Why school is mentally and emotionally taxing

 

This is an amalgamation of many ideas.

First, the Window of Tolerance is a widely used idea in the therapy world.  You read a summary in the graphic.

The Window of Capacity is my own creation--as far as I can tell--which is also reviewed in the graphic.

The Zone of Proximal Development is a pedagogy idea.  Your intellectual growth occurs when you are pushing yourself into new ideas and work--out from what you can do on your own, to what you can grow into with some help and support.  I contend that your effective ZPD isn't too terribly far outside your capacities.  You can't conjugate verbs in a language you don't even know.  You start with phrases like "Hello, it's nice to meet you" before you try to master the 12 major verb tenses (in English).

The Stop Light is a visual representation of the Zones of Regulation idea.

Some observations...most of which need further development.

• The height of the (psychological) window reflects the intensity of issues you can navigate; width of the window reflects how long you can manage. At least, I'm going to use that! I don't know if clinicians use that width bit, but that's important in school, as we try to manage a number of students at one time.

• We can do work that enlarges the windows–i.e., you can practice psychologically tolerating more; you can practice skills and deepen intellectual capacities.

• Can work to navigate from (Zones 1 & 2) back within the window.

• Zone 3 needs different resources.

• Hyperstimulated needs calming responses–mindfulness, breathing, body awareness, responsive relational engagement, break as necessary.

• Hypostimulated needs mindful movement, syncing with others’ movement.

• The Psychological and Intellectual Windows are different; you could be in different conditions or statuses.

• Your status in a window can change day to day, or even minute by minute.

• The windows affect each other.

School–

• Activities and work are at the edge of the window (the Zone of Proximal Development)–asking you to grow the Intellectual Window of Capacity.

• Activities and work will be more effective if you are in the Psychological Window of Tolerance. Indeed, if we could somehow superimpose the windows, in some transferable than your Window of Capacity, you're probably not going to be able to get even near to your ZPD and will have a hard time learning that day.

• Better if your Intellectual Window is encompassed by your Psychological Window–the Intellectual Window is smaller and within the boundaries of the Psychological Window.

• Your Intellectual Window will not likely be larger (for long) than your Psychological Window, for, if you are asked to go to the edges of your Intellectual Window which is outside the confines of your Psychological Window, you invoke Psychological dysregulation.  Likewise, if you’re in some measure of dysregulation (in your Right Brain, as they say), you have difficulty functioning effectively in your Left Brain.

• Unlikely to sustain being outside of both windows; unlikely to be very effective in stretching your Intellectual Window when outside your Psychological Window

• Some students might have moderate to strong reactions when pushed outside Intellectual Window (too long)

• So, optimally, students are within their Psychological Window of Tolerance (or navigating back in, from Zone 1), and practicing skills right around the boundary of their Intellectual Window of Capacity.

Just a few thoughts.

Thinking about the 2 windows helps me visualize what might be happening for individual students on any given day.