Back to Work - Drive, Flow and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Tomorrow I'm back to work after this school year's first break. I like the Australian system with 2-3 week breaks between each of the terms and 8 weeks at the end of the year - summer Down Under.

Most of this break has been spent chasing my son around. He's really turning into a little boy now.

I also did a bit of reading and thinking. I had the opportunity to read Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and reread most of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. The former made me think of the latter and so I made it my night time story.

Flow was a delight to read. It just reaffirms many of my own thought and beliefs but it also was a nice kick in the ass to get my own world in order. Not that I'm way out of control but I think that I'm pretty dialed in with my fitness work but other areas of my life are a bit 'loose' at the moment. The repeated discussion of purposeful use of free time really struck a chord. This was also reiterated in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior when Socrates tells his student that we should be very weary of the rituals we depend on unconsciously. For some reason this made me want to cut back on the television and cut out caffeine.

So far so good - I'm three days into the caffeine and very fortunate to have time to take naps and drink lots of herbal tea.

The other piece of information that is central to both of these texts in the notion of focus. This again made me reflect on myself and realize that my thoughts drift all over the joint. I certainly don't give my entire focus to what is here and now which is really shameful when I think about the moments with my son that I've only given him half my attention. Still, I can't say that I've been able to give much of anything my full attention the last three days having cut out caffeine. Lots of fog in the brain. I can't even remember the last time I went without the drug of choice for most type A's.

What will I bring into the classroom?

I can't sit here right now and formulate an answer. When I mentioned that I've been doing something thinking at the start of this post this is what I've been thinking about. (I also reread Drive by Daniel Pink before giving it to a mate to read.) I haven't quite formulated how I'm going to bring in this information to class. It is coming to my in drips.

For instance, I'm a big believer in reading comprehension. I teach year 9 boys who openly admit that they've never read a book for English class. I use the comprehension to for a few reasons:

1. It gives me something to check to make sure that boys are 'reading' (I know that there is still a possibility that they have answers but aren't reading).
2. I use it as conversation starters in class.
3. I want to get students in the habit of 'active' reading where they have a pen in their hands and are making notes as they work through a book they are studying.
4. Often the questions are handy in helping students focus in on the focal points of the novel we are studying.

Having a read of Drive again has me thinking that reading comprehension isn't the best way to go. I'm not throwing them out I'm just going to not make them count for anything in and of themselves (which will take a load off of marking). I am going to have reading quizes which are directly related to their comprehension work (probably take questions directly from the work). They don't 'have' to do the comprehension questions but I'm going to try to set it up that, if they do them, they'll do much better on the reading quizes. The trick then is to tie the reading quizes into the greater scheme of the unit. In the upcoming unit we're working towards an expository essay. hmm....

As for Flow... it just hasn't come to me yet how to work this book into the classroom. These things usually have to bounce around in my brain before I can put them into practice.

Let me know how you've made it work.

CAV