Well, today is the second snow day in a row for me. I was probably one of the few teachers hoping that we would get to go into school today! With these two days gone and more snow predicted for Friday and possibly Monday, too, my chances of completing of my current unit (engineering — one of my favorites!) seem to be dwindling. I’m going to have to make some creative cuts, as it is usually pretty fruitless to try to pick something back up after a weeklong vacation, which we have coming in just two weeks.

In better news, however, my Peace Corner experiment is going well thus far. My students have reached the point where they respect the space and aren’t asking to go unless they have a genuine need to do so. In fact, one of my most challenging students, who I had in mind when creating the Peace Corner, has been telling other teachers in our school about it and informed me that she’s also created one at home!

The lack of defiance that I have gotten from students that I’ve asked to go to the Peace Corner has also been shocking. I have several students who, when they get embroiled in emotion, tend to adamantly refuse to do of anything that any adult (and often, peer) might ask them to do. However, in the past week or so, these students have been responsive to me telling them, “I want to talk to you about this, but I think it will be easier once you’ve had some time to think about what you’re feeling” and then handing them either the 5- or 10-minute sand timers that I got for the Peace Corner. Once they return from their cooling-off time, the students are in such a noticeably improved state of mind and are much more capable of having a reasonable discussion about what is going on. I feel like I’ve been able to hear them more clearly and also that they are more receptive to the advice that I might offer them about handling emotions.

I’m really excited to see what impacts this approach starts to have on student self-control and self-regulation. I’d love to see my students work up to the point where they could ask to go to the Peace Corner proactively, rather than after they’ve done something they probably won’t feel so great about later on. I’m also interested in seeing if the Peace Corner will be durable as is, or if I will have to continue to make tweaks to maintain its relevancy. Only time will tell!