Punishment

Today, my students entered the cafeteria and were told immediately they were on silent lunch from an older Teacher Assistent that had replaced our recently quit Lunch Monitor.  My students' responses were perfect: Why are we being punished?  Did we do something wrong?

I teach my students to question the rules they're told.  After all, the people who changed history didn't do so by following the rules.  Clearly, I model how to question rules in a respectful way. So, I was stuck was a stubborn TA who was desperately trying to have control over the cafeteria, not trying to steal her power, and respond to a class that, rightfully so, felt this mandate was unfair.

After trying to reason with her twice, I gave up frustrated.

Even though I was playing damage control most of my lunch, I am proud of my students' ability to critically think about what's happening and stick up for themselves.  They weren't being obedient at first, and I don't blame them.  There was a time when I valued obedience in my classroom because, well, it was easier.  Following directions, while important, is not the greatest skill in life.  Obedient children make teaching, in this moment, easier.  But what about the future?  I don't believe emphasizing the celebrated Following Directions skill will help my students impact the world.  I want them to think about what people are asking them to do, and WHY they're being asked to do it.

This morning, I followed my students to their reading class (I teach them math, science and social studies) to invest them in a writing competition called "The One Pager."  They had completely written it off to the Literacy Teacher as useless and boring.  We had about a 10 minute talk about how doing this activity will help improve their drowning writing skills and the ways that writing shows up in an adult's life.  There was pushback about it being boring (things can be important and boring at the same time) or not needing it (everyone could use some improvement).  I'm sure I didn't invest every kid in the class.  However, I know I got the wheels turning in everyone's brains.  And, no matter what, my students know that when they improve their academic skills, they are making their lives better.

What matters is WHY

In my classroom, we have two rules: work hard and be nice.  We actually call them our rules for life.  Everything we do, I want my students to see the connection to their lives. I tell them that I, as an adult, live by those two rules as well.

In my classroom, "integrity" is common vocabulary and the community benefit is placed over individual.  It is a place where students see how their actions today affect their opportunities in the future.  It is a place where sitting quietly in the classroom isn't enough, but sitting quietly for the right reasons is expected.

My end goal is to break the cycle of poverty my students are living in and get them into and through college to have careers that they love and, more importantly, living a life they love.  Honestly, selfishly, I want my students to not only graduate from college, but to change the world in a way that makes it fairer and more peaceful.

The foundation my classroom is built on are what I call "the levels."  These are Lawrence Kholberg's Six Levels of Moral Development.  These levels describe people's motivations.  This is what it looks like in my class:

I make good or bad choices because:
I am avoiding punishment (level 1)
I want a reward (level 2)
I want to impress someone (level 3)
I follow the rules (level 4)
I am considerate of other people and compromise for the greater good (level 5)
I am living by my own beliefs (level 6)


Whenever I have introduced the levels to a new class, and have explained them thoroughly, I always ask what level my students think they're each on.  Typically, they will rate themselves quite high (a lot of 4s, 5s, 6s).  I then bring them back to reality and tell them that the vast majority of them are not on any level above two.  I also tell them that it's not their fault- the adults in their lives (teachers  and parents) have been training them and expecting them to be on levels one and two their whole lives.  Usually, at that moment in the conversation I get a few "ohh"s as they start to reflect on their life and see the patterns of bribery and punishment that have paved their way to my class.  I also tell them, though, that now they know there's a better way to live.  And for that moment on, the upward climb to level 6 starts.

Because part of living on a higher level (5 and 6) is understanding your impact on others, we have Community Meeting in my classroom.  This meeting is run by a student by the second month of
school.  The order of Community Meeting goes like this:

1. Shout Outs
Classmates recognize each other for kind things that were done that day.  The shout out must be specific for the action and the person.  Some examples of typical shout ours are:
"I'd like to give a shout out to ____ for lending me a pencil." (They never bother me for pencils when they forget it at home.  They take care of each other.)

"I'd like to give a shoutout to ____ for teaching me a new strategy in math."

These shout outs having a pretty wide range.  I enjoy secretly listening to them because I find out kind things that my students did that I would never have known.  It's tricky teaching students to be on higher levels because the typical "Teacher, look what I did!" rarely happens.

2.  Class concerns
This is when the students share any problem they have with each other.  They do so in the format of an "I feel" statement.  For example, "I felt sad when you snatched the pencil out of my hand."  I want them to identify with the feeling they had instead of blaming someone else for "making" them feel a certain way.

The cool thing about this part of Community Meeting is that, as the students start to feel increasingly safer with each other, stuff comes up in this part that I never noticed (or happened when they weren't in my classroom).  They also have a chance to stick up for their learning and feel a sense of control and power within their own community.  At this point in the school year, they call each other out for more things than I do.

3. Out of Integrity
This is the part where students can admit any part of the day that they had broken their own integrity. Out of integrity goes like this:
1.  State how you were out of integrity
2.  State the impact of your actions (on self and others)
3.  State what you are going to do next time.

The nice thing about out of integrity is they know they can admit anything and they won't get in trouble.  It's not about catching the bad guy.  It's about coming clean about things that they've done to compromise their own integrity and clean it up with their classmates.  It's nice when they can admit it before being called out by their teammates, as well, during the class concerns.  It, mostly though, allows the students to feel complete about their day.  There's no need for guilt or shame.  We all make mistakes, and taking responsibility for them is half the battle.

What's important

For two weeks straight, the specials teachers (art, music, library, computers, PE) have the same report about my kids when I pick them up.  It goes something like, "They had a great class.  They were so productive and worked well together, but they lost it when they lined up."  So, as they get rated on a 1-10 scale, they've consistently gotten 9's.

My younger self would have fussed at the class, making them practice lining up until it was perfect.  I would have had a serious talk with them and been really uptight about the whole thing.  But the way I've run my class this year, it would have been very discordant.  We're constantly questioning rules and routines, asking, "How important is this?  Will this help me be a better human being?"  For example, after dealing with an ambush of tattles on curse words heard from other kids in the school, my students have gotten to understand that there are SO many more important things in life than an arbitrary word someone chose to be considered "bad."

So, my position on the matter was decided: if these other teachers had no other complaints, and my students were kind to each other and tried their hardest, they're doing pretty well.  But, my job isn't done yet.

Recently, my students took a test that tracks their progress in math throughout the year.  One of my students only went up 2 points from winter to spring.  While it was an improvement, it was a small one.  This student has gone through a range of emotions and decisions in which he shared with me along the way:
-He immediately wanted to retake the test to get a higher score
-Remorseful that he didn't do better
-Scared his score may go down instead of up
-Excited to sit for over an hour the next day just to improve a test score that would more accurately represent his learned knowledge

Oh, and this kid had ADHD.

He also voluntarily puts himself on punishment if he thinks he forgot to go the day before.  At first, I thought he liked it, so it didn't bother him.  It came out recently how much he really hates it.

The fact that he will be bored and will also be missing PE to take a test was not even a blip on his screen.  The fact that sitting on silent lunch for half an hour for a kid with a disorder that causes him to never stop moving is very difficult does overshadow his own integrity.  He understands that doing his best is important.  He understands that punishment is temporary, but who he is is for the rest of his life.

There is no reason to hesitate.  He is clear on what is important.