Let’s start some conversations with our students about…annoyance!
How often do our students feel annoyed?
My last few newsletters have been about feelings, so I thought this month I would focus on a pretty common uncomfortable feeling: annoyance 😒. Often tied up with inflexibility, anxiety, and the challenges of living in a world full of relationships, annoyance is worth a few minutes of thought – and discussion!
I certainly sometimes get annoyed. And so do many of the students with whom I work. It’s an emotional human response to discomfort caused by inconveniences and disruptions. Often, it’s short-lived, but not always. In fact, annoyance can totally morph into frustration when that annoying thing (or person) just won't quit or gets even more obnoxious. At first, it's like, "Ugh, this is annoying," but when it keeps on bugging us or turns into a bigger problem, we start feeling frustrated. It happens when our attempts to deal with the annoyance don't do the trick, and the whole situation gets on our nerves. Annoyance goes up a notch and turns into full-blown frustration as those irritations just keep piling up.
Recently, I asked a group about things that annoyed them – wow, what a list:
wasting time during class, people repeating things, cutting in line, not sharing, showing chewed up food to people, people popping our space bubble, teachers not letting you read when you want to, when your dad doesn’t 3D print something you want him to, parents who don’t give snack before dinner, parents who say they will give you peppermint bark but then give it to one of their students so you don’t get it til the next day, when parents interrupt, when parents don’t give you their phones, when parents take you on vacation and don’t let you drink Sprite at the bar, when a parent forgets to do something they said they would, when parents forget to buy you a snow globe…( and it went on…)
OK, parents did get the brunt of this list toward the end, but the group was on a ROLL!
So, where can we start? Well, with some animations, of course! Animations in which characters feel annoyed are a good starting place for unpacking this common feeling. Here are 3 fab choices in which characters will get….annoyed. Watch, and discuss when and how annoyance arises, as well as how the characters deal with it. Sketching always helps.
Masha & the Bear: Laundry Day
Sesame Street: Ernie Counts Fruit
Cat’s Meow by Jorge Garcia
Want more recommendations without having to spend hours searching YouTube? I've done the work for you with my Maca & Roni Super Social Learning Spreadsheet. There's a whole column JUST for annoyance, as well as lots of other columns of concepts to keep your students engaged and learning, even at this tricky time of year.
Breathing our way toward the conclusion of 2023 – take good care,
