Year 8: Week 3 - Feeling The Vibe

My new and strangely effective classroom management strategy is to talk about “vibe.” By “vibe,” I mean the feeling in the room, the overall mood. I’m not quite sure why I started doing this, but it seemed felt like a good idea and it’s been working.

I was teaching a bunch of my 3rd graders and we were having a discussion and a couple students were making distracting jokes. I paused, got all of the students’ attention and explained that I was feeling uncomfortable. I asked if anyone else was feeling slightly off and many of them nodded.

I gave them directions on how we could better focus, we moved on with the lesson and at the end, I asked them if people felt better and the class responded that they did.

Often, our feelings during a lesson mirror our students’ feelings. If we feel excited and satisfied with how a lesson is going, most likely the students will too, and if you feel stressed or uncomfortable, there is probably some portion of the class that feels this as well. This gets tricky because sometimes a students’ expression of discomfort is them goofing off in class. However, I do believe that most of the time, kids are with us emotionally for better or for worse.

It isn’t easy to be open with your kids and tell them how you feel in a moment, especially if the feeling isn’t positive. However, taking the chance to open up provides some important things for the students. Kids need to learn that their words have emotional consequences. Sometimes the best way for that to happen is for teachers to explain how the words make them feel.

If there are a couple kids who are off-topic and it’s annoying other students, by stating that you as the teacher are also annoyed, you are validating other students’ feelings. Validating is a way of helping other students feel like they are seen and known. This has the potential to empower them. Also, helping kids be aware of their own emotions is another way for them to calm themselves and focus.

I don’t think I did this as a younger teacher because I didn’t want to reveal to my students that they had influence over my lesson and my emotions. If this is done too often than it becomes all about the teachers’ feelings which isn’t a good thing. It’s our reality and I think too often students don’t realize that they have power to make a room feel uncomfortable, and with the proper guidance, they can learn an even more important lesson: they can make a room feel safe and welcoming.

When things have been grooving in a class and students feel good. I’ve asked my students if they feel good and they do. It’s wonderful to share in this feeling of togetherness.

The theme this past week for me, is “chase the vibe.” Let’s work together to get to that good feeling when we are all on the same page making great music. In music, the best experiences feel great and the same goes true for the classroom.