I swim twice a week in my local public pool. Outside of the positive benefits this has for my physical and mental health, I really enjoy swimming, and for the past few years have been trying to prioritize this throughout the school year.
The other day, I was in the medium lane (I sometimes swim in the slow lane and sometimes in the medium). There were four people in the lane, and in all honesty I thought I was doing great. I felt that I was swimming a little faster, that I was a little bit more fit, and I was doing my best to keep up with the faster swimmers. However, I was being passed by swimmers who were faster than me; after this happened a few times, the lifeguard stopped me and suggested I move to the slow lane as there were only two swimmers there and I wouldn’t be passed as much.
I was shocked and a little hurt, but moved over to the slow lane.
And after I processed and recovered a bit from this feedback, I reflected a bit on the concept of speed, and how in our fast-paced world we are always trying to go faster. I was trying to go faster when swimming, and maybe had not been in the right lane. In my classroom, with the pressure to assess and teach and collect data, we are often moving too quickly with students, and the learning that is critically important at this time of year can get forgotten.
Diagnostic assessment is of course critically important; however, there are also many other aspects of running a classroom at this time of year that are also essential. The foundational work of building classroom routines, establishing how we learn, where materials are and how we use them, how to keep the classroom orderly, and how to move through the school: these are critical skills to build and review in September and October.
The idea of community underpins my approach. I work on building community with my students and colleagues: I value the interdependence of relationships, and this takes time to develop and grow. We recognize that we are a community within the classroom, and also that we go out in the neighbourhood and use the physical community as a place to learn and explore. Because we are regularly moving outside or to different spaces in the school, I request and expect that my class is able to do that quickly and quietly. That doesn’t mean that they are quietly moving through the school, but it does mean that they need to be walking in an orderly way. An important lesson at this time of year is if they are not listening or paying attention, we go back to the classroom and start again. It takes longer, but emphasizing the importance of listening to me and moving safely opens up the world for rich learning opportunities.
We move slow now so we can do more later: we move slow so we can move fast.
