Thinking Classrooms Are Lifelines For the INattentive

I'd like to introduce you to a student of mine who I'll call "Lauren." 

Lauren struggles with attention.

Maybe you know a student like her?

​I ask that tongue-in-cheek, knowing full well that today, there are probably more Laurens than non-Laurens in every single classroom in America.  We live in an age of distraction, and an inability to pay attention is the inevitable consequence - and often the intended one - of how we treat our collective minds today.

​Nonetheless, allow me to introduce you to Lauren.  Lauren is an outlier even in the age of inattentiveness.  Lauren tunes me out the second she makes contact with her chair when class starts.  Most years, I have one student like her - a student whose attention span is basically zero. 
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It isn't short.  It's non-existent.
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I have to manage and redirect Lauren's attention constantly.  Not often - constantly. Without attention, there is no learning.  I have a deep bag of tricks when it comes to influencing student attention, and Lauren requires me to empty the entire bag.

Every day.​
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​Attention?  Check.
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There's something else you might be interested to know about Lauren, too - she made a full year's worth of growth in math this past semester according to my district's diagnostic assessment - enough to vault her into a new achievement level.  Her mother literally cried talking to me at our semester's end holiday party, sharing with me that "last year she told me she would never - NEVER - be able to do math, and now she tells me that its her best subject and that she's confident every day that she'll be able to understand what she learns."

How, you might ask, did she double the amount of growth we might hope for from even a strong student without the ability to pay attention to me for any meaningful amount of time?

She didn't have to pay attention to me for any meaningful amount of time.

This was Lauren's first semester in a Thinking Classroom, and - as it has been for dozens of my students who struggle with attention before her - it was just what she needed to thrive mathematically.

Lauren may struggle to pay attention, but she doesn't struggle one bit with the reasoning or willingness to engage that makes for an ideal student in a Thinking Classroom.  She loves thinking tasks and she loves working through them with groups.  One of my "rules" during thinking tasks is that you can't let anyone write something on the board that you don't fully understand, and it is your job to speak up and ask questions if they do.  I can't think of a student that has taken that "rule" more to heart than Lauren has in two-and-a-half years of Building A Thinking Classroom in Mathematics.

Thinking Classrooms are lifelines for inattentive students.  Rare is the teacher who is willing to do the hard work of managing student attention during direct instruction, and given the proliferation of poor attention that I would imagine is obvious to everyone, it is no wonder that math ability is in free fall today's schools.  All too often, lack of attention is treated as though it is a choice that students make and can stop making "if they care." 

Obviously, this view of attention is a dead end. Lauren cares, and she can't pay attention. Reality is what it is, and today's reality is that, on top of students with neurodivergent conditions like ADHD, there are another dozen neurotypical students like Lauren in most classrooms whose ability to pay attention has been decimated by modern lifestyle.  Any instructional plan that doesn't account for this reality is an expressway to frustration for all involved.

​Any instructional plan that does account for this reality - Thinking Classroom or otherwise - however, is likely to have the life-changing effects that it had for Lauren in terms of achievement, of self-efficacy, and of enjoyment of school and learning. 
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Observing a specimen of a modern attention span

​Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics has given my students countless gifts over the past two and a half years.  This holiday season, it has given Lauren, and all of my other Laurens, yet another.

In fact, it's more than that.  In an age of distraction, Thinking Classrooms aren't just gifts for the inattentive - they're academic lifelines.

Happy holidays!

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