Month: January 2021

Some Useful Self-Reflection Tools for Students and Teachers

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Self-reflection can be a great way to maximize the progress and attainment of our students, but how exactly do we encourage this introspection? Are there some key tools that teachers can use to facilitate this process? Today, I’ve invited Martyn Kenneth (an international educator of 15+ years, educational consultant, tutor/coach, an author of children’s books and textbooks and the creator and host of ‘The Lights Out‘ Podcast) to share his insights and tips for educators.

At the end of this blog post you will find a free pdf version of Martyn’s Self-Reflection journal for students. No sign-up required: just click and download.

We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.

John Dewey

Anyone who works in an IB school will have heard the word ‘reflection’ a thousand times. But in a world where learners’ schedules are being filled to bursting point with more ‘knowledge’ to be tested, are we sacrificing time that could be spent on reflecting on past experiences for time spent absorbing knowledge for the future?

We have to look back to move forward. By this I mean we, as teachers and learners, have to purposefully set a time when we look back on our journey up to the present in order to set an intention for future goals and actions. Without this intention we cannot set a direction and without a direction there cannot be a destination. Or at least there cannot be a destination that is reached with precision, purpose and efficiency. It is this precision, purpose and efficiency that gets you further faster – milestone after milestone, chapter after chapter or page after page. And isn’t this what we all want for our students – for them to grow and develop to their full potential?

It wasn’t until I went from EAL teacher to IB PYP teacher that this word ‘reflection’ really hit home. I used to be a great believer in task-based learning (TBL) and would happily conclude that learning was happening in the classroom as a result of a run of tasks being completed in sequential order. I never used to schedule or plan-in time for reflecting on the tasks that have been completed.

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The school where I work now utilizes the inquiry-based method with the PYP framework. If you look at any inquiry-based approach you will find that reflection usually sits at the center of the inquiry cycle (just Google ‘inquiry cycle‘). Not to say that task based learning lessons are ineffective: on the contrary they can be highly effective if they are consciously and intentionally used as a part of the inquiry cycle. But as a learning experience they are just one part of the puzzle. Reflection plays an equal if not more important role than the tasks themselves.

Reflection informs teaching and planning, too as it is only when we reflect that we can truly plan for success in the student.

An activity that I like to do with secondary students is related to having them reflect on what has happened through the week. It’s based on 6 initials.

M.E.N.D.T.G

It is a reflection based activity that asks students to write for a maximum of ten minutes about their week.

M – Memorable Moment

E – Emotions

N – News

D – Driving motivation

T – Time travel

G – Goals

I provide sentence stems to begin with such as:

M – The most memorable moment of my week was __________________________. This was memorable for me because _____________________.

E – A time this week when I felt very __________ (emotion)___________ was when _______________. This was caused by ______________

N – In the news this week I saw/read about__________. I was interested in this story because _____________

D – This week I have been motivated by __________. This has motivated me because _________________

T – If I travelled back to last class the thing I would change/do differently would be __________. Making this change would have made my week different by______________

G – My goal for the following week is ________________ To achieve this goal I will _____________.

[Optional – (I achieved/didn’t achieve my goal last week because_______)]

I have found that having learners do this exercise is really beneficial for everyone. It allows the teacher to find out more about his or her students, it can be a platform for deeper discussions and conversations, it is a quiet time at start of class to get learners focusing and ready and it can also be a time for setting and achieving small goals.

I had actually used another set of initials for a couple of years before changing to the MENDTG in the new year.

My previous reflection activity was:

B – The Best thing of the week for me was…

W – The Worst thing of the week for me was…

L – Something I learned this week was…

F – Something I failed at was…

G – This week I am grateful for…

G – My goal for the week ahead is...

As educators we now have to reflect on our practice and ask ourselves serious questions like: Am I teaching the best I can? Am I providing the best environment for learning to happen? And have I planned well enough with appropriate assessments that can be evidence to inform teaching and learning going forward?

I think our practice can change significantly if we think about the quote by Dewey and focus more attention on the recall of memory about a learning experience and less on the focus of information to be recalled at a later date.

Download Martyn’s free self-reflection journal for students as a pdf here (no sign-up required, just click and download):

Reflective-Journal-for-StudentsDownload

Thoughts and reflections from Richard James Rogers:

Thank you, Martyn, for this detailed and useful article. I love both acronyms and the Reflective Journal that you’ve kindly shared with us all is a great tool. I will be sharing this with my colleagues at school and using it in my role as a form-tutor – I think it’s a great weekly exercise that can have a profound and positive effect on many students’ lives.

