Not YET..........

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. October is hard. I’ve tried to dissect why that is and I think that it is because some of the newness of school has worn off and the “honeymoon” phase for behavior is over. I also believe that students start to feel very safe and comfortable in their classroom culture and personalities start to change a little which makes it hard. Additionally, you’ve collected all the beginning of the year data and real teaching and learning starts to take place. And it is hard. In my world hard = tired.

So hard in fact that I have not gotten up at 4:15am in many a day for the gym. I feel bad about this for a multitude of reasons. The first is I always feel like a fat slob when I don’t go to the gym. The second is the quiet time the gym provides me in the mornings does a really good job of helping me get into a great focus for the day. And finally, exercising is so very calming for me. Many folks can go to the gym after work, but not me. If I don’t go at 4:15am, I don’t go. My life is just too busy for afterschool gym time. I decided I was tired of feeling bad for not going to the gym. Last week I dropped my gym membership. I decided to try something different. I purchased an online “on demand” gym membership. I’ve had it for a week and so far, I love it. I can sleep until 5am now and I get up and do my 45 to 1 hour class and I’ve been doing yoga at night. I am loving it.

The cardio classes are nothing but high energy dance classes with great music and great instructors. And I love this! There are also over 700 different classes from kick boxing to Pilates. The yoga class that I have been doing is a 21-day challenge. The video has 3 instructors. One is the main instructor who gives the directions and the explanations and on each side of him is another participant. The one on his right is a little advanced and the one on his left, David, is modified. I like the one on the left. I like David. Just last night we were doing balance yoga. OMGosh…..I clearly have no balance. I was able to follow the modified version and still get a good workout, strengthen my balance, and not end up with a concussion from toppling over the coffee table. David, like me, didn’t straighten his legs or pull his arms all the way down. He, like me, did things just a little easier than the guy on the right.

I was thinking about my left side guy, David,  this morning as I stepped into a classroom for an observation. If my yoga instructor has figured out that many in the class are not quite there yet and needs modification, then should we not figure that out also? As I watched this teacher brilliantly have a minilesson and then set the students lose to work on the skill independently, I waited. The teacher was working on a TDA like skill. Once she provided the minilesson -explaining the skill that needed to happen, read a passage to them, read the question, and modeled how to complete the question, she sent the students to their desk. On their desk each student found a different passage. The task was the same, the task was just different for each student.

No one knew what was different-they were too focused on getting the task completed. The teacher had modeled the highest degree of difficulty for the grade level. She had set her expectations. But she knew that not everyone was ready for the highest degree of difficulty-at least they are not ready---YET!

You see I will not be following David for the entire 21 days of this yoga challenge. At some point I will start challenging myself to be more like the instructor and the advanced instructor. It will be gradual and some days I will go back to David when I need more support or I am struggling. But I am not there YET. If I had followed the instructor or the advanced instructor this weekend, I would have quit. I would have decided that this wasn’t for me.

When we do the same to our students-when we chose a one size fits all instruction for all students, we ensure that not all students will meet mastery. We must modify our instruction for students. Sometimes it is because students are above grade level and sometimes it is because they are not there-YET. However, failing to differentiate our instruction, fails our students.

If any of you need me, I can be found in my living room in child’s pose.