Reflections While Walking

Where I live, we have been having periods of very hot and humid days, so instead of walking outside, I have walked on the treadmill in my basement. A couple of days ago, we got a little bit of a break from the heat and humidity, so I returned to the outdoors for my daily walk. I live in a subdivision that doesn’t have streets in a grid with sidewalks. We have streets and paths that wind around man-made ponds, parks, and playgrounds. 

As I was out walking, I realized there was a huge difference in my mental well-being, spirit, and energy being outside for a walk. Something about being outside allows me time to reflect, think, and ultimately calms my mind. Living in a pandemic means being confined to my house for long periods of time. I have rarely left my house for weeks at a time. So being outside—hearing the birds sing, seeing the blue sky, feeling the shade of the trees, and smelling the dampness of the air—fills my soul that has been emptied from the constant confinement.

I started to reflect on various periods throughout history and what it must have been like for others who were confined by circumstances beyond their control or because they were denied their freedoms. For example, how did slaves fill their souls? How did Jews survive in concentrations camps? Although I have been confined to my house for four months, it is not the same as those who survived confinement throughout history because I have still enjoy many of the comforts that my white privilege has afforded me. When I consider the atrocities that have occurred throughout history that caused some to be confined, my heart breaks for so many. There are times when I simply cannot understand how one human being can do the things that have been done to another human being. And, I am curious how those who have survive those confining atrocities filled their souls. We need those voices now—the world needs to fill, to heal, its soul. 

Then my mind wandered to what school would be like in the fall. Several weeks earlier, I completed an intensive week-long institute on reading. The learning was amazing, but sitting, confined, in a chair on my computer all day for 8 or 9 hours straight was really difficult—and I am an adult. How will kids sit for hours at a time confined to a chair in school? I could at least get up and go to the bathroom or get a snack when I needed a short break, but in school this fall that will probably not be an option for our kids. I was so relieved when the week of learning was over, because I wasn’t sure how long I could maintain that level of confinement (in my chair) and engagement. How will our kids be able to maintain this level of confinement and learn for months on end? As much as I believe that the best learning takes place face-to-face, and that remote learning was far from ideal, I cannot believe in-person school will afford us any of the benefits we typically enjoy with face-to-face learning. I believe teachers and students will feel to traumatized to feel safe OR to learn. 

Then I started thinking about how we help kids feel safe and engage in the process of learning. My brilliant friend, Ellin Oliver Keene, wrote a book Engaging Children: Igniting a Drive for Deeper Learning K-8. After spending hours observing children, Keene identifies how kids move from compliance, to participation, incited by motivation (What’s in it for me?), and fully absorbed in engaged learning (What’s in it for us?). Within engagement, she developed a theory that includes four pillars: intellectual urgency, emotional resonance, perspective bending, aesthetic world (think, feel, believe, act). I started thinking, how can educators use Keene’s theory of engagement and our current life situation to help kids feel safe despite the traumatic circumstances and learn? For me, when I am engaged in authentic learning (thinking, feeling, believing, acting), I feel like I have some control over a situation which affords me some level /feeling of safety. I think it can be done—instead of avoiding our life situation we can use it to teach content and provide kids with some sense of control and safety. 

But engagement, high levels of engagement, cannot be sustained all of the time. Engagement is kind of like bi-polar disorder, the higher the level of engagement, the hard the crash and burn. I have experienced this firsthand after completing my dissertation. Whoa! —talk about crash and burn! Something Keene did not address in her book but is incumbent upon educators to teach children is finding balance. We need to explicitly teach how to reach and sustain engagement, but we also need to instruct students in how to find balance and advocate for their needs. When we reach and sustain high levels of engagement, we also need to counter that with moments of rest and calm and sometimes those moments are found in simply being compliant. 

I was left with the question, how to I help children, and colleagues, find ways to advocate for themselves when they need balance—from the confinement of their chair in the COVID-19 classroom? If we are going to sustain teaching and learning, we are going to need to find ways to balance periods of intensity with periods of calm. I guess it is time to go for another walk.