Letters to a First Year Teacher: Letter Two

This article was originally published on dkjlee.com.

Optimizing the 6 Senses in the Classroom

“I am deeply interested in trying to understand the relationship between people, society, and nature; and my work is forged from accumulations of these frictions.” - Yayoi Kusama

A couple weekends ago, I had the pleasure of meeting my family in New York to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. While we were in New York, I was able to visit the newly renovated MoMa in all it's glory. And while I enjoyed the going through the exhibits I ended up benchmarking my experience with the one at The Broad Art Museum in Los Angeles where I was able to experience Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrors. 

When you visit one of Kusama's Infinity Mirror exhibits, the wait to enter the room can sometimes extend to over 4 hours. And when the wait is over you have a grand 45 seconds to experience the paradoxical beauty Kusama has crafted. As soon as my three fourths of a minute began and I stepped in the room, I was in awe.

awe - "a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder."

The kaleidoscopic room felt interstellar. I couldn't comprehend the deception of knowing I was in a room, yet visually I saw a field of stars. How could my sense of sight be so rattled and moved by art? Kusama with the environment she created, placed me in her world.

As I remembered those 45 seconds of bliss, I thought about the world I was creating for my students whenever they came in my room. What did they see when they entered? What did they hear? What did they...smell? There had to be a way to optimize these senses to create the ideal world for a classroom.

The Design of the Classroom

To discuss how to optimize the five senses in the classroom, there has to be a target for what is being optimized. For me, there were three outcomes I wanted to improve by re-designing my classroom:

1. Productivity - are students producing work efficiently and maximizing output?
2. Engagement - are students able to be present in the lesson?
3. Belonging - do students feel welcome and comfortable in my space?

For myself, exemplars of environments optimizing 1 and 3 were aesthetic coffee/tea shops. When I was in college, I built a negative association with Leavey Library, the 24 hour library on campus at USC. It smelled musty, the fluorescent lights were aggravating, and the silence was uncomfortable. In contrast, I loved going to coffee shops in Koreatown. With dimmed lighting, scents of fresh roasted coffee in the air, and soft tunes playing in the background. Going to one of these coffee shops made the opportunity to get work done exciting. It was a place where I wanted to stay for an extended period of time. If I felt this way about the campus library even with the socioemotional maturity of a college student, how would my 9th graders feel about being in a similar environment given some of their turbulent lives?

The Sense of Sight

In my first year teaching, I'll admit I didn't put much effort in designing my classroom. By the time students entered my room, they were invited by blankets of white walls studded by a math poster or two. I was afraid of students falling asleep, so I turned on our white fluorescent lights to the highest capacity. Soon after the school year started, I was met with an onslaught of requests to turn off the lights. And in classic first year teacher fashion, any request that I did not think of myself I rejected because my biggest fear was to lose control in my classroom. Unfortunately, I should have listened to those requests as it probably would have increased the productivity and engagement in my classroom.

In 1973, light researcher Dr. John Ott, conducted a study on first grade classes in Florida. In half of the rooms he installed full-spectrum, radiation-shielded fluorescent light fixtures, while the other half of classrooms retained their cool white fluorescent lights (similar to the ones in my classroom). What he found was with cool-white fluorescent lighting, students experienced hyperactivity, fatigue, and attention deficits. However, in the newly installed full-spectrum lighting rooms students' behavior, classroom performance and overall academic achievement improved one month after the lights were installed. Why? Ott found that cool-white fluorescent lighting produced increased levels of stress producing hormones.

But, that's not the only way the type of lighting can impact our productivity and engagement. The Lighting Research Center studied a Colorado software company and found that workers in offices with natural light spent more time at their computers than those in windowless offices. For them, "social interaction replaced the suppression of melatonin that occurs naturally with sunlight."

And not only for the production of melatonin, natural light is a crucial provision for students to save their sleep cycles. According to the EPA, people spend about 90% of their time indoors, leaving a minimal amount of time for exposure to natural light. With such little exposure, the body's circadian rhythm can be thrown off since it relies on cues from the sun to inform the body when it is day versus night. These cues helps us function through the day and sleep through the night.

At least once per day, I'll have students come up to me to share that they slept at 1 or 2 AM and whenever I ask why they'll respond, "I just couldn't fall asleep." Maybe we can make it easier on our kids to come to school refreshed if their classrooms aided their bodies natural rhythm for when they should go to sleep. If not, we'll see what I saw a lot in my first year - students inattentive or falling asleep in class and sleeping at ungodly hours which perpetuates their exhaustion.

