The Minimalist Educator Podcast
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 053: The Slow Schools Movement with Tammy and Christine
Can slowing down actually lead to more effective education? Join us as we unravel the slow schools movement, a transformative approach that prioritizes mindfulness, intentionality, and holistic well-being over the relentless pace of modern education. Discover how cultural shifts towards busyness as a badge of honor have infiltrated our schools, and why it's crucial to rethink what true success looks like in the realm of teaching and learning. Tammy Musialski-Bornemann and Christine Arnold share their personal insights and revelations, including a fascinating school visit to Finland, where education is approached with flexibility and focus on the whole student.
By tuning in, you'll learn practical strategies for creating a thoughtful, sustainable classroom environment that nurtures well-rounded students ready for an unpredictable future. Whether you're an educator seeking actionable methods or simply curious about alternative educational philosophies, this episode offers a rich exploration of how slowing down can pave the way for deeper connections and more meaningful learning experiences. Join us on this journey to reimagine education in a way that honors both the teacher's and the student's well-being.
This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Professional Learning Services: forward-thinking educator support.
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The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Professional Learning Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musialski-Bornemann and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:In this episode, we discuss the idea of slow schools. After discussing what the slow schools movement is all about, we think about some strategies that might help us move towards this idea. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. How are you today, Tammy?
Speaker 3:I'm doing well, Christine. How are you?
Speaker 2:Very well, thank you. Today, it is just you, I and we are tackling the topic of slow schools. Can you tell us, first of all, what do we mean by a slow school?
Speaker 3:Well, I was doing a bit of learning about this. Well, we both were, obviously because we wanted to talk about this, and I thought it was really interesting that, like I've heard the term right, we mentioned it in our book, but it's much more than just slowing down a pace of teaching and learning. So it's really about the way we live our lives. So we have right now we're kind of in this, you know, fast pace world and with that, like we have fast food, that increase in fast food starting in like 70s, 80s, and the pace of life in general just really changed, so people just became much busier. Education makes changes, as it does over time, and we know that. We've been in education for a couple of decades each now, and in that time we've seen things change as well, including the pace of life and what teaching and learning looks like, and so that fast pace is translated into the school system as well. So when we're talking about a slow school, we're talking about an entire movement of what education and life can look like.
Speaker 3:And it really is about focusing on us as whole people and not just people who move about and have to teach and learn and do all the academic things. It's really about becoming being more thoughtful and more intentional, about thinking about our connections to who we are and what we're doing and why we're doing it, and trying to create more sustainable practices, which we know, when we have those in place, can really help us, like, pare down on a lot of things that we don't need. So that was kind of a big answer, I think. What else comes to mind as we're talking about this?
Speaker 2:Well, it reminds me of of where we're at these days in especially Western culture, where we're thinking about busyness as being almost like a badge of honour.
Speaker 2:You know, it's so often that you ask someone oh, how have you been, what's been going on? And the response is always oh, so busy, so busy, I've been so busy, and it's almost as if busyness is equated to some sort of value in society and success. Absolutely, yeah, for sure, and I definitely can see that in our schools for sure. See that in our schools for sure. That if you're doing not only the day-to-day regular things, but if you're also adding in all these additional products and processes and projects and doing all these extra things like that equals success, as you say, I can definitely see that that mindset is filtering into our schools. I think, especially now, looking ahead into the future and it's really hard for us to predict exactly what future workplaces are going to be like for our students. I think, yeah, it's. It's becoming more and more clear that we are going to need students who are well-rounded, well-rounded kids, because they're going to need a different set of skills than previous generations may need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I think this is making me think of the school visit trip that I did to Finland and how the culture of a country can really change, how education is done. That was so noticeable and amongst our group we just kept talking about, well, several things and like the difference between um, like north american, schools in particular, because that's where most of us were from.
Speaker 3:But I mean we can, we can also generalize this to you know, across the world I'm sure. But the the focus on how the schedule is laid out for students, so students go into their classes or classes start with a flexible time. So it depends on like how many kids and you know what the teacher decides. So there's this teacher autonomy piece in this scheduling.
Speaker 3:And then yes, and then the kids have enough break time to actually like decompress after like a math lesson or whatever lesson they've done they get. So if they have a 45 minute class and they get 15 minutes and it's just like this amazing downtime where you actually get to like slow down what you're doing and kind of like decompress a little bit before you move into your next bit of learning, which I thought was so valuable. And we were talking to this group of middle school girls I think they're in eighth grade and they were talking about their schedule and so some of the teachers and administrators that were in our group were telling them how the kids in our school district get three minutes between classes to get their books, go to the bathroom and their mouths just dropped open.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:They're like what, how do you do all of that in three minutes and not be late? Like they couldn't understand that that's how fast kids have to move and teaches.
Speaker 2:And teaches too.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, like it's just not a reasonable thing to expect people to move that fast, like you don't have any time to like let your, you don't have a reflection time for what you just did, and then you're like immediately thinking what do I need to get for my next class? I can't be late, I don't want to get in trouble, and then you're diving right into the next thing. And so I know that we've been talking about how, like, slow schools aren't necessarily just about the pace of teaching and learning, like you know, cramming in all of the content that needs to be covered in a school year.
Speaker 3:But if we think about, like, what's healthy for people in terms of pacing our lives right.