We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

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The Importance of Body Language in Teaching

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Effective communication between teachers and their students is crucial for effective learning to take place, but how many of us are aware of how our subliminal cues via body language are interpreted and processed? What are some key non-verbal strategies that teachers can use with students? Today, I’ve invited Jessica Robinson, educational writer at The Speaking Polymath, to share her insights and tips for educators.

Teaching is a profession that requires effective communication. Only through effective communication you can teach well and help your students learn excellently. Now, communication becomes effective only when there is a perfect blend of verbal and non-verbal means of communication. With non-verbal means like facial expressions, body postures, hand gestures, and verbal messages become clear and better understandable. For example, if someone asks you which direction should he go in to find the washrooms, and you say- right. Then, he will take a second to think and then start moving in the right direction. But, if you say right and point in the right direction, he’ll immediately start moving in the right direction, even without thinking for a second. This is how magical the effect of non-verbal means of communication is.

After coming across the significance of non-verbal means of communication, let us discuss the importance of body language in teaching. Body language is the superset of the different non-verbal means of communication like facial expressions, hand gestures, and body postures. This implies that all the hand gestures, facial expressions, and body postures we make come under body language. Now let’s proceed to discuss the importance of body language in teaching.

  1. Influential body language helps in classroom management:

When you portray persuasive body language, you naturally captivate your students’ attention. When your students are attentive in class, their mind is engrossed in learning. As a result, they don’t engage in mischief, and your classroom becomes well managed. So, one of the most significant benefits of portraying clear body language is that it makes classroom management more straightforward for you.

“An AMAZING book for teachers!”
  1. Your body language impacts the energy level of your students:

Imagine meeting someone having a high energy level who uses powerful hand gestures and facial expressions while interacting with you. How do you feel? Your answer will most likely be one of the following terms- energetic, attentive, and enthusiastic. Isn’t it? Whatever it is, it is undoubtedly positive. This implies that a person with powerful and animated body language positively impacts your energy level. From this, we can conclude that our body language has a significant impact on the people around us. If you portray energetic body language in class, your students will most likely start feeling energetic and studying well. This makes it crucial for every teacher to teach powerful body language.

  1. Your body language impacts your relationships with your students:

Have you ever experienced that you feel more comfortable around some people and slightly uncomfortable around others, even when you have just met them for the first time? I’m sure that you have because almost all of us feel so in the presence of different people. Now, if we explore why does it happen that some people make us feel comfortable while others don’t? The answer to this question is their body language.

When we look at people, the first thing we notice about them is their body language. If someone has a closed body language like doesn’t have a smiling face or relaxed body posture, we get an impression that the person isn’t friendly. As a result, we start feeling uncomfortable. This implies that our body language impacts our relationships with others. If you have an open and relaxed body language, your students will consider you friendly and loving. As a result, they’ll get inclined towards you and develop good relationships with you. When you have good relationships with your students, they naturally pay more attention in class, heed your advice, and teaching them gets more straightforward for you.

  1. The use of supportive body language with verbal instructions helps in increasing students’ attention in class:

When you accompany your verbal instructions with suitable hand gestures, facial expressions, and body postures, your students are likely to be more attentive in class. For example, if you say look towards the left and your students aren’t listening attentively but blankly looking at you, chances are they’ll not respond. But, if you accompany your words with your finger pointing towards the left, your students are more likely to start looking towards the left. This is simply because even when they are not actively listening to you, they look at you. This way, body language helps increase your students’ attention in class.

  1. Influential body language enhances your confidence level:

When students become too noisy and don’t listen to us, we start feeling disheartened. Then, the loop of disappointment begins, and we start questioning our abilities as a teacher. Although we feel as if we are on the verge of breaking, we also know that we cannot give up as we are teachers in our inner world. Under such circumstances, your body language can help you feel better and regain your confidence. Then, you can again start directing your efforts to quieten your students.

You can question how body language can help you increase your confidence level? Let me answer this question for you with the help of an example. When we feel afraid, our body contracts a bit. Have you ever felt that? I’m sure you have, as it is our body’s natural reaction to fear. On the contrary, when you are happy, your body expands. You feel lighter, isn’t it? This is because your emotion impacts your body language and vice versa is also true. So, whenever you feel that your confidence level is getting low, you can make some simple changes in your body language to replenish it. Now, what changes can you make? It is effortless; just try covering more space, like standing in a relaxed manner, with your arms spread out. This will give your brain a signal that your body is comfortable and everything is okay. As a result, your confidence level will increase, and you can then try to quieten your students again.

Your body language can help you teach better and more effectively. The same has been illustrated by the importance of body language in teaching, as described above. So, you can enhance your teaching skills by simply improvising your body language. Now, wishing you All the best and have happy teaching.

