An Exercise On  Shifting  Viewpoints  In The Classroom!!!!

Imagine a class room of children ready to come in and begin their day but attention seems to be going in every direction except to the task at hand. The teacher, having the tools and training offered by ReSurfacing, does the following;

She invites the children to describe what attention is...  how it works, and where it comes from.   The children answer from many viewpoints,  “It is when I sit up straight and put all my awareness on you,” “It is when I don’t get distracted by other ideas.”  “It is when I decide to look, listen, and feel what is in front of me.”  Another child says, “It works best when others are quiet.”

You ask a very important question,  “Where does your attention come from?”

They respond... me, my mind, my heart, my head,  and in unison they all agree...  “It comes from me!”

You then introduce the idea that there is something in the  sixth grade room that  they have not seen but that you would like them to describe.  An item that you would like for  them to tell you about and explain how they feel about it.

They look at you in disbelief and say “What are you talking about?”  You say,  “Isn’t it  real for you?  Don’t you have  any idea or relationship with it?”

They say, “How can we? We don’t know what item you are talking about”.

You say, So you have no attention on it?”   They say, “no.”

“Oh, let me help you ,” you say.  “Here it is,” and you show them a bottle of water from France.  This bottle of water is new to them.  A new thing to look at and understand. It has different markings, letters, colors, and an unusual shape.    You ask them to begin describing it.  One at a time they discover many details.  One at a time the group relays the discoveries that result from their examination of the object.  The bottle of water becomes more and more real to the entire group.  Their attention is all moving in the same direction... the feeling is one of alignment, interest, connection, and deliberate use of attention.

You say, “What happens the more you place your attention on the bottle?  What is the difference from when you had no attention on the bottle?”

They say in a variety of ways,  “I feel connected to it.  It is real for me now.  I have a relationship with it.”

You ask them if they closed their eyes would the bottle still be real for them. Is it in their consciousness in their memory?  They close their eyes and check.   They say, “Yes!”  It is there.  You then ask them, “what has your attention been on  lately , what is getting your attention supply these days?”  One of the kids says, “the fire!”

(There had been a devastating fire in the area of this school the day before, several homes burned down and many of the children’s families were effected... replace the fire  with any thing of importance to the group.. success, teen issues, playground activities, getting good grades, a big test  coming up, getting along with  siblings or in society, or planning a class performance,!  It works on everything).

You say, “Fire. Let’s play with our attention and the fire!”   (You write fire on the board in a circle)   You ask the kids to give examples of a feeling or idea that they have about the fire that occurred.  They offer ideas like; It was scary and I felt doomed...  I was angry…  My family totally freaked out....  I cried  and felt angry....  I thought it was exciting....  I got sick and threw up...!

You continue to write the different viewpoints around the circle with a line going to each idea.  It looks kind of like a sun with ideas at each point about what is in the center.  The children are noticing how many people have such different ideas and experiences.

You ask,” Which idea is true, Which idea is right or which idea is wrong?”

They look around at each other, unsure.  One child says, “They all are true.”

You say ...   “Very interesting!  So it is true that the fire was exciting, scary, and that people felt all those different ways?”

A child answers, “ I was not excited and I don’t think it was exciting at all.  I think it was horrible.”

You then ask each of them  to take a moment and look to see which viewpoint is true for them.  You ask them which viewpoint most of their attention is on.  You ask again for the room to share which viewpoint they have decided on and it becomes very clear that the viewpoint being held by the students are all different.  It becomes quite clear that the viewpoint with the most attention on it is the one they consider most real.  They are amazed and experientially become aware that other students have their attention on different ideas and are experiencing it differently.

You  ask, again, “Where does your attention come from?”  In unison they say “Me!”

You ask, “Who directs your attention?  Who decides where it goes?   In unison and in excitement they say, “ Me!”

You ask, “ What makes things more and more real like the bottle of water got more and more real?”
 

They unmistakably say, “ Our attention!”

You then invite them to deliberately decide on a viewpoint that they would like to make real. You might ask, “Who has decided on a viewpoint they would like to make more real with their attention?”

In this group one child, being funny, announced that he will be keeping his attention on the idea that we are all doomed and there is no hope.  I used this opportunity to invite the kids to explore the possibility that people will choose this viewpoint and I asked them if someone chose this viewpoint to experience would that be okay with them?   They said in many different ways that everyone gets to decide which way they are going to experience the fire.  We then encouraged the student who said that he wanted to experience the doom,  to tell his parents that he had decided to suffer a bit over the fire and to please just let him do it.  They all laughed! He loved the idea of being able to feel doomed if he chose to!  We asked around the room for some other viewpoints that had been decided on as a place to put attention, and  as an instructor you might even write a  new viewpoint up on the circle... one like “Everything works out fine!”  As the instructor, you might even share that this is a viewpoint you like to explore with regard to many things.

I recap the event by asking them where their attention comes from?  How do you make things more real?  Who decides where your attention goes?  They were very excited and very clear that they are the ones in the driver seat with their attention and that where they put it has everything to do with how they experience something.

  As the exercise came to an end... about 15 minutes total,   I asked the group if they would like to see something really cool.  They said,  “Yes.”  I took an eraser and removed the word fire from the center of the circle and replaced it with the word  school.   They all got wide eyed... especially the teachers in the room watching the demonstration.  Then I asked them to take a look at what viewpoint they hold about school and asked them if they wanted to continue to make that more real.

I then erased the word school and asked them to place their name in the center of the circle... I asked them what viewpoint they are making more real about themselves.  They became wise little beings in a very short amount of time!
 

Holly Riley