On the Podcast: Engaging Reluctant Learners, Part 2

This week we have the second episode of Engaging Reluctant Learners-- Reducing Classroom Anxiety. In this episode, Kelly, Maria and Jennifer dive into the critical role of the nervous system in student engagement and learning. Discover how understanding the autonomic ladder can help create a safe and supportive classroom environment.

Kelly Boswell:
 

The heart of what we notice in our work is that in order for students to be engaged, to engage and rumble with ideas, with learning, with a growth mindset, whatever subject area they're in, we've got to make sure that their anxiety is decreased. So some of our work, we really started digging into the idea of the nervous system. I'm going to do a quick explanation of something that's very complex, but we call it an autonomic ladder.

And so there's really three main stages, and there's more nuance to this. But the first one is called ventral vagal. When I'm explaining it to teachers or to kids, I'm pointing to my forehead. And when you're in ventral vagal, you feel calm, safe, seen, and loved, and you're in community. So your body is getting cues of safety. Your nervous system is saying, "Hey, we're safe." And when we're at ventral vagal, our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that thinks problem solves, communicates and learns is online.

So it's important for us to establish in whatever subject area we're teaching that we're sending our students cues of safety. We'll talk more about cues of safety in a little bit, but we're back to ventral vagal. So we want students at ventral vagal where they're feeling like they belong, they're seen, they're loved, they're safe. What happens when a student or anybody perceives a cue of danger, their nervous system does what it's designed to do.

So it activates into the sympathetic nervous system. So that's fight or flight or freeze or fawn. So but in classrooms, we often see the fight or flight. So this is where we see aggression. We see kids wanting to go use the bathroom. We see kids saying, "My stomach hurts. I want to go see the nurse." They're trying to get out of the classroom, and it's typically because they're not feeling safe.

And then the bottom part is down. I'm kind of pointing down to my gut. That's called a dorsal vagal state. So that is when the nervous system is getting so many cues of danger and there's not enough cues of safety that it goes into a shutdown. So for those kids, just recently worked with a student who was hiding, turtled himself, hoodie over his head, hoodie up over his face, that's a good sign that he was in a dorsal shutdown. He's trying to shut down.

So the way to support kids from that dorsal and sympathetic backup to ventral vagal is through breathing, but also through community. So what we found when we were working on this session and thinking about our work is that in all of our areas and in all curricular areas it's really important for teachers to take actionable steps to decrease anxiety, to send students nervous systems lots of cues of safety.

So just today, I was working with a group of fourth graders that I had never met before, brought them into my classroom and explained who I was. But I immediately got down at their level. I'm sending them a cue of safety. My voice got really quiet and soothing, so I'm giving them a cue of safety. I was looking at each of them in their eyes, cue of safety.

I was smiling. I was trying to send their bodies and their nervous systems those cues of safety because I needed that group of students to be at ventral vagal so that I could do some teaching and they could do some learning. Because when we go to sympathetic or to dorsal, our prefrontal cortex is no longer engaged. We're using the back of our brain, our amygdala, which is our animal instincts.

So we really want kids to be in that feeling of safety. And there's so many of us that can reflect on our own education, times in a math class or reading class where we were called on and asked to read a passage that we had never read before to the class, or our writing was put up and shown where all of a sudden we just kind of freeze. And that's because we're feeling that sense of danger. And our nervous system is just doing what it's designed to do.

Maria Nichols:
 

Kelly, you've made me think about facilitation and what that facilitative stamp should be like. I know I grew up in classrooms with a particular pattern of discourse, the IRE pattern where the teacher instigates with a question and the child responds, the student responds, and the teacher immediately evaluates. And so it's all about that right answerism. You learn to play ostrich really quick. The teacher asks a question and you find a hole to hide in.

And so undoing that in the classroom and helping children to understand that tentative thoughts matter. And it doesn't even need to be a full-blown sentence. When we're exploring compelling literature and a child stops us and says, "Wait, why did the character do that? That's weird." That is a fabulous beginning place to begin constructing. They couldn't name why it was weird. They couldn't label any kind of strategy they're using.

There's just something very human and very compelling to talk about in that moment. Again, I come back to your voice matters, your thinking matters. You're in a space where we want to construct together. So when I think about facilitating, it's doing away with cold calling. It's doing away with turn-taking and learning to be responsive to students, learning to face read. Who's giggling, who's shaking their head, who's raising their eyebrows.

It tells you there's something going on that just hasn't found its way to the brain out yet. But it might be a perfect spot for somebody to just add that bit of tentativeness to keep the work meaning centered, to turn the meaning making always back to the students. "Wow, what a question. What do the rest of you think about that?" Opening it up to the group and allowing them to begin to wrestle. So they again, comes back to what we were talking about earlier. Who's doing the work? Whose voice is being heard? Who's valued in this space?

Jennifer Lempp:
 

Yeah. I think about in mathematics, how there are just going to be some tasks that are going to lend themselves more to cooperative learning and to discourse. If we want kids to talk in math, then we need to give them something to talk about. Some math problems can just be very, it's one way, one answer. And so being really thoughtful about the activities that we're choosing, the tasks that we're giving to students.

