Teaching the Teachers - Using Routines with Adults

 One of my jobs at school is that of Faculty Clerk, and one thing I do in that role is help plan and facilitate weekly faculty meetings. My hope is that I can help the faculty find a way to center and build community as we work through routines together. My other hope is that some faculty will start using these routines with their students in their classrooms. 

During the first half of the year, we started most meetings by using the routine, Creating Space. 

To center us with the routine, I looked for some art that everyone could look at when they arrived and when engaged in the routine. I tried to find images that spoke to something we were going to talk about that day, or something that was important to our community. Here are some of the ones I used (each image is linked to the original source where I found it):

When we went back to school after winter break, we started a new routine called The Daily Line. I learned this routine from a colleague this summer when I was at WISSIT. It starts in the same way that Creating Space does by taking breaths and centering. Then you think about your day and what kind of line would represent the different parts of your day.

If you stepped on a Lego, maybe your line would have sharp points, but then if you saw a beautiful sunrise, maybe your line would start to get swirls and curves. You have 1-2 minutes to draw a continuous line that represents your day. The tricky part is to take that whole time to draw your line so you have to pace yourself. We then took 5 minutes to share about part of our line with a colleague. 

My hope is that our community will get stronger if we are able to reflect and share not just as teachers, but as people. How might you incorporate this practice into your day?