefit of music during assessments - that seems like a good extension to cue relaxation.

I asked them if they felt that it helped them or if they had even been given surveys or done writing about it.  They said they hadn't.  That led me to telling them that I was going to have to do that, so what should I ask?
Does it help you stay focused?  Relaxed?  Sleepy?  Calm?
I need to do some survey creation later this week

I asked them if they used Mindfulness strategies when they felt frustrated about work or friends.  They said they did not.

I asked them what they knew about Growth Mindset.  I got the response that I had been expecting since it is so commonly used in schools.  They had the answers about it but not the interest and enthusiasm about it helping them through stuck points.

Sooo...does that support my idea of using resiliency?  They didn't even know what it meant!

I think that connecting mindfulness strategies to their social and academic world would be a good next step since it seems they hadn't internalized that.


1:15 Strand Session - What Young Adolescents Need Most

Nancy started with having us recall specific memories from Middle School - all but one of us shared social interactions and social stressors

There is no such thing as a 12 year old...meaning the growth and development is so drastically different and incredibly asynchronous

The importance of building relationships


Article from Session - Listening to the voices of young adolescents
- don't single us out
- get to know how I learn and how I want to present what I know
- not ready to think of others and the greater community yet
- create trust and safety for us
- hands on learning

I feel that my work in Elementary School has me understanding this idea of meeting students where they are and building relationships very well.  I take great pride in my ability to build relationships with children and their families and meet their individual needs.  I realize there are big differences in where the students are developmentally, but I was struck by how the voices of the students in the article match what I strive to do in my class.

Closing Team Meeting

The Table Talk really helped me narrow my thinking for my Action Research.  I was thinking big as I usually do when it comes to these things, and combining two big topics.  I was thinking that I would teach mindfulness strategies in an effort to increase the "menu" of tools students could use to refocus.  I was then thinking of connecting that to resiliency, in hopes that mindfulness activities could be used to help a student be more resilient.  Thanks again, Life, for helping me narrow my focus to one topic that can be researched.  I have now changed my question to be how mindfulness can improve student engagement.  I hope to connect it to the Growth Mindset work I do, but it won't be included in the research.