Herding Cats- Doing the I'm Possible

If you can keep this audience engaged you can keep anyone engaged

They were already 20 minutes late.

It was going to be tight but I'm was pretty sure we would

make it back in time for our other appointments.

The doors fly open, they come streaming in, laughing, yelling,

being generally loud and very rowdy.

My first thought is. WT bleep have I got myself into.

20 something grade 1-2 students coming back to class after their bus evacuation drill.

I mean what is a bus evacuation drill anyway.

Myself and my wife Hana have been invited to our youngest daughters classroom

by her teacher Mr. Archambault

Mr. Archambault asked us to come talk to the kids about the

power of gratefulness and why making mistakes is a

necessary part of growing.

The first step is to get the audience corralled, I mean calmed down and seated.

Mr. A is an expert at this and in a few short moments everyone has

found their place on the carpet and are sitting (relatively) quietly.

Then we move swiftly on to step 2..its grade 1 and 2 remember...

You have to move swiftly to keep their attention.

Our little one helps with the intros and gets the whole mummy daddy names thing mixed up.

It's a beautiful ooops.

Which we take full advantage of and get a little laugh from the rest of the class

"Do I look like a mummy?"

Okay were in.

Next one audience participation.

I'm Scottish and while I have been in Canada now for 16 years the accent is still pretty strong. Some people say I speak too quickly but I'm not buying that one. Fastest I can speak is about 100 words per minute. Science says the brain can process up to 700 per minute.. Well I'm just going to leave that one there.

"Hands up if you think I speak funny"

Most of the hands shoot up... I'm in

Time for question 2 and 3

2. "Hands up if you can understand me?"

3. "Hands up if you have no idea what I am saying?"

It's about an 80/20 split but all good.

My girls decide its time to poke a little more fun at my accent.

They get me to throw is a full bore scottish saying

"it's a braw bricht min licht nicht the nicht"

translation; (Its a beautiful bright moon lit night tonight")

Yes don't ask it was something my grandfather used to say all the time though he used to finish it with "Mrs wid yae like tae buy a toaster"

next one they get me to say is "Purple Turtle"

Seems this is extremely funny, I don't get it but these guys are killing themselves laughing.

Okay time to get serious and talk about the power of gratefulness and why failing

can be positive and necessary for growth.

I explain how as a family after dinner every evening we do 3 gratefuls and

1 thing we could have done better.

Then do a little role play with our youngest to show the class how it works.

Mr. A decides, Hey what a great opportunity to do this as a class.

He gets everyone into the talking circle and brings out the talking bean bag.

No not a bean bag that actually talks. That would be silly even for a grade 1-2 class

If you're familiar with any of Steven Covey's work you will see where this is going.

If not then you need to be holding the bean bag in order to speak.

(Works well with adults too in a heated conversation so there is only one conversation at a time and allows everyone to be heard equally.)

By now I've picked up a few fans. Though I'm having to do a wee bit conflict resolution of my own as to who can sit beside me on the floor. I end up with one left one right and one in front who ends up sitting on my lap..

We go round the whole class doing our gratefuls for this morning.

Mr. A draws me a look when I do mine.

You know the look the one that says "I was going to say that"

But he's new to this and doesn't get he can be grateful for the same things..it's all good.

To round it off I explain to them Why we do gratefuls and do a wee bit of the grade 1-2 neuroscience. And introduce the concept of the 5 whys to Mr. A.

Who immediately puts it into practice with the class...

I have to say I like Mr. A, he is pretty switched on. His attitude, approach, and willingness to experiment and introduce new things are amazing. We truly need more teachers like him.

All too soon its time to wrap up and say our goodbyes.

What do you do is the wrap-up.

You get a picture or two with your group.

This isn't my first time speaking in front of a crowd

In some ways, it is my most important,

the audience,

the message,

the start of my new journey.