Recognizing that I cannot change the entire lighting infrastructure my school has, I found a way to alter the lighting in my classroom to reflect the results of the research studied above. In my classroom, I decided to turn off the fluorescent lighting in my room. Instead, I supplanted the need for additional light in my classroom with two lamps on the two left corners of my room. On the right side of my classroom, luckily my school engineered large face windows for every classroom and so I leave the shades half open to allow natural light to provide additional illumination to my room.

One month into the school year, I collected student data on the classroom climate. Here is one student's response:

"I like the atmosphere that Mr. Lee gave the classroom, the super bright lights aren't on and his classroom feels very cozy, which makes it easier to focus. :D He also really goes in depth to explain how to do the math and make sure that the students understand the lesson. I also like the students in here, no one in here is really that loud or disruptive."

In this student's statement I hear two things: a deep belonging and engagement with the work. Switching the lighting structure in my classroom was a low lift, high return move. However, I understand that there's more to an environment than just what you see.

The Sense of Smell

In college, my friends and I would sometimes joke about the times we had to sleep at Leavey Library when cramming for finals. I never believed in all nighters as I thought they were counterproductive, but I had friends who were monthly practitioners of them. Earlier I mentioned how I hated the smell of Leavey Library. Well, could you imagine hoards of students going through a 24 hour cycle of studying in a relatively unventilated space without showering? You probably smelled the must through your computer screen. That was Leavey Library anytime around finals season.

The high school classroom isn't too different. It's full of pubescent children learning to use perfume from PINK or Axe Deodorant to mitigate the stench of not doing laundry for a month. Alright, aside from the beatdown on teenage odors, what if there was a way to engineer aromas to aid relaxation and engagement in the classroom?

After school on Wednesdays, our entire school staff meets to discuss improvements we can make as a team as a part of the BARR model of education. At the end of a school day, teachers are usually exhausted and the classrooms are hot, steamy messes. However, whenever I entered the room where our staff meeting was held, I subtly noticed that I wasn't hit with the sauna-like sensation as I would in any other classroom. Instead, I smelled something floral... was it... lavender?

Indeed it was, the teacher who hosts our meetings in his classroom utilized an essential oil diffuser in his classroom. The fresh scent of lavender after a long day was very calming. And it made me wonder how powerful these oils could be as an invisible tool to aid management in the classroom. In a 2018 study, patients who breathed a mixture of ginger, spearmint, peppermint, and cardamom had much less nausea after surgery. Another positive result of the study found that lavender oils could lower levels of cortisol (stress hormone) and lemongrass aromas before a stressful event could decrease anxiety.

In a strange collective move, our entire high school staff invested in affordable essential oil diffusers like this one and freshened up our rooms. In conjunction with my new management structure and the new lighting in my room I've noticed significantly calmer interactions with students in my classroom. While I don't have quantified metrics tied specifically to essential oils, I think this strategy is worth exploring so you can optimize the sense of smell for students in the classroom.

The Sense of Hearing

There's something uncomfortable about silence. For me, one of the most uncomfortable moments is when you're talking with someone you don't know quite well and the conversation hits a dead end. Unfortunately, in the classroom you can't pull the: "well... I need to go use the restroom. I'll catch ya later," card. Instead, you have to figure out ways to eliminate silence productively before your students figure out a way to end it disruptively.

The rise of technology such as Spotify, Netflix, and social media has partially drawn a desire for background noise at all times. According to the sound insulation company, Acoustical Surfaces, the fear of silence is becoming more and more common. One of the most common redirections I have to provide my students in the first couple weeks of school is to take off their headphones. It's an especially difficult request for students who come from tough backgrounds who use music as a coping mechanism for past trauma they've experienced. When reflecting on this fear of silence, I realized there were two pertinent moments in the class that I asked for students to not talk with other individuals: the first five minutes of class and the last five minutes.

My first year teaching, I set the expectation that students work on their Do-Now (entry activity when they enter the room) for five minutes silently and independently. Yet, almost every class I taught, I always had to remind students of the expectation of working silently. I became frustrated and confused as to why it was so difficult to start the first five minutes of class in silence to have a soft start into the class. Looking back now, I realize that it was so difficult because for many of my students, silence is uncomfortable and potentially fear-inducing. To some of them, silence reminded them of the moments of anger between siblings and parents where conversations were broken. To others, it reminded them of the loneliness they felt being home alone when parents work late.

Part of being a culturally responsive teacher is to recognize that the classroom is a second home for students. And in many of my student's homes, absolute silence is not common. How could I re-think these 10 minutes of silence to appease these discomforts and ensure that the workflow isn't broken? The answer was simpler than I thought. I broke the silence, not with my voice or their voice but instead with music. I started to play LoFi, chillhop, and piano mixes before class started. What fascinated me was students rarely commented or noticed that I started to play music in my classroom. Yet, it became a cue to start doing work. And further, when I turned off the music students would become still, because as soon as I turned off the tunes, I gave their daily classroom announcements and all the attention stood on my voice - the breaker of silence.

