My most favorite years of teaching were the last 4 of my career of 17 years. Why? I did away with homework and awards. The school had school-wide awards at the end of each trimester which I had to participate in, but I had no classroom awards. Every other classroom (24 of them) had a ticket system and a prize box. Teachers thought I was either nuts or brave. How was I going to get kids to do things and behave? I had no problem at all. We had frank conversations about how they were there to learn and it is their job to do their best everyday and grow as learners. I had the worst behaved child in my grade level who the prior year had practically lived in the office or another classroom other than their own. I had to call the principal twice all year... Why the change? I had a frank conversation with the child and we came up with a list of things (choices) this child could do when they couldn't handle what was going on. Every alternative choice took place in the classroom. They were things like; move to the library table, put up an "office" (divider), or move to another table group, etc... I gave the child the power to decide how they were going to handle the "problem" It was their choice and they were to do it without asking me -that was the whole point of having the choices -the child dealt with it and I could continue teaching. If the child had trouble working in a partnership, they were allowed to work on their own and the other students knew they were allowed to then join a partnership to create a trio. I did not want to have to stop and deal with this stuff, so we had a plan and choices and kids knew what to do. Rarely did the child leave partnership work as it was their favorite.
We kept no records of our reading other than a date and title of the book. Some kids added likes or dislikes about the book -or "notes" about their thinking to share. Our principal (K-6 school) had read The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing<http://www.amazon.com/The-Homework-Myth-Kids-Thing/dp/0738211117/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334174866&sr=1-6> by Alfie Kohn<http://www.amazon.com/Alfie-Kohn/e/B001IGHN82/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6?qid=1334174866&sr=1-6> and she (with input from the staff) decided there would be no homework school-wide other than reading, and what was read would be the child's choice. YAHOO! Let me tell you, the passion for reading grew -immensely. Kids came to school excited to share what they read the night before (I had a 10 minute partner share first thing in the morning). Kids were deciding to read the same book and talk about it (Wow! book clubs formed by students because they were interested in doing so). Kids were reading books by the same author and talking about similarities and differences. It was so powerful! The students in my classroom were put into the driver seat and they drove to some great places! When you give kids choices and give them some power, they do great things. And I could teach without making all the decisions -everyone was happier! The nay-sayers said the kids won't read, they will only pretend -it happened a few times in my classroom, but rarely. I think the reason they read was because they had the choice of what to read -books, menus, magazines, pamphlets... and they couldn't wait to talk about it! Jan You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. -Albert Einstein "*If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.*" Albert Einstein What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo Emerson Nothing is as strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as real strength. If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~ Albert Einstein On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Renee <[email protected]> wrote: > Disclaimer: This is an opinion. Mine. > > I know that many schools have competitions of many kinds, and that > competition is part of society and that some competition is just good, > healthy fun. But I think it's important to think about the message that > *some* school competitions send, and to me, a reading competition just goes > against my grain. If I were teaching in this school, I would not feel good > about being pitted against all other classrooms AND I would find it hard > to participate. That's why I suggested a school wide collaboration (ongoing > documentation of books and pages read by the whole school), where everyone > works together toward a common goal. > > Our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has pitted schools > against schools and teachers against teachers with his stupid Race to the > Top program. High stakes tests pit schools against schools and teachers > against teachers and students against students. > > In my classrooms we always kept a running tally of how many books and > pages kids read, throughout the year. The end numbers were pretty > impressive; frankly, I think they were way more impressive than cafeteria > displays of students names who had reached the "Millionaire's Reading Club" > or classroom displays of race cars racing along on race tracks made of > Accelerated Reading scores. > > Am I really the only one out there? > Does anyone read Alfie Kohn or Daniel Pink? > > Renee Goularte > 20 years teaching, all grades, ELL, at-risk, GATE, multiage, and Art. > > > > On Apr 10, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Phyllis Oliver wrote: > > At a school where I was reading specialist we used to have competitions >> between classes.(We only had one room per grade level.) We might have 3rd >> and 4th and 5th and 6th compete for the most AR points or most pages read. >> We did this by the month. The losing class would serve the winning class a >> treat (such as homemade sundaes or popcorn with a movie, or pizza) the >> losing class then served themselves and all enjoyed the treat. This seemed >> to work especially well with 4-6 grades. >> >> > Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." > ~William Butler Yeats > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/**mailman/options/mosaic_** > literacyworkshop.org<http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org> > > Search the MOSAIC archives at > http://snipurl.com/**MosaicArchive<http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive> > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
