Let’s make the pandemic the catalyst to making education stronger than ever. Let’s keep students engaged and bring back the joy of learning!
TEDx Wilmington in Delaware has invited me to give a TEDx Talk on April 27, 2024, on How to Keep Students Engaged in Learning with Five Synergistic Practices in the Classroom. How exciting, right?
Full disclosure, that’s a working title. The name of this TEDx Talk keeps evolving.
Given the aftermath of the pandemic—the learning gaps, gaps in social skills and emotional maturity, lack of motivation, neglected “smart kids” because we’re trying to help other kids catch up, high stress for teachers as well as students—it’s time for a solution.
We need to support our system of education in emerging from this setback stronger than ever!
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I often write about and give presentations for parents on ways to boost their children’s thinking power and mental health in accordance with how kids’ brains develop, function, and learn.
Heck, that’s what Jackie’s and my book, Brain Stages: How to Raise Smart, Confident Kids and Have Fun Doing it (December 2018) is all about.
Much of the information I’ve collected, and the tools I’ve found or created, came from my quest to help my own twice-exceptional children, who are now quite successful adults.
But meeting their needs was a tough road. Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Sometimes I would do or say things with the intention of helping them, and tears would result—their tears, my tears, sometimes both. And being a teacher who had taught most of the grades, I was supposed to know how to help them. But I didn’t.
I began to read studies and books and talk to experts. I started to try new ways of communicating, and I shifted our routines in ways that led to clearer expectations. Yippee! No tears. Real smiles. Self-confidence sparked curiosity and motivation. My children began to do better in school and get into trouble less often.
One day, William, a fourth grader in my class said, “Mrs. Wilkinson, did you run this morning? You’re not as funny and happy today.”
I knew running in the mornings relaxed me and helped me think more clearly, but I hadn’t realized I was behaving any differently. Apparently, my morning exercise had a much greater effect than I knew.
That inquiry sent my students, and me, on a trajectory of empowerment.
I thought: If the tools we’ve been using at home have worked so well with my own lovely quirky kids, I wonder what would happen if I brought them into my classroom. Would these tools work their magic to transform my class into intrinsically engaged students?
Long story short, due to several circumstances, we ultimately made five brain-friendly shifts in our classroom routine.
(You’ll learn more about my students’ transformation in Approaching the Red Carpet, an anthology of TEDx Speakers’ stories for how they came to share their “Idea worth spreading” with the world. The book will be released at the TEDx event in Delaware in April and be available on Amazon after the event on April 28, 2024.)
Five Synergistic Practices in the Classroom that Supercharged Learning (and made us happier too):
- We did some form of cardio exercise for 10 minutes in the mornings before we got to work.
- Students were encouraged (and reminded) to drink water regularly.
- We played a 90 second working memory game after recess and lunch like “Add a Move”.
- We brainstormed for 60 seconds how we might use new information or a new skill.
- We spent five minutes mentally processing the information we heard in a lesson or learned while doing a project or assignment to give the material what I called “sticking power”.
If you’ve been reading my posts, you likely recognize most of these concepts. However, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned doing these five practices in my classroom.
I bet you can guess how using these five practices together in my classroom turned out.
Those fourth graders loved learning and earned some of the top scores on the state tests for our district. The following year, at the same public school, I taught language arts to fifth and sixth graders. One of our sixth graders won first place in the district essay contest, and one of our a fifth graders won second place. Our students were published in a poetry anthology. Our language arts scores were the top in the district that year.
Make no mistake. Students didn’t go from apathetic to energized learners because I was an amazing teacher. The transformation happened because of the five practices I listed above. Each is evidence-based. In fact, lots of studies back up each one.
The thing I sort of stumbled upon was the positive synergy created when these five practices are done regularly in the same program.
Heck, the five practices empowered me too because it was SO much more fun to go to work. It reminded me of when I first started teaching in East Los Angeles, and I would say, “This is so much fun! I can’t believe they’re paying me for this!”
The five practices created a supportive community in our classroom.
Kids wanted to come to school, to treat others with kindness, to be considerate, to participate, to be curious, and to be creative. All of this happened with these five practices before I ever heard the term “Social and Emotional Learning”, which has become the popular phrase for developing empathy, kindness, social skills, and emotional maturity.
Now imagine an entire public school that uses these five tools daily.
People keep telling me I should do a pilot with these five practices in a private school, and I have connections to do that. I love education. All forms of education—public, private, home schooling—have a place in meeting children’s and families’ needs.
But in my opinion, public school makes the difference between a first and a third world country.
So, picture an entire public school that keeps students hydrated, gets their heart rates up for ten minutes before jumping into work (which saves SO much time!), plays a 90-second game to calm their minds and prepare their brains for learning, establishes a clear purpose for lessons and projects, and gives students’ brains a simple way to process information and skills for “sticking power”.
The person who is in charge of research at a public school district is talking to his colleagues right now about the possibility of doing a pilot project at one or more schools in the district.
I want to do the EMPOWERED SCHOOL pilot so badly that I told them I will teach a class as a long-term substitute while facilitating the program so there won’t be any extra cost to the district.
And the truth is, I CAN’T WAIT to get back into the classroom!
I left teaching when our youngest hit middle school and our oldest hit high school because their attention issues weren’t being well received. Despite all the interventions we had done for our oldest child, she’d had a miserable experience in middle school. My husband and I decided that we only had one opportunity to raise our children, so I came home to do my best to get our children’s needs met.
I missed teaching, but I got to write articles for parenting magazines, coach other writers and give workshops, and ultimately write Brain Stages. Not to mention, I got to catch up on all the latest research to fine tune the five practices to make them easy for any teacher to do in the classroom in almost any situation.
Think of the implications if we can get empirical data on the effectiveness of doing these five synergistic practices in the classroom as a school community!
If we can get anywhere near the results my students and I enjoyed in just a few months doing these five practices in a whole school, we could create a ripple throughout the country—maybe even beyond!
No extra money. No change in curriculum. Happier teachers. More successful students.
Please hold good thoughts for us to make this happen. Send us positive vibes. If you’re the praying kind, please ask for assistance. We CAN make this happen. I’m a big believer in collective consciousness.
The TEDx Talk will be entertaining and make good points regardless of what happens with the school district.
Taking data with me to that TEDx event in Delaware that proves the synergy of these five practices could spark a post-pandemic, much-needed renaissance in education!
Best wishes for a wonderful 2024 and second semester for your children, from preschool through high school. My dearest wish is for every child to LOVE learning!
In deepest gratitude for teachers and parents everywhere, bringing up the next generation,
Trish Wilkinson, author, coach, educator