An ardent writer, Jessica Robinson, works for ‘The Speaking Polymath’. She uses this platform to weave her magical words into powerful strands of content and share with her readers.

We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

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Cobra Kai in Schools: Should Martial Arts be Compulsory for Kids?

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

When I look back on the most significant, powerful and transformative moments in my life, few can come close to when I first walked into a Shotokan Karate dojo.

I was a weak, somewhat weird, high-energy 11-year-old. My dad had started going to Karate lessons and wanted to take me along too. I honestly had no idea how much it would change my life.

I had watched Daniel Larusso’s epic stories in the original Karate Kid series as a small child. Sometimes I would try and copy the moves, making loud ‘Hiiii-Yaaaaaaa’ noises, which usually triggered a fight with my younger brother, and a subsequent ‘grounding’ from mum. I was hooked from an early age, and attending my first Karate class with my dad at age 11 (in 1994) was also like re-living the Karate Kid fantasies I had as a 5-year-old.

Now, with the massive popularity of the Cobra Kai Netflix series (I’m a big fan too, I’ll admit), Karate is seeing a long-awaited resurgence in interest, albeit misinformed (perhaps). As an experienced Karateka I watch Cobra Kai with much amusement: the students make progress way too quickly (performing advanced moves like spin kicks and spin sweeps after seemingly only a few months training); the big school fight is exciting, but unrealistic (it’s unlikely that on-duty teachers would allow that to happen) and parents would be kicking up a massive fuss if kids were coming home battered and bloodied from the Cobra Kai dojo (there’s one scene in Season 3, for example, in which Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz takes another kid to the ground and repeatedly punches him in the head, MMA style, until he’s very bloodied. John Kreese smiles, doesn’t intervene, and when the pounding has finished he says words to the effect of “Will someone pick him up?” In real-life, parents and probably the police would have intervened and the dojo may have been temporarily closed.).

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My karate lessons were (and are) exciting, fast-paced and painful. I and the other white belts had to do lots of stretching, hold fixed stances for long periods of time, perform basic movements (kihon) with power and aggression and perform well in sparring (kumite). There were no mats on the floor and we didn’t wear pads or gumshields – this was old school, traditional Karate, done on hardwood school-gym floors. We respected each other, and aggression was always controlled. If things ever got out of hand (which rarely happened), it was seen as a moment of shame and embarrassment. And as for Karate competency – it takes years and years to get ‘good’ at Karate, even with daily training. Real karate isn’t like Cobra Kai (sorry).

When I first started Karate my body was uncoordinated and unconditioned. After around one month, however, I was performing techniques with some accuracy, had made friends at the club (and later, within the larger Shotokan community as a whole) and was seeing some (albeit minimal) progress. And that’s what I believe initiated the other changes I saw in my life: seeing the progress I made.

27 years later and I’m still training daily. Shotokan Karate has given me so much to be grateful for, including:

  • Self-discipline: Progressing through the belts required hard-work, real perseverance (especially when my sensei would criticize my movements, and I had to keep going and not just simply give up) and sacrifice: I could have stayed at home and watched cartoons instead.
  • Friends: Meeting and socializing with other kids who had a common interest with me really boosted my confidence. I was bullied at school by a small group of boys, and I really valued my support network at Karate class.
  • Mentorship: My Karate sanseis didn’t just teach me techniques to use in a fight – they would often give advice about how to work hard at school, the importance of creating a good life for myself and how to have goals and work towards them.
  • Health and fitness: I hated P.E. (Physical Education) classes at school, and I was terrible at football (a British school staple). Karate gave me an intense workout that I enjoyed, despite the pain that came with the training.
  • The ability to defend myself: Admittedly, this took many years to develop (martial arts’ practitioners will often claim that MMA, boxing or Brazilian Ju-Jitsu will get you to a level of ‘street competency’ quicker), but I did get there. There have been a number of occasions in my life (a small number, thankfully), where I have had to use my Karate skills to get out of a bad situation. One key skill that Karate taught me was situational awareness: knowing how to spot trouble before it happens, and how to avoid it.
  • Spirituality: Karate training involves meditation and reflection (when done properly). As a teenager, these exercises were instrumental in helping me to maintain a positive attitude when life got tough.

