A personal note: I am much more comfortable with body thinking and empathizing than I was with abstracting, from our previous module. As I read the two chapters in Sparks of Creativity, I made a lot of connections with the ways that I interact with the world. In fact, considering that "muscular feeling, physical sensations, manipulative skills, and their mental imaging" (p. 171) are so important to every field, I think it is part of why I enjoy every subject I teach.
Body Thinking
Tree Pose: http://chopra.com
I've been a yoga student for the last 5 years. What I've always appreciated is that my yoga teacher, while spiritual herself, has never forced us to go beyond the physical instructions for maximizing the benefits of the poses. (This pose improves your circulation; this pose counteracts the negative effects of that pose; etc.) As a Christian, I felt the physical benefits without the religious change. There are two poses in particular, the mountain and the tree pose, that we have talked about taking on the qualities of the subject at a very superficial level. Now, after reading the chapter on body thinking and also recently reading Eat, Pray, Love, I see that it might be worth some exploration into deeper levels of body thinking as I practice some of these poses. I wonder what I might yet discover!
Thinker in Soapstone
My memory is often associated with movement. I won't be able to find my stapler (which has legs and wanders around the classroom just to see if I can find it again) unless I physically make the motion of stapling with my hands while saying "ca-chunk ca-chunk." Same with my scissors. These are examples of thinking with my body. The Thinker thinks with his "brain, his knitted blow, his distended nostrils, and compressed with, [and] with every muscle..." My abstracted version of the Thinker that sits in my living room, as shown on the left, is one of my favorites, and even more so now that I consider the sculptor's words.
I found a deep relation in this chapter to the discussion about physical discomfort when there is a problem to solve. This is a feeling I experience very deeply. When I know I have an assignment due, or a problem at school to solve (for example, when I recently discovered I needed to totally rework my math program to better differentiate for students yet again), I experience deep physical ache, in my head and in my stomach. It is almost as if I MUST complete the assignment or solve the problem, because the problem will go away and because I will feel much better. Problem solving gives me a rush - a feeling of success and satisfaction that I thrive on. (Side note: this is probably why I was generally a successful student.)
Alphabet Workout: Upper Case (Jack Hartmann)
We use "muscle memory" a lot in K-1. They are learning sounds, letters, numbers, sight words, patterns, and more. We try to get our body movements into as many places in the day as possible. Why? Because (a) they learn better and (b) they love it! If there is a way to move, we should!
I teach them that they are training their muscles. From the recognition of letters to the physical act of writing letters and numbers, we learn that the more we practice correctly, the better our "muscles" will remember how to perform the function. We use some brain gym activities as well, especially ones such as cross-crawls, which stimulate the cerebral spinal fluid through the body while working both sides of the brain. And (b) they love it!
Now that I found Jack Hartmann's DVD and watched some of the previews, I plan to purchase it and integrate it into our day. There are a few times where we have 3-5 minutes to do something like this!
I teach them that they are training their muscles. From the recognition of letters to the physical act of writing letters and numbers, we learn that the more we practice correctly, the better our "muscles" will remember how to perform the function. We use some brain gym activities as well, especially ones such as cross-crawls, which stimulate the cerebral spinal fluid through the body while working both sides of the brain. And (b) they love it!
Now that I found Jack Hartmann's DVD and watched some of the previews, I plan to purchase it and integrate it into our day. There are a few times where we have 3-5 minutes to do something like this!
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
I teach and I master.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
I teach and I master.
Page 181 in Sparks listed the first three lines of this Chinese proverb. I thought it appropriate here to add the 4th line that we use in my multiage class when we get the question "why is this good for the 1st graders?" By taking on the leadership role, we actually surmise that they deepen their own understandings.
Empathizing
When we empathize, we take on the characteristics of someone else, identifying with them and feeling as they feel. This helps us relate to others better, or in the case of actors, portraying them better. Our reading even goes so far as to say that scientists can empathize with atoms, but that is slightly beyond the scope of my early childhood teaching experience.
Empathizing is a tool that I use pretty naturally. An avid reader, I lose myself deep in a story, taking on the persona of the character and actually living the story, losing all sense of time in the real world. It is why I love to read. It's the cheapest vacation I can take! It also makes me a strong critic of actors and audiobook performers, whose performance is the personification of that empathy. I like to hear stories of actors who have taken on a role so immersively that they find it difficult to take on another role, such as the story of Jennifer Garner, super-double-agent-spy of the ABC series Alias. When she took a hiatus from the show to star in the chick-flick, 13 Going on 30, she had trouble not "running like a spy!" She had to reconsider how she was empathizing with this new, gentler character.
Empathizing is a tool that I use pretty naturally. An avid reader, I lose myself deep in a story, taking on the persona of the character and actually living the story, losing all sense of time in the real world. It is why I love to read. It's the cheapest vacation I can take! It also makes me a strong critic of actors and audiobook performers, whose performance is the personification of that empathy. I like to hear stories of actors who have taken on a role so immersively that they find it difficult to take on another role, such as the story of Jennifer Garner, super-double-agent-spy of the ABC series Alias. When she took a hiatus from the show to star in the chick-flick, 13 Going on 30, she had trouble not "running like a spy!" She had to reconsider how she was empathizing with this new, gentler character.
When I was in "teacher school," I was nervous about learning to teach reading. I couldn't remember what it was like not to be able to read, and it always came naturally. I doubted my ability to empathize with a struggling reader, but activities such as this one, from the PBS website companion to Misunderstood Minds, were helpful in helping me feel what it is like to decode and put it all together.
Empathizing helps me as I am interacting with students and parents. It is what causes me to work so hard to differentiate instruction for my students; I can empathize with the advanced student, for whom everything seems to come easy, and find ways to challenge them and break into their minds when they learn to "think." I can also empathize with my struggling students, and consider what it feels like to feel lost throughout the day. Finding ways to provide them with "good fit" activities and supported practice is so important to me because I know the feeling of success and I know the feeling of failure, and I want them to feel success. With parents, I have learned how to take on their love for their children when breaking the news about struggling readers or retention, knowing that it is heart breaking to hear and wanting to support them as much as possible.
I teach students to empathize at a simple level: noticing how someone else feels based on their facial expressions is part of our social skills curriculum. We talk about things that you could say if you notice someone who looks unhappy or angry, or even excited by thinking about how we feel. This is about as deep as we get in our grade though; their ego-centric view of the world can be tapped into. We do try to take on the characteristics of books that we are reading as well with questions like "what is that character thinking?" They actually do well with this.
I teach students to empathize at a simple level: noticing how someone else feels based on their facial expressions is part of our social skills curriculum. We talk about things that you could say if you notice someone who looks unhappy or angry, or even excited by thinking about how we feel. This is about as deep as we get in our grade though; their ego-centric view of the world can be tapped into. We do try to take on the characteristics of books that we are reading as well with questions like "what is that character thinking?" They actually do well with this.