Speaker 3:Like I really noticed in this last like month I've been home doing stuff, and because I've been doing so many little things at, kind of you know, a quicker pace, because I want to get them done, like how, how clumsy I become and how like inattentive I am to what I'm doing and I'm like, oh, what was, what am I, what was, what was I just doing here? Like, oh, my God, I dropped that thing again. Like, yeah, really impacts how we uh, physically and mentally respond in situations when it's when things are so crammed together like that that's so true.
Speaker 2:And you know, especially kids in high school, if they are moving between, you know, subject to subject to subject to subject, different teacher, different teacher, different teacher you know they're basically having to compartmentalize, like a way of thinking and doing things every time they move to a new period of their school day. Like that is a lot to expect of those teenage brains, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Right it right.
Speaker 2:Brains that are not fully developed yet and also going through hormonal changes, like yeah, it's a lot to expect of someone at that age and not to mention like keep track of what homework do I have and when is the next test, and when is that project you and when are my exams, and when am I studying and all of the different things that we're expecting of those kids for sure. Yeah, three minutes is crazy. Did you have something like that when you went?
Speaker 3:through school. I think we had five minutes, I think.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:If I remember correctly I don't remember having longer than something like that. It definitely wasn't 15 minutes, but I would say five. Right, yeah, which is? I mean it's marginally more reasonable, but it's still not right Like it depends on how many people are in the bathroom, Like where's your locker compared to your classes that you're going to like for?
Speaker 2:sure you have to walk so, yeah, I don't remember I mean, we're talking about a long time ago now, but I don't remember having a particular time limit but I definitely do remember like at break time, getting all of my materials for all of my next classes till the next break.
Speaker 3:So then I guess I was carrying around multiple subject worth of materials with me yeah, I think this is such a good like it really makes me think about, in such busyness, what are people prioritizing then? Yeah right and or is that even have? I don't even think it happens, honestly, because like just think about, you know, like we're pretty highly reflective people and we talk about this all the time, like what are some?
Speaker 3:priorities and whatever we go through our processes, but if, like as a student or even like as a new teacher or you know, you aren't always going to have like what's my priority at the front of mind. But how do we get people thinking in that way so that we can kind of maybe shift back from? I just have to keep running around like, you know, a chicken with no head, because that's just the way our system is. But is there a way that people can like prioritize or something, so that it doesn't have to feel that way, even though that's what it looks like and is Like that's what we're in?
Speaker 3:and sometimes we can't control that right. What can we do to kind of make our own slow school version of life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how is the slow school possible?
Speaker 3:Yeah right is the slow school possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, I mean, all of the things that I'm thinking of are things that we've spoken about before. I feel like Thinking about that buffer time is definitely going to be helpful, thinking about, you know, deep coverage, rather than squeezing everything in at a really shallow level. I mean you've got to have very clear expectations of everyone in the building to make it happen. Yeah, and you've got to. Everyone has to be, everyone has to share the same vision. They have to be on the same. You know pulling, share the same vision. They have to be on the same.
Speaker 2:You know, pulling in the same direction. Because if you've got a small group of people who, you know, agree to this and are trying to go in that direction of sustainability in their practice, but then you've got other people who are still trying to be like, oh, but I have to do this and I've got to do that, and I've got to cover this and I've got to do that, and let've got to cover this and I've got to do that and let's add this project in because that'll be really cool, it's not going to work if not everyone is on the same page. I think that could be a real falling down point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wonder too, because you know it's hard when you're working with people with different personalities and beliefs and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:But I, I would in my utopian mind and hope that everybody wants to do less, everybody wants to slow down, right, because, like, think of the impact on learning and like how people feel about learning and teaching, I think it would just really transform the education space as a whole and like I mean, you know that's obviously a big space to want to change, but I it would just, yeah, if somehow people could trust that if we just slow down a little bit in all aspects of what we're doing, people will feel a little bit healthier and a little bit more sane. I think it's like's like right now, a lot of people, schools are wrapping up Well, you know, so we're in, we're talking about like Northern hemisphere here, right? So you just finished school and I know I'm time dating our podcast, but like there's a lot of, there's a lot of people in that saying, like we're just finishing our school year now and you would hope at the end of a school year you wouldn't feel so damaged.
Speaker 2:Right, but that's the exact description of how people feel at the end, right.
Speaker 3:Like you just feel torn apart because it has been so much like you're not just teaching and like I, shouldn't put just in front of teaching ever. But but that's not the only thing that happens in a school. We know right. And so when there's, when there's so many pieces to that puzzle, how can we look at each piece and, okay, how can we slow this part down? How can we take away something from here so it doesn't feel as stressful? It's such a big project.
Speaker 2:It is, it really is For sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do we have time for a pay down point? Huh, Do you think?
Speaker 3:Maybe it's just like start, like just ask yourself like where's the point in my life where I can actually go slower, or like tone it down, something like that, like just a reflective question.
Speaker 2:And then I guess I would add on to that by saying talk about it Like let's actually have these conversations about what we're doing and how we could possibly slow down.
Speaker 3:Thanks for that conversation, Christine.
Speaker 2:I mean we could go way deep on that, but I know we're short on time today, so yes, but we're going to share some resources in the night so people can do a deeper dive for themselves as well. But thank, you for chatting with me today, tammy. Thanks everyone for listening. Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services forward-thinking educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at PlanZPLS on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti.
