After writing last nights post, I had a thought about reinforcing this concept with my year 9 Math class. In my experience students don't have difficulty with the math concepts, they have difficulty understanding the question, or, more importantly, they have an extreme lack of confidence...
So, with last nights post in mind, this is what I did...
On a piece of cardboard I wrote 5 words. I then lined the students up outside the room and instructed them, that when they go inside, I would reveal the words on the cardboard and they were to respond to those words in writing. I further told them that they were not to speak to each other, and that they would have five minutes to respond. At the end of five minutes (and only then) they would share their responses with me and with each other. When the students had filed in and opened their note books, I revealed the words, "YOU ARE ALL IN TROUBLE." You could have heard a pin drop in the room. They sat there stunned until I reminded them they were supposed to be writing their response. I watched as they fidgeted, shifted uncomfortably, looked ill, wrote a few words then sat staring at the white board. After three minutes, I couldn't watch them anymore (it was starting to border on cruel) and I stopped them.
I asked them to share their responses. Some of them were things like, "Is this about our exam Miss?" "What did we do?" "I don't understand?" "Are you angry?" etc. I then asked them to describe their physical responses. They were fidgeting, anxiety, tummy fluttering, sweating etc.
At this point I definitely let them off the hook and stated to them, "I have done this today to show you a powerful tool that you are going to use from now on in math class. It is the power of words. I wrote these 5 words, I didn't even say them, and look at the power they had over you for the last 5 minutes." The sigh of relief was palpable.
I then instructed them to write down on a page they could later throw out, all of the comments they had made to me over the term such as, "I hate math," "I'm going to fail," "I'm not good at this," "I can't do math." Etc. They then had to rewrite those statements reflecting what they would like the math class to be like..."I hate maths" became "I can enjoy maths", "I can't do math" became, "I can learn math easily and I like to ask for help". I'm sure you get the picture.
I the spent the rest of the lesson with them making huge posters to put up around the room in bright colours that reflected the positive statements they had come up with (that's important to note...they devised the positive statements themselves with minimal instruction from me...in fact they helped each other). We used bright colours and big letters and then hung the posters up next to the concept posters in the room.
The atmosphere changed perceptibly during the 70 minute lesson. I can only imagine the impact of this action over the remainder of the year, as each day, they read these posters, that they themselves made.
This is not to say there weren't a few students who dissented and phoo phooed the whole concept. They were quickly shouted down by the others (it's nice when they act on my behalf) and I calmly pointed out to them that if it didn't work, what would they loose?
I challenge you.....it's your turn now...write down all those negatives in your life, transform them to positives and create a daily reminder of them (burn the negatives when you're done, you don't need them anymore) and wait...I'll keep you updated on the progress of my math angels...see if you can keep up with their change in attitude :D
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