Adaptability Equals Survival.
It is easy to think that kids are kids (or customers are customers) the world over, but cultures influence is pervasive. My partner had 38 years experience teaching children of various ages in California before we started this school. She knew children. She knew what to expect, what to demand, what to do, and how to do it. Except when she did not.
Originally our classes ran a full two hours each day. We quickly discovered that the children simply did not have the attention span. Even for a physical, engaging activity like steel pans, the nine to twelve year olds could not maintain concentration throughout the class. We shortened it one and one half hour per class.
Still she could not seem to get full commitment. Even with a single class counting only eight to fifteen students, she could not keep the kids from goofing off the moment she turned her back. They wriggled and quarreled; they bickered and squirreled. Teaching an instrument often requires spending several minutes in a row guiding a single student through some line they are having difficulty with. While the more responsible students would wait patiently or practice silently, the squirrelly, younger students simply would not handle the time well.
Standard disciplinary measures do not exist; there is no principle’s office. The local culture makes very few demands of children at their age, so neither their homes nor their schools have done much to teach patience, citizenship, and respectfulness.
Eventually, my partner reached far back into her experience, recalling the two short years she taught first-graders. Second graders, you see, must never be left with nothing to do, not even for a moment. Once unoccupied, a seven-year-old’s hands are irresistibly drawn to his classmates’ person. Thereafter hijinks ensue. Among elementary school teachers it is customary to have a pile of distractions – games, art projects, photo books, and the like – available at all times, instructing the student to turn to them whenever they have a free moment. This worked like a charm.
A series of ongoing crafts and drawing stations occupy one wall of the classroom, available whenever the students have a free moment to absorb their squirrellyness. This allows my partner much needed moments of peace to concentrate on the students who need help.
How does this help you? Well, it offers you crack anecdote to respond to the next person who insists that TV shortens the attention spans of American children. (Few of these kids own TVs, but they make American children look like the British Royal Guard.) Also it goes to show that experience can mislead, and expectations are nothing more than educated guesses. Do what works, not what should work.
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