Let me start off by saying this post will offend people. I'm sure some of you are already turned off by the title of my blog. So let me say this, please read everything I am going to post and thoroughly think through what I'm saying before getting defensive or offended. If you would like to have a conversation afterward, let me know and I would happy to have a civil conversation about it.
So let's jump into it. Behavior Management Tools. I say Tools because I'm talking clip charts, letters on the desk, dojo points, etc. Anything that you can visibly see that shows a student is a "behavior problem". I need to write about my feelings because I recently joined a group on Facebook of other fourth grade teachers and many of them I don't know. I don't want to be that person who writes on all their posts trying to make them question what they're doing.
Picture this, you're getting in your car with your child after school. You ask them how their day was. They respond with, I got on blue today.
That's it? You're excited because you made good choices in class today? That's the take away? What did you LEARN? Now don't get me wrong, if they've been making bad choices, maybe this is the accomplishment, but they're not excited about anything else? Houston, we have a problem. Where's the excitement for learning??
My main problem with these tools is simple, it's demeaning and disrespectful to the students as human beings. Let me explain. Our job is to cultivate a love of learning in students where they will find a passion and become so engrossed in it that they move on to become productive members of society using that passion somehow. Right? So when is the last time your boss publicly reprimanded you for making a mistake? A mistake. That's what we're talking about. Most students get punished on these tools because they made a bad choice, they made a mistake. Rather than talking through this mistake with them, we punish them. What do we do when they make a mistake in reading? Punish them? Of course not. So what makes behavior and social emotional skills any different? Aren't they learning those as well.
So I want you to ask yourself, if my boss/principal reprimanded me the same way I do my students, how would I feel? I don't know about you (and I think I have a pretty good idea), but if my principal had a clip chart in her office and moved my clip down when I made a mistake, I'd be embarrassed and ashamed. Why didn't she approach me about this mistake and make sure I understood why it wasn't appropriate? Because I clearly misunderstood something regarding her expectations. In the same turn, if she showed me or my parents a page at the end of the week that had all my positive and negatives, I would feel defeated. No one likes their mistakes and faults pointed out on a regular basis.
We need to start approaching our students behavior and social emotional status as something that needs to be learned and achieved. Not something they should have known better. We need to learn to correct behavior in ways that isn't embarrassing and disrespectful to students. I can guarantee you that most of you with children can ask your kid who in their classroom causes the most behavior issues in class and they'll give you an answer, because most teachers make it glaringly obvious who makes the most mistakes in behavior. And let's face it, we are all still human and make mistakes. It's life so let's give them strategies for combating and correcting mistakes.