Is there more than one way to think about this? Is there more than one answer? Maybe if there's one answer, is there more than one strategy? So that we can prompt a lot of that discourse, prompt a lot of that collaboration. I've watched amazing teachers who will say, "Gosh, I just want my kids to talk more in class." And then they give a problem and the kids just turn and look at each other and they're like, "I don't know. The answer's seven. What else do you want me to say?"

There's nothing. Or it's crickets. And so I say, "Let's first really take a look at this problem and do it ourselves. Can we think of more than one way to solve this? Is there more than one entry point for this problem?" And if there is, then it's going to help with that engagement. Otherwise, it's really going to be seen as one way, one answer, and nobody elses thinking is going to seem to be valued once that answer is out there.

So I really think about the problems first, that we can use to help with that engagement. But then specifically, how do we normalize mistake making? So how do we normalize that in our classroom? If we're only seeking out one right answer, or if we are trying to push one strategy, then we're not normalizing mistake making. And if in the act of doing that, we will help to decrease anxiety, but we're also going to have more kids willing to share.

It's okay to have wrong answers here. It's okay to be making mistakes here. It's okay for us to share this little part and say, "Well, I got this far, but then I really wasn't sure what to do next." Normalizing that in our classroom is really important if we want to create that safe space and get more kids to engage. Otherwise, the message is you engage when you are sure that you have the right answer to share. And that's what we don't want to have in our classrooms.

Kelly:
 

And as I'm listening to you, Jennifer, I'm thinking how this plays out often in the writing classroom. We want to decrease that anxiety, give kids those cues of safety so their prefrontal cortex is online, they're ready to communicate, problem solve, learn. But then when teachers model their own writing for their students, they model it so perfectly. And the message we're sending to kids is, "This is what writing looks like."

So one of the things I do to help teachers decrease anxiety in the writing classroom is ask them to write like they normally write. And as they navigate through the ways that they normally write, they're going to make mistakes or they're going to get to a word that they honestly do not know how to spell. And they're going to have to be brave and get those sounds that they hear down on the page in front of their students.

And that message is so powerful in the writing classroom that we're not going for perfect, we're going for process. And we are not trying to be correct, you're trying to be brave. So it starts with us as teachers. Are we modeling being brave in our writing and using big words even if we don't know how to spell them or trying a new form of punctuation, even if we're not quite sure where that semicolon goes? We're modeling that for students.

And it's the same in the reading classroom. Am I challenging myself to do some digging and some thinking and reading where I'm not sure if it's correct? But I want to rumble with this book. I want to rumble with this idea. I'm going to rumble with this tough word that I've got to figure out how to decode, and I can do that in front of students. And then that sets the tone for the classroom that if the teacher is putting him or herself out there and saying, "I'm a learner, mistakes are part of learning, and this is honored in our classroom," then the message you're sending to the kids is in this room, it's okay.

And you're normalizing that mistake, meaning. So it crosses over to all instruction in the classroom that you can actually feel their bodies relax. Like, "Oh, in this classroom we can rumble. We can rumble with ideas. We don't have to be perfect. We're learning and our teacher is going to go first and show us what it looks like and sounds like."

Edie:
 

Thanks for tuning in today. Join us next week for part three on Engaging Reluctant Learners, A Close Look at Engagement. Check out episode one from this series and read a full transcript at blog.heinemann.com.

Kelly Boswell has many years of experience as a classroom teacher, staff developer, literacy coach, and district literacy specialist.   

Her latest book, Every Kid A Writer, will be available in October 2020. She is the coauthor of Crafting Nonfiction and Reading Solutions and the author of Write This Way and Write This Way From the Start. She is also the author of several nonfiction children’s books.  

Kelly works with schools and districts around the country to support educational leaders, coaches and teachers. Her emphasis is on developing literacy practices that help students become joyful and passionate readers and writers.  

Dr. Jennifer Lempp is the author of Math Workshop: Five Steps to Implementing Guided Math, Learning Stations, Reflection, and More. This book is a practical resource meant to support teachers with strategies and structures to help create a learning environment where students are engaged in purposeful mathematics experiences.

Jennifer consults with schools and districts around the country, providing professional development on mathematics content and instructional practices. Additionally, she supports school leaders on the development of mathematics professional learning and school improvement plans. 

Jennifer’s goal is to ensure all students have positive mathematics experiences and that teachers have the tools to support all students in the area of mathematics. You can follow Jennifer Lempp on Twitter @Lempp5 or Instagram @jennifer_lempp and learn more about her and her work on her website: mathworkshop.net.

Maria Nichols is a literacy consultant and Director of School Innovation for the San Diego Unified School District. A former elementary classroom teacher, Nichols received the Distinguished Elementary Educator Award from the San Diego chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, 2002.

Maria is the author of Comprehension Through Conversation and her latest book, Building Bigger Ideas: A Process for Teaching Purposeful Talk.