Classroom Management and Singing Bowls

Oh Grade 9. By the end of each day, I am so exhausted, and then I teach Grade 9 Art. They are good kids at heart, but it is a crazy class. Yesterday, one boy was trying to light his painting on fire with his lighter while a girl was constantly on the wander out of class. Another boy crumpled his drawing and stormed out of class in anger. And I was feeling like a failure of a teacher.

I was to teach my first lesson with these kids today, and I couldn’t sleep last night worrying about it. Last night, I bought myself a singing bowl because I love them and I had a hope that it could be useful for classroom management. So today, I came into the room early and rearranged all the chairs. I set up a theatre-style seating around a 2 meter version of the Voice of Fire that two of the boys in the class had painting on Monday and Tuesday without fully understanding what they were creating. I turned off the lights and put a spotlight on the painting.

The students walked in. They were thrown off for sure. I felt badly, because I knew the change in routine would be tough on my two students with autism, and they were a bit thrown off, but adjusted within the first three minutes. But the exciting thing is, that for the students who were causing issues yesterday, it actually worked. There was a sense in the class that something special was going to happen. They sat down in the seats with a reasonable level of chattiness, and a good expectant atmosphere. I started to play the singing bowl. At first, they didn’t really notice, but as the resonance grew, they started to listen. It was mesmerizing. A few asked “What is that thing?”, but most just turned and watched it intently. My most obstinate student complained that it hurt her ears, but she was still starring closely at it, and there was a glint of curiosity in her eyes. I explained briefly the Physics of the bowl, and told them that we would be using the bowl as a means to get the class’ attention when I needed to say something to all of them.

We then looked at the Voice of Fire. I was so relieved and glad to see most of them – students who have the attention span of a mosquito – actually looking intently at a painting. And about half of them saw the “fire” in the painting which was really exciting. We then launched into group paintings. My most obstinate student must have been on a role for the day – she actually put paint on a canvas! Things are looking up! We’ll see how tomorrow goes…