Teachers are truly amazing. We clock and constantly read so many aspects of the children in our care. Not just what is known as ‘body language.’ We go way, way beyond that. We read mood, state, openness, readiness to connect and learn, whether a child needs an eye test, a hearing test, needs fine motor support, what a particular cough indicates, why Susan and Amy have not made eye contact for an hour or any disharmony in the classroom. The constant outpouring of sensitive awareness through a teacher is almost endless. In fact, it is one of our many superpowers.
So amazing are teachers that we are actually consistently in the act of prophecy. Not only is it within our common collective capacity to identify the academic or behavioural trajectory on which a child is currently situated, we also know precisely what sort of day it is going to be for our class simply by observing the Line Up.
To the undiscerning third-party observer, lining up may well seem to be a draconian remnant of days gone by. Not so for the observant teacher.
Every single day, even before I step out of my classroom to greet the two lines of students, I am already sensing what’s going on for my class prior to even seeing them. The pitch, tone, quality and volume of noise, or relative quietude, instantly lets me know how they are feeling as a group, within themselves, and about the day. As I step out of the door, the visual sighting confirms and adds further detail to the auditory landscape I have been sensing the moment previously.
I notice straight away who is composed and connected with both their body and themselves. It is so simple to confirm the joy of connection with these children by a smile, a subtle raising of an eyebrow or a slight bow of the head. When children are settled in this way, they readily connect with the teacher and their composure confirms how prepared they are for a day dedicated to the purpose of learning and more.
My eyes then alight on what is occurring elsewhere. Often there may be emotional distress where an unresolved incident from the playground, from home or from the journey to school continues to impact the child. Such matters often resolve if the child is offered the opportunity to express briefly what they are feeling from their body.
I then get a sense of what’s going on for those who are completely out of it – swinging off handrails, hiding round the corner, edging towards the play-fort, through to intense bickering between peers. Most days, I can get an immediate sense of how to address these behaviours. This can be anything from a quiet word in their ear to a full application of the school Behaviour Management Policy.
All of this occurs within the first three minutes of me greeting my class at the door – which is why I claim with absolute authority that teachers are truly amazing.
On (thankfully few) occasions, I have experienced a sinking feeling when listening to and then viewing the children in the line-up. Seeing and hearing 25+ young children ALL completely out of it is a situation not for the faint hearted! The first time I experienced this, I somehow muddled through the day in a state of shock and was in my car by 3.05pm ready to solace myself with a long walk, while imbibing massive gulps of fresh air. I determined I was never going to have one of those days ever again.
With the assuredness of a sunrise, such an occasion did arise again and has done so a few
times since. Rather than allowing the thoughts of – Oh no. It’s going to be one of those days -- to prevail, I felt to approach the situation differently.
In the awareness that most, if not all, children are deeply responsive when truly supported, I found myself asking what could have gotten into them to bring about such a deeply disturbing change. My inner radar was uncharacteristically picking up little, so I elected to use roll call as an opportunity to ask each child how they were feeling. This was very insightful.
The majority of the class reported that they felt tired or even very tired. An impromptu class meeting then revealed that many had either experienced sleep disruption due to night terrors or had been kept awake by an infant sibling that could not stop crying – perhaps also enduring night terrors. 70 % of children in one class suffering sleep deprivation all on one night is well into what scientists call highly statistically significant and left me feeling incredulous. We spoke further about what activities the children had engaged with before bedtime, which revealed a variety, but the front runner was …playing games on a screen device, with the boys in particular having played highly stimulating ‘shoot ‘em up’ type games.
This was all occurring not in an economically deprived, low socioeconomic city area, but in a relatively affluent, idyllic rural setting – usually a conducive environment for sleeping deeply and being in harmony with rhythm of night and day reflected in Nature.
70% of these children sleep deprived and robbed of the foundational quality of sleep – I was aghast. I knew it indicated 70% of children uncomfortable, tired and without the bright openness to learning and to connecting socially with their peers – bringing all of themselves into Life - that are the gorgeous hallmarks of being a child. Daylight robbery of childhood; night-time robbery of vitality and inner deepening.
