Challenging kids??? NOT ANYMORE!!!!

Have you ever had any kid ruin your lesson? Have you tried to be friends with him? Have you tried to talk to him over and over? Nothing that you did seemed to work? I’m sure you see yourself in some of the cases mentioned before but I’m sure of one thing… you have punished this kid in some way: a note home, no recess time, send the kid out of the classroom, send the kid to the principal’s office, extra homework,…. But I’m sure that you never thought of rewarding him or her….????

I’m pretty sure you are thinking “This teacher is nuts!”…. Maybe so… I thought the same thing until I read about the different levels of the Scoreboard in WBT… 

Yes!!!  It’s important to reward the challenging kids!!!!

 How…? Through the different stages or levels of the Scoreboard….. as simple as that:

   Scoreboard penalizes and rewards the whole class. This might stop some small classroom behaviors in a fun way. Give me an “Oh, Yeah!!!” or a Frowny face, “mmm”.

   Practice cards: we start focusing on some individual problems of successes, with very short “rehearsal time at recess”, not being punished, for getting a white card or reinforcing a positive behavior with a purple card, that goes home to show parents how well he or she is doing.

   Guff counter: stops the problem of some challenging kids who speak or act disrespectfully. But thanks to this the whole class is the one in charge of stopping the guff words. These kids are being stopped by the whole group by saying “please, stop”. Amazing.. You don’t have to deal with them… because the rest of the students will!!!

   Independents: a division is made setting aside a group of challenging kids… but they are the ones to decide by saying if they want to be part of that group or not. “I don’t want to be in that Independent group anymore!”. With this small statement rebellious kids turn against each other, living alone the “Supremo”, the one that harass the other students. The class in this case feels happy for not paying the price for the actions of the rebels.

   Bullseye game: the toughest it gets with more rebellious kids, the easiest it seems… and of course with no punishments… 

                REALLY??? No PUNISHMENTS?????

We talk to the challenging kid in private and ask him to choose a simple goal. Then the teacher rehearses that chosen goal with him,  with the right/wrong modeling. Then each part gives a score for that goal chosen. If the Teacher and student match the same score.. that’s 2 points, one point apart, 1 and more than two, zero points… This is a fun game even in bad days… because matching teacher’s low score also give the student points… and with them the chance to buy stickers.

So not only the challenging kid, rebellious kid is not punished, but he is rewarded with stickers…!!!!

   Agreement bridge:  for toughest kids through a collaborative problem solving, a board game!!! Student and teacher discuss about different subjects on a game board. They tried to shorten the distance between them. When the distance between them decreases then both parts are ready to sign a contract. This contract should be specific, with a deadline and open, in order to renegotiate.

Now… aren’t you closer to reach heaven????