Effort and Ease

At 10:15 each Sunday morning, I walk into a wonderfully peaceful yoga studio with a kind and inspirational instructor, Natasha, for an hour and fifteen minutes of re-centering, inner peace, and quiet thought. Natasha engages in this interesting stream-of-consciousness type thought, an offering for feeding her students' minds and bodies. What she says sticks with me many days, but today particularly, one small phrase stuck...and for the rest of the practice, I let my own thoughts draw parallels between my yoga practice, my teaching practice, and our second grade students' learning. 

In regards to the pose we were doing at the moment, the words Natasha used were:

We're searching for effort and ease.

Effort and ease.

I said them over and over to myself, a mantra. What I then began to think about was this:

Since my first day with our second graders, in the classroom, I have been searching for effort and ease there. I have been hoping for effort and ease on the part of my students, for myself, and for our class to collectively feel. I just wasn't able to so eloquently state it.

As a new teacher, I am searching for this balance of effort and ease in my teaching practice. I am putting forth immense effort--effort in planning each lesson for each day, wrapping my head around the essential questions and enduring understandings for each unit for each content area, studying the curriculum, growing by reading professional publications, providing thoughtful written feedback to students, setting professional goals, contributing on a professional level with my colleagues, collaborating with parents--the list goes on. In the midst of all this, though, I began to recognize that I am feeling at ease in many ways, too--ease in feeling comfortable in my own skin as a teacher, feeling at ease in the fact that though I'm putting forth my best effort every single day, teaching is imperfect (and that's actually, contrary to my inner perfectionist, okay!!). I'm recognizing ease in the fact that I know my students quite well already and I will continue to get to know them better as learners and thinkers and individuals, ease in the fact that our parent and family community in 2B is wonderful in so many ways, ease in the fact that I insist on kindness, on a culture of learning, on a community of trust.

Effort in conferring on writing personal narratives, ease in knowing I'm meeting student needs in this moment

Effort in planning SMART Board lessons, ease in engaging students (sparking as well as witnessing many smiles while learning)

Somewhere in between the spine series and balance series in this Sunday morning class, my focus shifted away from what this phrase meant for me as a teacher to ponder what it might mean for our students. For our second graders, I thought about the ways effort manifests itself in our students' written response to reading and in Writer's Workshop, verbal responses in classroom discussions, justification of thinking in math, creative thinking, interpersonal problem solving, practicing self-control, responsibility, respect in Morning Meeting and throughout our day. I thought about my hopes that these efforts are in fact made possible by the ease our students feel--ease in the fact that they exist in a safe, respectful classroom that accepts them fully as an individual and values them uniquely, ease in feeling comfortable to take risks (whether it be raising a hand or sharing news from their personal life or asking for help when they feel like they need it), ease in the fact that they are learning and growing in a room where we make learning fun yet push each other to try new things and think in new ways and gain new understanding every single day.

Effort in creative writing, ease in quiet independence

Effort in collaborative group work, ease in the freedom to be themselves

At about this time, my brain was quietly humming with these very active thoughts, but Natasha's far away voice told us it was time for shavasana, or final relaxation. This was my cue to quiet my mind and just be still. The thing was, though, that it was one of those days where I couldn't quiet my brain, not at all. Because this new mantra--the search for a striking a balance between effort and ease--as it applies to our life in Room 2B was buzzing in my brain, and I was thrilled that I had a new way to frame my goals for myself and our students. I couldn't wait to write about it.