A presentation I’d seen on sleep issues in children and young people had confirmed that this figure was becoming increasingly our ‘normal.’ I sensed how we teachers are in a unique position to share what we know about this phenomenon (and others) because we are in the primary position of observing children in groups. From this vantage, we are able, with sensitive questioning, to discern and confirm what’s happening in our young. Many parents see only their child’s sleep issues in isolation from the overall group trend. Until sleep issues for a specific child reach a level of pathology, they are easily overlooked in the belief that it’s just something that is happening with our own child or something they’ll grow out of. Teachers potentially have profound insights into so many movements that become the trends of a class, a school, a town or even a wider geographical area. Teacher observations and insights are a great blessing that encompasses far more than the A-E scales we allocate each semester. Provided we express and share what we see, we are truly a never-ending fountain of compassionate observation that offers immeasurable support for our children and our communities.
I proceeded to discuss the matter of sleep issues at length in community and shared articles on sleep hygiene. Doing my best to moderate the hectic pace of curriculum delivery by building quiet times into the day – especially when I saw that children were flagging – was a solid foundation for conversations about how it felt to have mini chill out times after periods of intense activity. We discussed how that works with sleep and the balance between activity and rest. I also ensured that I was a true role model by walking my talk – resting at night, taking breaks during the day instead of subscribing to the prevailing mindset of nonstop action, a mindset that is unconscionably prevalent in education and in life.
I question these mindsets that undermine the most foundational needs of the human body to rest and to deepen into a quality of inner tranquillity – into stillness. We have seriously lost our way with this when every evening screens and entertainment override the body’s clear messages to wind down into sleep. We have placed such a premium on constant activity as though our only worth and value lies in how much we do, without any regard for the quality in which we do it. We are a world of sleep deprived people. How can we possibly bring our all to each day without the night-time building of sleep induced quality? The use of pharmaceuticals to sleep is ever escalating, indicating that many of us cannot engage in this most natural activity without biochemical support. Other solutions to this actual pandemic are the use of electronic devices and the attendance at sleep clinics.
Sleep clinics – whilst these undoubtedly serve a purpose in identifying specific issues for many people, it remains somewhat tragic that they form one of our ways of addressing something that need not, should not, be happening in the first place. When did we ever see a lion or a dog – any animal – need to attend a sleep clinic in order to be capable of falling into a deeply nurturing sleep? Do we see nature’s creatures strapping on fit bits so that they can monitor the depth, duration or quality of their sleep? If we were ever to witness these phenomena in animals, we would find it profoundly distressing. Yet we are steeped in this ourselves and accept it as being no more significant than ‘one of those things – just how it is,’ putting ourselves into the daytime somnolence of ignorance and withdrawal from intelligent inquiry.
There is definitely a pathos-filled irony in this for us all.
Our children are now wearing the effects of this collective disregard and somnolent ignorance that allow the daily and nightly undermining of the profoundly nurturing quality of our sleep cycle. It is time to call a halt.
But let’s not do anything until we have truly and deeply slept on it, for the absence of the quality building energy of sleep would bring us only into further compromise and a repetition of the same. This is significant, for without the newness and freshness that deep rest and sleep bring, we have no foundation for anything, and especially not for supporting our children in their access to the God given Grace that is sleep.
It is time to be honest that we are tired and that we are tired of being tired; that we have been allowing unwholesome influences to affect our sleep and the sleep of our children. The most natural way to correct this heinous imbalance is to allow the blessing of sleep to work its magic. Then neither we, nor the children in our daily care, will any longer need to utter the phrase – ‘I’m tired’ – a phrase that bespeaks a deeply unnoticed, ignored and widespread plague that respects neither material affluence, social status, age, geographical location, gender or class. It affects us all.
As teachers, we are aware that it is no big shakes idea that truly addresses matters such as these, but rather the simplicity of one child, one day at a time in the small things. ‘How did you sleep, Johnny? Are you tired or are you full of vitality? Let’s talk.’