Taking five minutes
Ben Pack – December 22, 2020
Two things happened half-way through this semester which caused me to change course a bit. The first is that I returned to therapy. Class had been humming along, the students and I had energy, and assignments were getting turned in on time (and I was responding to them in a timely manner too). Then in the same week the power at my house went out for 12 hours (mylar balloon, meet high-tension lines), I got a chemical burn over my hand (apparently sun-burn + citrus oil in hand lotion = blisters the size of egg yolks), and we had construction on the foundation of our home (lots of banging and booming). Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so resilient. Ungraded assignments piled up along with the stress. Without my usual outlets to decompress (exercise, gardening, writing) I became a veritable grouch and at the urging of my husband went in for a mental health check-up. It was a good lesson that that self comes first, that mindfulness is possible even under trying circumstances, and that it’s okay to slow down – when I eat, when I speak, when I work. Since that check-in, that intentionality has begun infiltrating my classroom more – I’m trying to slow down and worry less about cramming in so much.
The second thing that happened is that I let my students talk to each other in breakout rooms for 15 minutes unsupervised. I use a lot of free-writing in my class (it’s a writing course after all) and on this day I had planned to use that free-writing as a check-in for how they were doing. I knew students were also stressed because of mid-terms, and I wanted to give them time to reflect on how things were going, what they had improved upon, what they still wanted to work on, and what I could do better to support them. I had the slides all prepped when ten minutes before class I realized that while I would get to hear from them, maybe the students would appreciate hearing from each other too. So I replaced “free-write” with “free-talk” and tweaked the questions accordingly. After putting the students into breakout rooms, I felt foolish by myself; admitting to not teaching during class also feels sort of like a no-no on this blog, but when they all came back to the main session their praise was universal. In their class assignments from that day, they almost all asked if we could do more “free-talks,” and many of them raised the mental health issues they’ve been struggling with (depression, anxiety, loneliness, stress).
These two incidents prompted me to commit to taking 5 minutes in every class for building community, culture and well-being. My pedagogical justification is two-fold. First, in writing I have always felt that my output is tied to my input. When I’m not putting anything positive into my life, it’s hard to be creative and put good work out. Second, although the main learning objectives for my class focus on writing and critical reasoning, they also emphasize teaching students how to navigate diverse discourse communities – arenas that are composed of people not text. With remote learning, I worry that students aren’t getting the same quality interactions with their peers even though those very peers will form their network of friends and colleagues for decades to come.
In our five minutes of wellness, I’ve built in a few more “free-talks” but I’ve also had us take time for a guided meditation and encouraged them to explore other recorded meditations (which my therapist helped direct me to). Last week I shared information about how to make a mental health appointment or find a therapy group, and I talked about the benefits I’ve had to make it clear that seeking professional help is normal. I’ve shared the webpage and phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, emphasizing that this is not just for people who are contemplating killing themselves, but for friends and family who have a loved one that’s showing signs of self-harm and don’t know what to do. I’ve called it several times in my life. It has saved lives. Finally, I’ve tried to make room for joy and excitement in the classroom. On the last class before Halloween I dressed up in a costume (Jughead from Riverdale) and encouraged the students to wear Zoom appropriate costumes as well. In my working life, I’ve never dressed up for Halloween ever, and truthfully the idea of walking around campus in silly clothes mortifies me. But sitting at home? The smile it brought to everyone’s face? It was worth it, professionalism be damned.
As I’m writing this, it’s the Monday before the election and I don’t know what the days and weeks ahead will look like, but I’m confident we’ll all still need help being mindful, happy and well. There’s a lot to cram into the final weeks of class, I know, but taking time out of our remaining sessions for mindfulness and for students to put themselves first – it’s time well spent.