My own experience speaks for itself on this matter, but I’m not the only one who sees the benefit of martial arts training for schoolchildren. Keri Wilmot, an occupational therapist who works with children of varying ages and abilities in all areas of pediatrics, identifies nine benefits of martial arts training for children:

  • Self-improvement: Martial arts focus on individual growth.
  • Goal-setting: Kids work through different coloured belts at their own pace (in many martial arts). This can boost self-esteem (I can personally vouch for that).
  • Repetition and routines: Sets, katas and basic movements are broken down into manageable parts that students can digest at a realistic pace.
  • Self-control and concentration are encouraged: One of my Karate senseis would often say that “This will help you with mathematics”. I believe he was right.
  • Coordination is improved: I think Keri puts this perfectly when she writes that “Doing martial arts movements can help kids get a better feel for their body in space.”
  • Boundaries and rules are in-place: These are constantly reinforced by (good) instructors.
  • Martial arts provide a safe outlet for excess energy: This is great for adults and children. Excess aggression, anger and even exam-stress can be dissipated in a martial arts workout in a controlled way.
  • Respect is at the core: In most martial arts’ dojos, students have to show respect for their sensei and for each other. The Cobra Kai dojo is clearly an exception to this rule.
  • Martial arts are cool: I’m taking this word-for-word from Keri, because I can’t rephrase this in a better way. Kids feel special and cool when they’re wearing their martial arts’ gear. To add to Keri’s excellent description I will also say that this adds to a sense of community, and this can be a great esteem-booster for children. As I mentioned earlier: a good dojo can also provide a good support network and social circle for kids who might not have such close ties with friends at school.

Are there any countries or schools where martial arts training is compulsory for students?

Yes! Tai Chi is a compulsory course at Zhenbao primary school in Jioozuo in Central China, for example. The aims are to strengthen students’ physiques and to promote Traditional Chinese culture.

This school, however, is the only example I am aware of. If you know of any others, then please do feel free to comment in the comments’ box at the bottom of this page.

Have people advocated for compulsory martial arts classes in schools before?

Many celebrities, politicians and former athletes have called for compulsory martial arts classes in schools in the past:

  • In 2016, centrist French politician Jean Lassalle called for the introduction of compulsory martial arts classes in schools to combat France’s “culture of fear” that had developed in the wake of recent events at that time.
  • Tiffiny Hall, former Biggest Loser trainer and Taekwondo black belt spoke out about the benefits of martial arts training for school students in 2018. “All I’m asking for is an hour in the PE curriculum in schools to teach kids basic self-protection and self-defense”, she is quoted as saying by Radio 3AW Melbourne.
  • In 2019, martial arts instructor Neha Shrimal set up a petition (which garnered around 137,000 signatures) to include martial arts as a compulsory component of school curricula in Maharashtra State, India. She is quoted by India Today as stating “In India, over 53 per cent of children face sexual abuse. Whenever any such incidence happens, we just look at police and legal system for help. We never imagine that a girl can also have power to deal with such situations, I believe that every child should be trained to protect themselves from an early age. I am asking Maharashtra Government to make self-defence training compulsory for all the students from 5th standard onwards”.

Bibliography and references (in order of appearance)

  1. ‘This Number Shows Why ‘Cobra Kai’ Could Be Netflix’s Most Popular Show Since ‘Outer Banks’ And ‘Tiger King’’. Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/09/23/this-number-proves-why-cobra-kai-could-be-netflixs-most-popular-show-since-outer-banks-and-tiger-king/
  2. ‘Netflix’s Cobra Kai making karate more popular in Edmonton: dojo owner’. CTV News Edmonton. Available at: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/netflix-s-cobra-kai-making-karate-more-popular-in-edmonton-dojo-owner-1.5257790
  3. ‘9 Benefits of Martial Arts for Kids Who Learn and Think Differently’. Understood For All Inc. Available at: https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/child-social-situations/sports/9-benefits-of-martial-arts-for-kids-who-learn-and-think-differently
  4. ‘Taichi becomes a compulsory course in Henan primary school’. CGTN. Available at: https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d3155444f32457a6333566d54/index.html
  5. ‘French MP calls for schools to have compulsory martial arts’. The Local Europe AB. Available at: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160822/french-mp-calls-for-compulsory-martial-arts-in-schools
  6. ‘Self defence should be compulsory in schools: Martial Arts expert Tiffiny Hall’. 3AW News Melbourne. Available at: https://www.3aw.com.au/self-defence-should-be-compulsory-in-schools-martial-arts-expert-tiffiny-hall/
  7. ‘Maharashtra government to include compulsory self-defence classes in school curriculum’. India Today. Available at: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/maharashtra-government-to-include-compulsory-self-defence-classes-in-school-curriculum-1457713-2019-02-16

Have a great week of teaching everyone! Don’t forget to comment below or contact me if you have any questions or comments – your feedback is my lifeblood! 

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