My classroom management had become an issue the last two semesters. I hook interest by sparking discussion in class, usually by making ridiculous claims or insulting historical figures or dabbing or challenging a particular student that looks like they’re not paying attention to a debate or etc etc. And the kids respond. It’s something I love about junior high kids: They’re easy to get talking. Unlike high school, where attempts at starting discussion often felt like bashing my head against the wall for 25 minutes, all it takes are a few provocative statements in junior high. Those uninhibited, not-afraid-to-embarrass-themselves-yet hands fly up. That said, things became problematic. It's easy to get my kids talking….but hard to get them to stop.
By about October this year, some of my classes were getting out of control. Discussion was great, but the kids had picked up on the fact that they could easily spiral our discussions off topic to unproductive places. We also started to run into issues with shouting out with no hand raising, interrupting classmates, etc. It all combined into a complete lack of focus during discussion. It even started to carry into independent work after discussion. So I made a change.
Every semester we set “goals” in our staff development teams. When I started working with junior high kids last year, I realized right away that organization was an issue. Getting some of my junior high students to bring all their things to class was an uphill battle. To motivate kids, I lumped them into teams. Any time a student forgot to bring something or left something in my room or turned something in late, it was a strike to their team. The team with the lowest scores at the end of the month earned prizes. It worked well, so I decided that maybe lumping our out of control conversations in to our organization team competition would work. So I tried it. When we’d have discussions in class and kids started getting excited and either wouldn’t quiet down, or would shout out without raising their hand, or interrupt other kids, I would walk over to the board and add a strike to their team. It worked well. Behavior and discussions became more productive. Over time, it fell apart.
It did so for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was often the same student who earned the most strikes. So if he /she was in your group, you’d start to earn so many tallies and become so far away from winning that the team would just give up and tallies would lose all meaning. One particular 8th grade boy, who is known for his talking skills, actually said something like “What do I care, we’re not even close anyway!” after earning a strike for the team during discussion. Not only that, it was one hundred percent negative. Kids could only do things wrong, they could never do things right. When I tried to add a “stars” system that would offset strikes for good behavior, I never updated it. Walking over to the board for stars / strikes every two to three minutes completely interrupted the flow of class. In honesty though, it failed because students hated it.
When I gave reflection surveys to my classes at the end of the first semester, the new system came up repeatedly. The final question on the Google Form was, “What suggestions do you have to make class better?”. One 8th grade student (I don’t know who, the surveys are anonymous) had a heck of a response. The picture of his/her response in the Google Form is below. The line that hit home was “Now that you are more strict on talking, it makes your class feel like a burden”. That was a much needed punch-to-the-gut of insight. The system was working, discussions were more productive and less out of control….but kids were hating it. I could have the best classroom management in the world, with kids quietly working and having productive conversations and mastering my learning objectives and everything could be hunky dory. But if the kids dread coming to my class and resent their time in my room, who cares?
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I did some pondering and decided on a new system that I had first used in China. It’s based on soccer and uses Class Dojo. When kids do exceptional work or something worth recognizing, they get a green card from me. Sometimes I walk over and quietly set it on a kid’s desk, other times I dramatically raise it in the air and bestow it upon those who have done something awesome. When they forget to bring something, shout out during discussion, interrupt another student, etc, etc, they get a yellow card. If it continues, it flips to red. I completely got rid of organization teams and strikes / stars. At the end of class, the
kids have to find me if they’ve earned a card throughout the hour, and I log it to their profile that I created on Class Dojo. It individualizes consequences and allows me to catch kids doing things right. It also gives me the same measurable data that organization teams / stars and strikes game me. I can track individual and class stats on green, yellow, and red cards through Class Dojo to measure if they’re improving as the year goes on (the picture at right/above is the report for 1st Period US History so far this semester).
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I worried that this might be too childish of a system for 7th and 8th graders. If you’ve ever seen class dojo, it looks like it’s built for kindergarteners. Every student is assigned a little monster that smiles when I mark a green card. Combine that with the sort of “Nice work Jimmy, you’ve earned a GREEN CARD!” moments in class that can feel like the verbal equivalent of a pat on the top of the head, and I worried that it would come off as a little pathetic or even condescending. It’s amazing how far a little self awareness went in dealing with this. Just verbally recognizing with my kids that, “Hey, we’re going to try this new system and I know it’s childish but get over yourselves” worked like a charm. And for those that still feel it is a little too elementary school, it has become something they love to mock. Which, strangely, has made the system more effective. A handful of 8th grade boys started using the expression "Oh, that’s green card worthy!” anytime someone did something at all special in the classroom. They know I speak sarcasm as a 2nd language, and I called them on it immediately, but the expression stuck. “Green card worthy” is now a common adjective in my class. And even where it was born out of mockery, it has turned sincere over time. Kids will turn in work, I’ll ask them how it went, and they’ll respond “Oh, its green card worthy” with a smile on their face. I love it, they love it, and (so far), it seems to be working. When you compare it with the previous system, it’s night and day.
Moving forward, I’m excited to flesh out the capabilities of Class Dojo. I’ve started to make comments on kids’ profiles so I can remember specific moments from class with them. I’d like to have the kids start customizing their profiles and connecting it to their email so they can see my feedback and upload their own pictures / comments from class. It might even be cool to do a journal on Class Dojo based on reflections from class. It’d be fun to have competitions between classes for those who could earn the most green cards too.
That’s for the future, though. For now, I’m content with the epiphany that classroom management is larger than rules and procedures that are effective in getting kids do what you want them to. It’s about listening and creating an environment that works for everyone, not just me. Clear rules and procedures can guide their behavior and learning, but those same rules can be self defeating if they don’t also win the kids over socially. I hope the new system has done that.
NOTE: This blog was originally written in January of 2018 while working as a 7th/8th grade social studies teacher at Milford Public Schools
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