Reflections on Teaching During a Pandemic, Lesson 1 - Remember to have Fun!

There's a thing that I do (which I wonder if all teachers do) that I want to stop doing. Have you ever been having a fun or silly moment with your class, when everyone is happy, enjoying themselves... having fun, and someone walks into the classroom? It can be an administrator, a specialist, or another teacher. What do you do? My first impulse is always to explain. I jump up (sometimes literally) and explain what's happening and why we're all having fun. Only, sometimes it feels less like an explanation and more like an excuse. Isn't that crazy? My class is happy and enjoying each other, and somewhere deep inside I feel like I need to excuse it. Sometime in my early days of teaching, or probably even before that, I got the idea that every minute of school should be productive. Everyone should be accountable for learning at all times, and every action should be linked to a standard. As if that's what it means to be a good teacher. 

The very first thing I realized during remote learning last fall was that if the kids didn't want to be there, nothing else would matter. This was very true in online learning, when kids could literally turn off their camera and/or walk away, but isn't it true in the classroom too? How much of my job, as an elementary teacher is to create a love of learning? We always talk about creating lifelong learners, but what does that mean? It means that kids should want to be at school, which means that they need to associate school with fun - with belonging and warmth and safety... and fun. I saw a quote recently that compared students' enjoyment of school in first grade with their test scores at age 16! I haven't been able to find the quote again, or the study, so maybe it was only "internet true", but it makes sense, doesn't it? A child who loves going to school will be engaged. They will take risks, and they will learn. That, in turn, will help them to enjoy school more as they get older, creating a positive cycle. It reminds me of the statistics about reading to young children even before they understand the books, creating a love of reading which grows from the association with love and warmth. If students have positive associations with school, shouldn't that also carry over? Not that I think test scores, now or in the future, are the real reason to bring fun into school. I'm a realist, and I know that they matter, but what are we really doing here? We are educating children. People. Future leaders, and teachers, and citizens. Shouldn't we teach them to lead with joy? To make life fun? 

So, what does this look like? For me it starts with creating a community. I want my students to know each other and to trust each other. By having fun together, creating class traditions, having inside jokes and things that are just "ours" we create a kind of a social safety net. Students have a soft place to land when things get difficult, which means they can take risks and help each other grow. I imagine the definition of fun is as different for every classroom as it is for every individual. For me, it will include singing, dancing, playing games, being silly, poking fun at myself, and a lot of laughing. It will also involve doing whatever my students think is fun (with limits, of course). For example, this year, my second grade class loved doing splits. We had a few budding gymnasts who liked to show what they could do, first on video meetings and then in the classroom, and the fad spread throughout the class. Soon our morning greetings included a "splits greeting" in which each student would do a split as they greeted the next student, who then did the same, and so on. It took forever, but boy was it fun. Not everyone could do a split, but by the end of the year everyone at least tried, and when they did, their classmates cheered and clapped and laughed at the silly, agonized faces they made. They even challenged the assistant principal, who came in and tried her best at doing splits with them. For the entire spring, every picture I took featured students in splits. It was a little thing that had nothing to do with standards or plans, but it was ours, and it helped create a community and a feeling that helped kids to thrive. 

My goal, going forward, is not only to continue to look for, and embrace the fun, but to resist the urge to make excuses for it. Instead, when someone enters my classroom, I'll try to remember to celebrate and invite them to join in, even if it means encouraging them to do a split!