- Listened to my sad eighth graders. Changed the way I did my reading quiz today. Passed out individual quizzes, had them take the quiz, grade a partner's quiz and pass it back. Took way too long (so I'm a fan of the as-a-class-quiz method, but it does give me less authentic assessment results). One student who I have struggled to motivate in the past, zipped through the quiz and was doing really well. He turned the page over to the back after finishing the simple 3-question quiz, looked up at me and asked, "That's it?" I nodded discreetly - c'mon, it was a quiz - and he, aloud to the class, states "HA! That was easy." I couldn't contain my excitement. Immediately, I reached into my secret drawer of yummies, pulled out three pieces of candy and threw each one, individually, at him. He just laughed, but I pulled him aside and thanked him after class for doing the work and realizing, on his own, that what I ask from students isn't difficult if they just do their part. Biggest grin on his face - EVER. (Of course, this moment also took the rest of my students completely off task with questions like, "Hey! Why does HE get candy?!" but that was a price I was willing to pay.)
- Multiple students walked into my classroom this morning during intervention time. With a few words out of my mouth, they inquired, "Mrs. Brown, are you sick?" I turned to them and in the sickest of sick, manliest of manly voices, I replied, "Why would you think that?" It sparked a "manly" conversation for the next ten minutes -- meaning we fake talked like men through intervention time. It was enough of a moment to get me through the rest of the day.
- Reached Chapter 4 in the Outsiders today. Not far, I know, but I've had almost 20 students come up to me begging for the book to take home and read. I've had a few very bright students confess that they got it from the library over the weekend and finished it already. WOW. Ponyboy just ran away and they are on the edge of their seats all class period. I bought the movie myself - cause let's face it, who doesn't want to own the goodness of The Outsiders on DVD... the most 80's of 80's films I've ever seen. I showed a clip in class today summarize part of the story (WHICH IS SO INCREDIBLY HARD TO DO! I HATE SKIPPING PARTS OF THIS NOVEL! IT's TORTURE!), and it was my students, not me, that complained about skipping more pages. Thank you, S.E. Hinton for writing such a time-forsaken classic.
- I applied some lessons from my Daycare experience this past summer. (WHAT? Working with ten 4-year-olds came in handy? Yeah....). Remember my first take-to-the-office student? The one who I got switched to my 1st period class? Well, he's better, but still likes to make a ruckus in class - and let's face it: even in my class of angels (aka first period), those students still appreciate a class clown. I dismissed him from class today to get a drink when he couldn't control his laughter - which was extremely out of place and inappropriate for our topic of discussion - and when he purposefully took over my TV screen to show pictures of himself to the class. Yeah. Good stuff. I pulled him aside after class and told him I had a secret for him. I pulled out an empty baby food jar and asked what his favorite kind of candy was.
"Skittles," he replied.
"Tell you what, (student)," I began, "I've got a deal for you. You've been doing a pretty good job in 1st period, but I still notice that you make some not so good decisions sometimes when you want to show off for the class. So I came up with this idea to help you to remember to make good decisions. Every time you make a good decision in class like today when you raised your hand to share your journal prompt, or when you took notes on your iPad, I'm going to give you a signal - I'm going to give you a thumbs up and I want you to keep tally of every time I do. At the end of class, I'll put that many skittles in this jar. When the jar gets filled up, I will give you a special prize. I know how much you love music - how would you feel about an iTunes gift card?"
"Yeah - that'd be cool."
"Okay, great. So we'll start this tomorrow. However, if there are times that I have to walk by your desk and tap your shoulder, that's a sign that whatever you're doing needs to change, or I'm gonna have to eat some of those skittles from the jar. And I really like skittles. Do we have a deal?"
It was great. He left pretty excited. Will it work? No idea, but I wanted a visual way of showing him when he's doing well and when he can improve.
These are award-winning moments in my book.
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