School and social pressures can be overwhelming for our students. The point of all of this is that life can get tough sometimes. I came into my room one day to find one of our administrators enjoying a few moments of Zen! And it’s not just students who come to use the Zen Zone.
It is a place where, as long as your teacher knows where you are, no questions will be asked, you can “just be” for a few moments. A space that started as a somewhat selfish idea has become a safe space for students to come to when they feel upset, overwhelmed, sad or tired. Students who aren’t in my class, and never have been, sometimes ask if they can come crash in the Zen Zone. Thank you Bri! Fast Forward to the Present The Zen Zone is starting to become somewhat of a legend. So, from that point forward our nook was known as the Zen Zone. She said it felt safe and was a place she could gather herself when she was upset, it made her feel “Zen.” WOW! I had no idea our little nook had such value. Well it seems that this student had given our little nook a name. Then one day she asked if one of her friends could use the Zen Zone. Over the course of the next week we saw this student frequently, in the early mornings and sometimes when she was on break from class. Helped? I wasn’t sure how that helped but, whatever, I thought. My answer was, of course, yes. She got up when it was time to head to class and said “Thanks, that really helped.” Hmmm. She responded by asking me if she could just crash on the bean bags until her class started. Then one day one of my former students came in before class and was visibly upset. Students used it to work more comfortably and Ms.Hellaby and I used it as a place to briefly escape from the stresses of the day. Up to this point the space did not have a name. His feet don’t even touch the floor when he uses it! But I figure, hey whatever works! One of my students had even taken to placing the video game chair onto his desk chair and using it as a sort of booster seat. Nobody ever argued about who got to sit there. Students used the new space when they felt the need. Sign to left on steel panel: No Food or Drinks Please Signs underneath the THINK sign: Am I RESPECTING myself and others? What am I LEARNING? Am I safeguarding my PERSONAL INFORMATION? How will this impact my DIGITAL FOOTPRINT? Is the content I’m looking at SCHOOL APPROPRIATE? Life was good. What to do? So… we updated the space We brainstormed and came up with the idea of talking with the students about digital citizenship then putting up signs as reminders. This picture shows our progression. We have some pretty trustworthy students but… kids will be kids. We assumed they were working and not e-mailing, surfing the web etc. Pretty cool! But this got us thinking again.
They had grabbed their Chromebooks then settled in to do their work.
We were pretty casual in our answers to them and when they asked if they could use it we said sure! The next day when we came in this is what we saw:
And then the fun began… When the kids saw this area they asked what it was and why we had it. Well one thing led to another and pretty soon we had a carpet remnant, some beanbag chairs (1 brought back to life by stuffing it with an old, cut up foam mattress pad!), a few pillows and an old video game chair. So the decision was made to bring in some pillows from home so we could flop on the floor when we needed to take a break from the stresses of the day. We had had a number of trying days as we were trying to embrace our new Chromebooks and sometimes we just felt spent. Hellaby and I decided we wanted an area to “crash” after school. In pondering what to do with the space my fellow teacher and sharer of my room, Ms. When the table was removed it left a void in the room. This year a Chromebook cart was added to our room so we no longer had need for the desktops. The space where it was created used to house a table with desktop computers on it. So, without further ado, let’s talk Zen Zones! How did the Zen Zone start? The origins of the Zen Zone were rather selfish in nature. We’re not perfect, our students aren’t perfect, our classrooms aren’t perfect and that’s OK. I almost took a new picture when I realized there were some letters missing from my Fiber Analysis word wall but then I thought better of it. Above is a picture of our current Zen Zone. The inspiration for this post came from my fellow tweep Sean Gaillard during a recent #bfc530 twitter chat.
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