Artificial or flowing?

Today I had my first experience with Moksha, or hot, yoga. It was an interesting experience as you enter a very warm room with other people in it, lie on a floor, and wait for the class to start. Before it starts, on the other hand, you're sweating. By the time you're half way through the class, you're drenched because of the room temperature.



In yoga we should generate our own heat. It's good to sweat, but to be in a room that was heated the way it was felt like cheating. It felt artificial. Forced. Fake.

Don't get me wrong, the instructor was good (Thanks Erica), and it was somewhat challenging, but it felt weird.

After the class I got to thinking about the word Artificial. 
I don't like artificiality. It seems forced, fake, weird, cheated. Natural, flowing seems better to me.

And maybe that's just me.

Or maybe that's how our kids feel sometimes when we teach them. Things feel artificial, forced, fake, weird, cheated.

Don't get me wrong. You can still have natural, unforced, and real and still be challenging. After all, many of the Ashtanga, Yin, and Vinyasa Yoga classes I have attended have all seemed natural and unforced but very challenging.

But to cheat yourself out of something seems too...easy. So, when we teach I think we need to keep that in mind. We shouldn't cheat our kids out of anything. We shouldn't make the learning artificial or forced. It should be natural and flowing.


For example, when we find a 21st Century Learning tool that seems cool, we shouldn't force it on the kids. By doing so we may be taking something out of the experience of learning for them as the tool may be doing the work that would make it flow easier for them. We would take some of the steps to learning from them. It may end up being forced.

A great real life example of this is the automatic spellcheck built into most word processing software. By constantly using it, we are removing misspellings from the process and the kids seeing where they went wrong. We are cheating it. Making spelling artificial. Kids learn to rely on the spellcheck, so spelling becomes a mute point for them.

Real spelling is a growth-based, challenging process that can take some time. It's natural. It flows.

The spellcheck is like the Hot Yoga. In hot yoga you worry far less about generating your own heat, as the room does it for you.

So, we need to take an honest look at our lessons, 21C Learning tools, and activities to see what we're doing that is fake, artificial, forced. Then change it to bring back the challenge, fun, and flow of our lessons.

Just some thoughts for tonight.