It's All About the Benjamins

That's a Cheeto on fire!

I realized on my drive yesterday that I now have the mist dangerous classroom in the school. We have eliminated all shop classes so there are no more saws and drills presses to potentially remove an appendage.  Therefore the chemistry lab is one of the few places left where the students can be seriously injured. We use chemicals that can't be purchased except through special chemical companies.  We have acids, flammable substances, broken glass, hot metals, scalding water, poisonous chemicals and sharp objects.  And, I have labs in which I freely let the students mix these substances in whatever quantities they wish and I call it inquiry

learning.

And yet I really don't have discipline or safety problems. I don't have students misbehaving and running a muck in my room. And I have not written up a student for inappropriate behavior in over 10 years.  This doesn't mean my class is perfect, but I take a slightly different perspective on classroom management than a lot of teachers.

You see, my class is all about the Benjamins. And the Christinas. And the Jaimes and the Roberts and the Mohammeds and the Ericas and the Jordans and the Alexs.  Our class is all about the relationships.  Our class is about the mutual respect we have for each other.  Our classroom is where risk taking is rewarded and failure is learning.

Sometimes, as teachers, we get so wrapped up in lesson plans, state tests, and completing our curriculum that we lose sight of what who is most important in our classroom.

A better use of time

I thought I lucked out this year by being assigned lunch detention as my duty.  This would be a great opportunity to sit in a room by myself and grade papers.  Sure, once in a while some student would get detention, but that shouldn't happen that often.  

Well, except for the first 2 days of school, there has been someone in there every day with me.  Still, not so bad and can still get a lot done.  Then the rules came out.

http://goo.gl/3AJQo

No cell phones

No talking

No ipods

No sitting near each other

No sleeping

Students are to do school work or sit quietly

Students are expected to have the same behavior as found in your classroom

I had been struggling with some of these rules as I see the fact that the students are being pulled away from their friends and put into a room with no windows for 52 minutes as punishment enough.  But the last comment is what was really bugging me.  If you are a reader of my blog you know that I encourage collaboration, cell phone use, iPods every single day.  My students are encouraged to make the classroom as comfortable a learning environment as possible.

So Thursday comes and a student walks in absolutely radiating anger.  This was now his 7th day of detention out of 10 days of school.  He had no school work so he spent about 10 minutes muttering a stream of very unpleasant phrases while he colored on scrap paper.  He put on his iPod at some point when I wasn't looking and I only noticed it because the music was loud enough for me to hear.  I told him the rule on iPods, but since it calmed him down (music soothes the savage beast?) I let it slide.  But this angry teenager got me thinking:

1. If detention is designed to be so miserable that no one wants to come back, why is this student back for the 7th time?
2. This student is going to sit in a room for 52 minutes and fume over the fact that he is there.  Now he is going to be released to a classroom for 80 minutes where he is likely to lash out at another student, or worse the teacher, and get suspended for some new infraction.

On my drive home, I decided that I didn't want lunch detention anymore because it went against everything I believe in.  Isn't the point of being an educator to develop relationships with the students and to find innovative ways to educate them about the world around them?  So as I am discussing my day with my wife a thought popped into my head:

If a student was found to be on drugs during school, the school would find ways to help the student get over the addiction and rehabilitate his/her life.  Why don't we do the same thing with lunch detention?  If a student is being assigned to multiple detentions, shouldn't we be taking steps to stop the bad behavior in the first place?

Here's my idea:  develop a character building program within lunch detention.  We have different punishments for different offenses so we will develop a tiered system depending on what the students have done.  If a student is 1st time offender and is only given 1 day, they may get nothing.  A student who has received several days or is returning for a different offense might have to watch a TED talk and complete some critical thinking questions.  A student like I mentioned above might have to read a thought provoking book, again with guiding questions, and discuss what his thoughts were with the lunch detention proctor.  In all of these, the students would report back to the administrator who assigned the detention to build that relationship, measure growth and understanding, and have meaningful conversations about the behavior.

Doesn't this approach make a lot more sense?

If your school is using something like this, I would love to hear about it.  All thoughts/comments are welcomed.

Hug it out

Before I say anything more I want you watch the following video:

Now that you are all warm and fuzzy inside, let's talk about building relationships.  It's the first day of school. Students are beginning to roll off the buses, excitement rolling off of them as they get ready to see friends who were missing from their lives all summer, and tackle new teachers with new challenges for the next 10 months.  As they approach the entrance, they look up to see half a dozen students holding up large signs with

http://goo.gl/oeAic

The first reaction would be apprehension, but some would take a hug, some will walk right by, some will run right up and take the sign from us.  But, the hope is some of those kids who really dread coming to school, who move through their day with their head down, who try to hide in plain sight, will forget their troubles and reconnect with some bit of sunshine inside of them.  Hopefully they will be just a little bit more interested in being there that day.

What better way to connect with someone than through a hug?

Oh, and if you want to participate, make sure to check out the Free Hugs Campaign.