While this task seems incredibly daunting to me, I can think of at least a few things that I would like to try out, in hopes of achieving a positive working atmosphere. One of the things I've done quite a lot of research on is bring Mindfulness Meditation into the classroom. For those of you who don't know much about it, mindfulness meditation is a non-denominational, non-religious type of meditation focusing on being aware of one's surroundings. One of my favourite types of Mindfulness Meditation is a Sense Meditation, where you draw your attention exclusively to the sounds going on in the room, then the feeling of your body, then the taste in your mouth, etc. It may sound a little bit odd at first, but I have seen first hand how influential this can be in terms of stress reduction. Another thing I would love to try is a gratitude journal. Take five minutes a day to simply write down a few things that went really well throughout the day, or the night before. They can me small things, like "I'm grateful that I was able to tie my shoes in under a minute this morning" to larger things like, "I'm grateful that I have such an amazing support system." To me, implementing things like these into the classroom will allow students to understand themselves better, and hopefully reduce their stress and anxiety. At the same time, my hope would be that building these skills into an average school day will also allow for a community to further blossom in the classroom. More sharing between students, less bullying, etc.
Anyway, these are just a few ideas, definitely many more things to think about. I'll link the wonderful video Kurtis showed us about the other 7 Learning Experiences. In case you're interested in learning a bit more about mindfulness, I'll include a truly wonderful TED Talk video.
Thanks for reading!