kshanti joins teaching

Today Kshanti joined me at the school.

She took the kindy group to the room that the scripture coordinator had kindly allocated. I think the kids were very interested and did well.

Most of the older kids had gone on a trip so we only had about 10, Kshanti gudied the class and I just listened. The class went really well. The students were curious and interested in the bell that Kshanti brought and let them play with.
She asked the group to listen to the bell until the sound stopped. Then rang it again and asked them to count their breaths. On the third go she asked to try to breath fewer times. The kids had fun and practiced well.

two weeks passed - and big changes to come

These lasts two weeks have been busy at my day job, so I have not been able to write anything in my journal. Kind of a pity because I actually had two good weeks.
After the Principal and the scripture coordinator came things worked much better.
In fact on one of the weeks the little ones did better than the older ones!

What am I doing better? I'm not sure, maybe nothing, maybe the problems are just all the normal cycles that I should have expected.

What am I doing different? I gave up on having similar classes for the two groups.
For the little ones I normally have an activity such as reading and then do the sitting. For the older ones I had 10-15 sitting with Bhante's CD and then a talk.

When a boy/girl looks too restless I ask them to lay down on the floor instead of sitting. Once they have calmed down I ask them to sit. I also ask the to sit next to me, and I actually sit as close as possible so when they get distracted I can look directly at their eyes, and the quiet down.

In the last talk (with the older ones) we discussed the eightfold path (yes, the 8 steps in 10 min!). We had already mentioned the first four and I mostly focused on right livelihood. It was funny to see what their interpretations of 'wrong livelihood' were. Several mentioned 'fast food cook' as wrong livelihood, other included garbage man and other hard jobs. After a short discussion they started coming out with those that harm people and animals, 'killer', 'thief', 'drug dealer' and notably 'poacher' were popular ones.

The big changes next week: I got someone to help me with the classes. Chris has accepted to take the Kindy and the year 3 boys, and the school agreed to provide an extra room. I must really thank both. I know that Chris is really busy with her PhD and daughters, so sparing the time is a big commitment. The school has also been extremely nice and helpful. Both the principal and the scripture coordinator are very supportive. Providing an extra room is already a big thing since I understand the school has serious space issues.

More good news include that the Buddhist Council of NSW now has a new 'Education Coordinator',Roselin Nusantara has agreed to take this role, and we are all very grateful. Regrettably the monk that was in charge until now has been extremely busy with his Sangha and had to travel to Japan... Roselin is now going to help appointing new teachers, distributing textbooks and hopefully organizing some event where we can meet other teachers.

despair or wrong expectations?

The little ones gave a hard time again.
I think that the discipline issues in this have also gone up to the Principal, as he came today, to see how they are doing and warn them that if discipline did not improve they would not be able to keep coming to scripture class.

I felt despair, because I did not know how to manage them properly. They show so much respect for some of the other teachers...
A solution would be to divide the group. Two things are needed: a classroom and a teacher. The scripture class coordinator will try to find a new room, where an other Buddhist teacher could take part of the group. I think this would help.

The second class was great again. Two of the kids that are normally noisy and restless did really well. They sat quietly for the 15 minutes of Bhante's meditation.
When we started several of them lied down, as they had done last week. I told them that since they were doing much better, they should try to do the extra effort and start sitting, with the back straight, eyes closed,...
Interestingly some of those that last term were doing great this term are more restless, and those that seemed hopeless, are now doing great!
Of course, this seems logical, but seeing it like this makes the realization much more clear.

Today, I think the factors that affect the quality of the session include:

- Appropriateness of the activity (learning design?): For the little ones either hands on activity or very short story (1 page max). I'm still not sure how to get the meditation going.

- Teacher's mood (related to the personal 'development' of the teacher - wisdom and compassion): this affects my voice and what I say. When I felt despair today, in the first class, I am sure that it affected how I behaved in both classes. At he very least I was not as happy and energetic as I would have been. It probably appears as lack of self confidence... and the kids pick up on that.

- Time management: The class is so short (30 min) that any distraction affects what we can do.

- Student's expectations/habits: I need to develop this better. Repeating the same type of activities every week helps them understand better what to expect. I think I have been trying different things every week and it has a negative effect.

- Teacher's expectations: Although I have reduced the expectations on the achieving side, the bottom line is that I'm still expecting things, as when I was surprised that student X did so well. These are also expectations that I should learn to note and manage.

Fantastic day

Yes, I had the best day so far.

Even the little ones did well. I read the Muchalinda (giant Cobra) story that Dorian wrote and they liked it a lot. They were quiet for most of the time. The reason: the Kindergarten kids did not come. There were still about 20, but the little-little ones make a whole lot of difference.

With the older ones, we did Bhante's guided meditation on metta. Fantastic. I think that Bhante voice has the same effect on them as he does on me. I did some new things that seemed to have helped:

1. I sat in the office, before leaving to the school, and then again in the classroom, before the kids came in. This gave me a lot of energy and focused my mind. I followed Bhante's talk, the same I would use with the students.
   
2. Asked the two most 'active' boys to lie down in the floor instead of sitting.
   
3. Told the rest to be in the position they felt most comfortable with. Have sat, have lied down.
4. I kept my own voice to a minimum. I tried to leave it to Bhante and just sit for most of the time. I followed the guided meditation myself.
5. When the kids moved, I looked at them or pointed to them, looking straight to the eyes. Since the other are were with the eyes closed or quiet, when I looked at them, they were more 'alone' with me. It was the most one to one I can get in this large class.
6. When H, one of the two that are two active had relaxed I asked him to sit, and I sat close to him and send him metta. He did great! yes I was so impressed that I praised him at the end of the class. I think he was impressed himself, even though it was only about 2 minutes that he kept still.
   

At the end of the day I went to see the principal and asked her what had happened with the Kindergarten kids. She had forgotten to take them to the class! Well, I said 'it was the best day so far, so I am grateful to you'.

PD: I saw some school statistics. They have about 290 students in the whole school. 40-50 each year. This means that 15-20% of parents want their kids to learn about Buddhism. It is very impressive considering that the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates the Buddhist population in Australia at about 4%.