All great teachers have the ability to make learning fun. It not only helps the student learn more easily and retain the information better but it makes our jobs more exciting and fun! Who wants to be bored at work, who wants work to be drudgery? No one I know. I want to be excited every morning as I wake up thinking about the great things I can do at work. To hear the students laugh, see them smile, and to see them waiting with bated breath at what I’ll do next!
Even in my adult corporate training classes I play games, I surprise them with treats, compliments, and more. They soon begin to expect the unexpected when they are in a class with me. This encourages them to want to come to training, to realize that making life at work less tedious for themselves and their team will help them live longer and increase the team’s productivity and decrease its sick days! Yes, live longer and healthier!
I don’t believe the adage that “The good die young and the obnoxious live forever.” I believe that laughter is the best medicine and it opens my mind to creativity!
In my developmental English classes I have them write a “chain story” and in one class the last student actually killed the teacher off at the end. Yes, the class killed me off! I just loved the story it was such fun and they all expressed themselves so well. They were able to see how creative they could be in just a sentence or two and how teams can work together easily and without their egos or fears taking over. Even the shy and quiet ones got to participate fully.
In Jan Chozen Bay’s book Mindfulness on the Go, she has a great little exercise you can use with your classes she calls it “Say Yes.” Find every opportunity to say “yes” to people. She invites us to put stickers up with the word “YES” in spots where you’ll notice them in your home and workplace. She even encourages us to write “YES” on the back of our hand so we can see it frequently. She writes, “This task helps us see how often we take a stance that is negative or oppositional. If we are able to watch our mind when someone is talking to us, particularly if they are asking us to do something, we can see our thoughts forming defenses and counterarguments (page 127).”
She shares some examples of how people have used her technique. “One person noted that an external ‘yes’ might not match the real attitude of ‘no’ inside, and that the task helped him detect a hidden constricted state of mind (page 128-29).”
So say YES to life, say YES to FUN and begin to bring it into your classrooms, work rooms, and living rooms and watch what happens. Try it I think you’ll like having FUN for a change!
Let me know how it goes!
Shokai
together at Lynn to create a world where our religious differences are not simply tolerated but celebrated. This event is precisely that; where religious leaders from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Atheist traditions will come together in celebration of our diverse faith traditions. Come and be amazed!
When was the last time you heard yourself or your children or students or co-workers actually laugh with a loud squeal, saw them roll on the floor, and hold their tummy because it hurt so much from laughing? When was the last time you laughed so hard tears rolled down your face like the picture you see here?
Here is another great tidbit for you from Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness A Guide for Anyone Who Teaches Anything by Deborah Schoeberlein (with Suki Sheth, PH.D.). This exercise gives the students time to discover the artistic talents that they have hidden away in the recesses of their minds. She calls this exercise “Drawing the Mind: Enhancement for Take 1 (For Students) (pages 93-94).
Susan Kaiser Greenland in her book “Mindful Games” shares with her readers an exercise that I think you might like. It is called “Drop the Monkeys (page80-81).”