Re-directions to work silently on their opening task became scarce, and I continued to play music anytime students had work time. To me, this is the most complex sense to optimize. In the above scenario, music can immediately impact the elimination of silence productively but there is so much audio in the classroom that is hard to control. But go ahead and give music a try if you aren't already, sometimes we just need a reminder to question whether we truly need absolute silence, if ever in a classroom.

The Sense of Taste and Touch

If there was one person in history to blame for the crumbles of puffy, cheesy hot cheetos I find on the floor of my classroom it would have to be Richard Montanez. The founder of Flamin' Hot Cheetos crafted such a brilliant product for the primary demographic of students I serve. However, consuming a bag of these snacks of a daily basis isn't exactly compounding super food nutrition, nor is it a replacement for a healthy breakfast (which most of my students seem to believe). Optimizing the sense of taste and touch in the classroom is incredibly tricky. Lighting, audio, and aromas aren't physically administered by the teacher on an ongoing basis, we luckily can engineer devices to do that for us. Therefore, we have to be incredibly efficient when thinking about the taste and touch needs of students in the classroom.

The bottom line is students need to eat nutritional food. 70% of my student body qualifies for free and reduced lunch, and unfortunately, the quality of school provided meals is unpleasant. I've tried the pizza and I honestly thought I accidentally ate part of the cardboard box that came with it. As a result, many of my students skip meals or opt in for instantly satisfying snacks to satiate their appetite, hence my conflict with Richard Montanez. To battle the epidemic of cheeto diets in my classroom, I've decided to swap snacks with my students for more nutritional ones. When I see a bag of hot cheetos emerge from a backpack, I ask students to put the bag away and instead eat one of my KIND bars. Obviously flavor-wise the two snacks aren't parallel but I provide two reasons behind the swap: 1. I don't want to see a mess of cheetos on the floor 2. it's better for you and I care about your health.

For other students, it's not a matter of hunger that calls for a snack. Many of my students seek extra sensory input they may not be receiving from their environment. A cue I usually hear is: "but, Mr. Lee it will help me concentrate!" And here's where the sense of touch comes in. The hands and mouth are important regulators of the body's nervous system. Strategically, we can use hands to regulate attention and modulation in our classrooms. How? Simple - fidget toys.

In March 2019, the battle of pencil drummers began in my classroom. Many of my students who were craving sensory stimulation began drumming with their pencils on the desk (and some of them were getting pretty good). But, I knew this war had to end so I could ensure the concentration of other students in the classroom. I recognized the pareto principle was in effect. 15% of the class were generating 80% of the distracting noises. So, I invested in hedgehog rings and the drums were neutralized. The principles of a good fidget toy are: affordable, not noisy, and can be used without distracting others too much.

While these solutions aren't necessarily innovative, it does re-engineer sensory seeking coping behaviors to be productive whether it be providing a quick, healthy snack or something to grasp when a student is having a hard time staying focused.

The Sense of Belonging

Targeting the senses in the classroom is my take on developing the awe I experienced when seeing Kusama's art. Students should have a meaningful, emotional experience when entering the classroom. It makes what happens in the classroom memorable. Of course, unlike Kusama, teachers don't have the resources nor time to craft alternate realities but there is a lot of room and power in what we can do for our classrooms to allow students to enter the world we create for them.

While analyzing how I could engineer each of the five senses to benefit the productivity, engagement and belonging in the classroom I started to wonder if there was a sixth sense that each was contributing to. In my transition from year one to year two in the classroom, one of the goals I set was to make my classroom a place students actually wanted to be. A place where they want to learn mathematics and are excited to arrive because it would be an escape to safety and comfort. By changing the lighting in my classroom, practicing aromatherapy, playing graceful music, and making my classroom a place where you are improving yourself, I realized I was really trying to maximize the sense of belonging for my students.

Purchasing lamps for a classroom and fidget toys for students won't necessarily improve the outcomes in your classroom but instead presents the nonverbal message - "I care about you." And for some students, that's the push they need for motivation to learn and access a better future for themselves. As teachers let's think about the ways we can optimize these senses to improve outcomes for our students, so that they truly feel they belong.

How do you optimize the "6 Senses" in the classroom? For each sense, what changes would you make or add to what I did? I would love to hear your feedback! Feel free to email me: [email protected] or tweet me @dkjlee95.