This afternoon we met in our Reggio learning communities for the second time. It wasn’t the original plan for today’s Tuesday PD, but we took the opportunity anyway. Our small group followed Irene upstairs to her third grade classroom, I brought some dark chocolate, and we sat down around her table, eager to hear about her class’s mindfulness project.
I hadn’t been sure if I’d make it through the whole day, let alone the afternoon PD. In the morning I had felt a bit feverish — it took me forever to get out of bed, and I was just on time to work after speed-walking the 10 minutes in the sticky Miami humidity — but as the day progressed, I started feeling better and better. When rehearsal went well, I stuck around for dismissal, and after dismissal, I told Kim, “I think I’ll just stay. I’d rather use my PTO time for when I really need it.” And I’m so glad that I did.
Irene started to share about the project, how it began, how it had evolved.
“We were really scared to get this class,” she said. Both of the second grade classes last year had been a handful behaviorally, to say the least. But there has been such a noticeable shift this year, and the children will tell you it’s because of mindfulness.
When Irene first started doing mindfulness at our school, she kept it just within her classroom. This is the first year that it’s evolved into something bigger. The students, after reflecting on how much of an impact mindfulness would have made on them if they’d started in kindergarten, decided to “spread the mindfulness” — to take it outside of the classroom and into the rest of the school. They started with Kinder B, and then first grade requested a visit.
“We recorded them when they visited first grade,” Irene shared, pulling up a voice memo on her phone. “It’s like 20 minutes, so I can skip ahead.”
“We have the time,” I said, looking at the clock.
“Yeah, we’ve got nowhere to be,” Christian agreed.
So we began to listen.
***
When I went to Reggio Emilia in November, I finally understood the value of documentation: recording the children’s conversations, looking closely at the work they produce, and observing them throughout their activities. It’s how we as teachers learn about the learning process. How do kids learn? Watch and listen to them.
In Reggio, all of the municipal schools are tiny. The staff meets regularly to interpret, observe, and analyze the documentation so they can learn how kids learn. As such a big school, our study group determined that we couldn’t make this happen with our entire staff, but we could create and organize spaces where this nourishing and collaborative professional learning could happen.
This is how our learning communities were born: small groups with one representative from each grade, plus one or two enrichment program teachers. My learning community has representatives from kinder, first, second, third, fifth, and physical education.
***
“Mindfulness is being in the right here, right now,” one student stated.
“When a thought comes into your head, like, ‘oh, I wonder what I’m going to have for lunch,’ just put it in a back folder in your mind, and close it, so you can focus on what’s happening now,” another said.
“You can play with the pop-it, but pay attention,” a third told one of the first graders. (We laughed at this one.)
Every bit of me that had thought about leaving early today was so grateful to the part of me that decided to stay. Because listening to this conversation between the third graders and the first graders was magical.
They get it. They understand why it’s so important to be mindful in our loud, loud world. They recognize how they’ve grown. And they like it!
Today I left work inspired. Not only to re-incorporate mindfulness into our fifth grade class (because we were doing it, and then we dropped the ball, and they really need it), but also to re-incorporate it into my own life. After publishing this post and writing my three comments, I plan to have a mindful evening: a hot bath with a good book, a tasty dinner as I watch the sunset, and an early night’s sleep with some deep breathing.
Thank you, Irene. And thank you, Third Grade B.
Writing With Abandon 
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