I want to talk about discipline and rewards separately, so I'll split this blog into two sections:
Discipline:
Taking Ben's advice, I reviewed classroom management and discipline with my freshmen last week. I don't know if it was the review, or that I've tried to stay consistent with discipline, but in these past two days I have seen positive dividends paid. I still have to give out writing assignments willy-nilly, but the kids are now starting to link the cause and effect of behavior and punishment. To wit, on Wednesday I had to give out seven (seven!!!) writing assignments in my 4th period, but for all of Thursday they were angels. This is the dramatic improvement from the daily kangaroo zoo 4th period used to be.
My real improvement has come in managing behavior. I can now look at a kid, catch his eye, and stare hard enough so as to make him stop misbehaving. This has been 10 weeks in the making, and it's probably the best classroom management tool i have, because freshmen can't help but laugh when I say, "XYZ, that is your warning" or "XYZ, that is a writing assignment." By quietly controlling them with my eyes, I don't draw attention to their bad behavior. And if they don't get verbal recognition from me, they don't get attention from their friends.
I win. They lose. They learn.
Rewards:
Big success. Originally, I thought a Ticket Policy for-things-well-done was too kitschy. I stand corrected. It has been a resounding success. Kids will shoot each other for tickets. Kids will jump around naked for tickets. Mirabile dictu, kids will even participate in class for tickets.
I have a varied rewards list that goes from 1 ticket (tissue to blow your nose - this keeps kids from asking for tissue so as to have something to do besides take notes) to 500 tickets (5 ppl x 100 tickets - Mr. Walker shaves his head). The kids are nuts for this stuff. I have some seniors who are saving blocks of tickets, refusing to use 10 to buy a bathroom pass, doing their homework so they won't have to buy a 5 ticket homework pass, all so that they can see me shave my head.
I even have freshmen who don't like participating in class, but will try to find ingenious ways to win a ticket (Mr. Walker, let me clean your board. Mr. Walker, please let me read the overhead. Mr. Walker, can I write the bellringer on the main board?). I don't tell them that they are actually engaging the subject of English, and they don't realize that they are being duped into being energetic and staying awake in class.
I win. They lose. They learn.
Now a disclaimer: This is only a partial representation of my classroom management status. I also have at least 3 freshmen over whom I have no control. This is mostly due to the weak-kneed nature of the school board, the total lack of support from particular parents, and the dearth of community resources to deal with chronic delinquents.
Any of the three can take a class straight to hell. Trying to control the rest of the class while finessing a touch-and-go policy with them is a harrying experience. If only I had a paddle...
I think, overall, this should be the summation of my feelings on classroom management: If only I had a paddle...
Nearly all of my seniors would qualify, but I'll choose a freshman to write about instead. CM is one of my favorite students not because he's academically gifted or motivated (since neither, really, is true) but because he can't keep a straight face when he tries to bullshit me.
There's something totally refreshing about a kid who'll say, "Mr. Walker, I've got to go to the bathroom, it's an EMERGENCY!!!!" and then, when I give him my teacher look, will bust out laughing and say, "Awww, come on, Mr. Walker! I gotta GO!" But he knows the rules, and he'll shut up and not bother the class after that.
I take CM's class to lunch, so I've been provided the opportunity to get to know him better than many other of my freshmen. He likes to make me laugh, and he likes to pretend that he's a whole lot tougher than he really is. It's become a running joke where everyday in line he'll say something--i.e. "I'm going to smack somebody today," "I'm going to give that girl what's coming to her," "I'm going to have to let loose," "I'll throw this food back in the lunch ladies' faces today,"--and I'll look at him and say, "No you won't, CM," and he'll start laughing because we both know I'm right, and we also both know that he was never close to serious about anything he says.
Because CM and I get along so well, I've given him the valuable post of "door monitor." When my class is through with lunch, they are required to line up against the wall adjoining the exiting door without leaving until everyone is ready to go and I give the signal. I station CM at the door and he grandiloquently refuses members of my class passage until I give him an equally pompous go-command.
It's a good time. One of the few I have with my nutcase freshmen.
I teach Englishes I and IV. English IV, almost universally, is an everyday pleasure. Unless something catastrophic happens on the exam tomorrow, none of my seniors will fail this first nine weeks.
That bears repeating.
NONE of my seniors will fail. I need to take a moment to laud them. Being a part of their school, everyday I see how all the other students act, I see the expectations (or lack thereof) put on them by their peers and their educators, and I see how they push all this crap aside and for the most part act like responsible adults. They run this school, and they run it well. Just today, after lunch, one of my freshmen was late getting back (we are supposed to constantly monitor our kids before, during, and after lunch, but this girl was intent on not following the rules, so I left her in the cafeteria), and I gave her a writing assignment (the rule being: if i beat you to class, you get a writing assignment). As she took the assignment from me, she grabbed it and crumpled it up. At least two of the seniors who were in my class at the time said, "K, you know better than to behave like that" (or words to the same effect).
My freshmen, on the other hand, are zoo animals. Up to 30 or 35 percent should be failing, but due to a reward policy that mitigates their failure to turn in homework, many of them are doing drastically better than they should. With some noted exceptions, the freshmen are:
lazy
childish
irresponsible
crude
obscene
irresponsible
My freshmen have not realized that this is not middle or grade school (or, for that matter, a house party). The basic levels of self-motivation and continence (both emotional and ESPECIALLY physical) required by an academically rigorous course are totally foreign concepts to them.
Besides the usual sophomoric abuses (or am I giving them too much credit?), I have seen students go missing for a week and then show up, not only without asking about the assignments they've missed, but not even caring if they've received zeros or not. Heaven only knows if the parents are even cognizant of their own children's extended absences. And concerning these "problem kids," their parents talk a big game but consistently fail to deliver.
The parents that will pick up a phone, on the other hand, and especially those parents who have their own phone and aren't bumming off a neighbor's line, have the best children, far and away. Which sounds obvious, and is so.
