My school has changed the day around this year. For reasons I can't remember - I think it had something to do with accomodating the IB- we now have 25 minutes tutor period in the afternoon and form tutors deliver PSHE and other tutor activities. This has had a mixed reaction from staff but I have really enjoyed it so far. I have a Yr11 tutor group that I have had since Yr7 and they are quite simply the best tutor group I have ever had. I really enjoy spending time with them each day and it has allowed me to try out some different ideas with them.
On Thursday's the theme for the year group is Review and it is intended that we help students review progress and targets. Last week I decided to try out a technique which I first came across on my NLP course a few years ago and have tried a couple of times but never quite like this.
Without explaining why I took my group outside. There are 23 of them and I have to admit I didn't have a clue if it would work or be a total (and very public) disaster. We went out to the basketball courts at the back of my classroom. I lined all the students up against one of the new fences which surround the courts. I explained to them that they were now standing at the first day of their life. The fence at the other side of the court represented the end of their life. I asked them to walk slowly and in silence towards the other side of the court and stop when they felt that they had reached the present point in their life. The key with most NLP techniques is to keep instructions vague and content-free allowing people to make their own sense of what is going on.
Each student began their walk and it was really interesting to see the different lengths of their journeys. Some kids took only 5-6 steps whilst some went almost a third of the way across. I had asked the students to bring their bags with them. I now asked them to put their bags down on the point they had reached and turn around to look back at where they had come from. I asked them to walk back and stop 3-5 times along the route. Each stop would be a significant event in their lives and they were to pause at each point for 10 seconds and relive the moment. Again - very little content given from me allowing them to make their own sense of it. Having reached the day of their birth again they turned around and came back stopping again at the same points to consolidate the experience.
The kids did this brilliantly. It was fantastic to see them all getting totally into the exercise and really reliving experiences. I was particularly pleased that the few kids who didn't get into it respected the others and stayed quiet.
I then asked all the students to walk to a line 2/3rds of the way across the court. They stopped on the line and looked back towards the beginning. I told them that this line represented a point in their future - it was up to them to decide when it was. The key point was that by this point they were successful (again I gave no context or definition for success). They would walk back to their bags (representing today) stopping and noticing 5 particular events which helped them to be successful.
Once again all the kids did it - most of them with eyes closed and in total concentration. It was a fantastic moment. At the end I suggested to them that in order to make any successful journey you need to have a pretty good idea of the route you will take. This exercise helped to give them that route.
As we left the basketball courts many of the students were buzzing - they wanted to talk to each about what they had just experienced.
The whole session made me very grateful to have such a brilliant tutor group and I am really looking forward to working with them throughout the rest of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment