24: My Classes are Awesome (most of the time)

Our grade 6 students are a bit of a "handful" this year. Individually they are all wonderful (really, they are!!!!), but together they play off each other and are easily distracted, overly social, and very impulsive all of which can make class interesting yet sometimes very difficult. I'm sure we've all had groups like this and have tried strategy after strategy, routine after routine, discipline tactic one after another, etc to see what we could find that would work. Well, a few years ago I read something that a teacher shared in a magazine (maybe Scholastic?) that they used with their class. The basic idea was that they wrote a key word on the board and every time a majority of the class was doing something that was not acceptable class behavior they would lose a letter, if they lost all of their letters than the entire class received some sort of punishment. I have used this in the past (modified to fit my classroom and my students) and decided it was time to bring it back. So ...

Each class begins with the word AWESOME written on the board.

When {approximately} more than 1/3 of the class (about 5 students) is doing something that is not a norm of the class a letter will be erased. Some examples of reasons a letter would be erased include:

• Not quieting down after being asked to do so.
• Not following instructions.
• Being out of their seats.
• Goofing off.

When all letters are erased the entire class will "owe" 5 minutes of their break to me in which we can work on some math that might not have been done because their behaviors wasted class time.

If the class is able to keep and/or have all of the letters to AWESOME at the end of the period then they will earn some sort of special treat. These could include:

• Enjoying a special snack.
• Seeing my school pictures from when I was their age (ps ... they love this one, probably because they know it embarrasses me a bit).
• Enjoying 5 minutes of outdoor time together as a class.
• Have an evening with no homework.

If the class is having an awesome moment {insert smile here} then they have the opportunity to earn back a letter they may have lost. I had not done this in the past, but thought I'd give it a try this year.

Each class they start fresh with all of their letters and they can not lose a letter because of the behaviors of just one or two of their peers (these will be dealt with individually and will be given a conduct referral if necessary or if it continues). I also told the students that I would continue to reflect on ways to make AWESOME better and if they had any ideas to let me know (one has already asked if they could "earn exclamation points if they are being super duper awesome" in which I responded, "let's earn awesome a few times and then we can talk about that as an idea!").

I tried this with one of my 6th grade groups today during their shortened 25 minute class and let's just say my response to class was, "WOW, I must brag to my co-workers that we had our first really good productive class with 100% appropriate behavior!"

I will touch base in a few weeks and let you know how things are going. Fingers crossed that I see some success with it!