by Kristi Mraz, a member of The Educator Collaborative
Ah, Fall!
Leaves are piling up on the sidewalk like the stuff in our office mailboxes that we keep saying we will bring up later.
This season, Christine Hertz (christinehertz.com) and I are taking on a blog series about holding strong to your beliefs through these first hectic months. (You can see the previous posts here and here.) The Educator Collaborative is the perfect place to share this next one, since our vibrant thoughtful community will surely have lots to share in the comments.
Today we take on….
(drum roll please)
CLIP CHARTS!
Aka behavior management systems… Aka the thing no one taught you how to do… Aka the hardest part of the job
Belief: Classrooms can run successfully without relying on stickers, clip charts or rewards and punishments
Reality Strikes: The classroom down the hall with the clip chart seems to be running a whole lot smoother than yours, and you aren’t sure what to do with the near chaos in your room.
I have written on this before but since those days of yore, I’ve learned a whole lot more.
First What is a Behavior Management System?
For our purposes, a behavior management system is anything that relies on rewards or punishment to shape behavior. A clip chart accomplishes this by moving a child’s clip up or down- down usually results in consequences like sitting out or phone calls home. A marble chart accomplishes this by having kids earn marbles with certain behaviors and when the marble jar is filled up there is some reward- like extra choice time or a pajama day.
Now here is something that it physically pains me to admit: these things work.
And they often work quickly.
Why wouldn’t we adopt a method that seems to pretty quickly get a class in smooth shape so that we can get to the real work of guided reading, and writing instruction, and math routines, and everything else on our already so-full-it’s-practically-wobbling plate?
Reasons why people might use a clip chart/stickers/marble jars:
- It’s how we learned to manage a classroom.
- It seems to work.
- We are afraid what will happen if we don’t use something like this
Reasons why we should rethink that:
- It runs counter to developing a growth mindset
- It tends to work primarily on shaming or bribing, not teaching new behaviors
- It starts with a deficit assumption of behavior, as opposed to realistic expectations
It Runs Counter to Developing a Growth Mindset
A behavior management system has a hard time co-existing in a classroom that values growth, because a growth mindset is all about knowing there are skills and strategies and people out there that can help you learn. Most behavior management systems rely on the idea kids know the behaviors and need to be prodded into using them.
A growth mindset is a belief you can change and grow. It is an understanding that there are no such things as bad kids or good kids.
If you want to help a child become a better reader, you teach them about that word “yet” and you teach them the skills and strategies to tackle the hard parts. You compliment their strengths and build on them, while giving tools and techniques to navigate the new and unknown. You do not judge them or shame them, you do not take each miscue as a personal attack. You do not think to bribe them to read the word correctly because you believe they would if they could.
That is a growth mindset at work.
Now let’s do the same for behavior.
If you want to help a child become a better community member, you teach them about that word “yet” and you teach them the skills and strategies to tackle the hard parts. You compliment their strengths and build on them, while giving tools and techniques to navigate the new and unknown. You do not judge them or shame them, you do not take each miscue as a personal attack. You do not bribe them to act correctly because you believe the would if they could.
This is our REAL work.
Growth mindset as it relates to behavior is all about setting goals for how we will act, having strategies to use in new and challenging situations, and reflecting on our actions and their outcomes.
Let go of this… |
And try this… |
| Clipping down, changing colors, writing name (etc) for interrupting | Make a plan with the child:
|
It Tends to Work Primarily on Shaming or Bribing, not Teaching New Behaviors
Well, what’s wrong with that you might ask? First of all, do you know my parents? Just kidding.
But for real, let’s play back what happens when we change a color or move a clip:
From a teacher’s point of view it might look like: child interrupts on rug- move clip down- child stops. Success.
But from a child’s point of view it might be more like this: I have something to say and I am still working on self regulation and self control. I have no strategies for stopping myself when I am dying to do something, I shout out the idea that is burning me up, my teacher is going to be so excited to know this. Wait, what is happening? Why is my clip going down! Everyone is looking at me. I am so embarrassed, what did I do that was wrong? Am I wrong? Why is my clip in the bad color? I must be bad. I still don’t have any strategies for self regulation so chances are I am going to do this again and again. (We will come back to this scenario in a minute.)
If you don’t think this is the narrative going through a child’s mind, I urge you to recall a time you were publicly called out for something negative- accidentally cutting the line in a store, talking during a meeting, not being prepared for something. Did you feel ashamed? Did you feel embarrassed? Maybe you stopped the behavior then, but did you stop it forever?
I have a friend that is chronically late. No matter how many times I got mad she was always late. She doesn’t WANT to be late, but she does not have any strategies for being on time. For real. We worked out a plan where I would text her when she should start getting ready. Now she is more likely to be on time.
I am terrible at keeping secrets. I don’t want to tell them but I do it before I can stop myself. I used to tell people their gifts before they opened them. I would feel so awful. Now I write them in the notes section of my phone to relieve the pressure of knowing it.
Shaming is not teaching.
Bribing is not teaching.
If the method will not work for teaching reading. It will not work for teaching behavior.
And when we shame people, they are more likely to HIDE what they do, not CHANGE what they do.
Let go of this… |
And try this… |
| Giving a marble for compliments | Name the greater good the compliment points out: “Ms. Hertz just complimented our quiet line! We are helping the other members of our school community stay focused to do their best work! We can even say that to ourselves as we walk: ‘Friends are working! Quiet feet!’ |
| Saying “I like how Isla is sitting on the rug quietly” as a way to change another child’s behavior.
(The kid rolling around on the rug has no idea what you are trying to do here) |
Let’s do a body check! Touch your ears! Are they listening? Touch your feet! Are they in your space? (etc) |
It Tends to Start with a Deficit View of Behavior, as Opposed to Realistic Expectations
Please ignore the scraping sound as I pull out my soapbox for a minute here.
Okay.
People, I love you all. I do.
But when in the ever loving world did we decide the only thing kids are born knowing is how to exist in a complex social sphere with ever changing rules and expectations with a brain that is still developing and a total lack of experience in the situation?
We don’t give kids a copy of War and Peace and bribe them or punish them until they get the words totally right.
We say: “where are you at?” Then we find a just right challenge and we help them through it.
Sitting still for 45 minutes is not a realistic expectation. It is the War and Peace of behavior.
Solving a problem with calm and measured words is even harder.
The fact ANY kids can navigate school is the real shocking fact.
Let’s have realistic expectations of what a 5, 10, 15 year old needs to be successful. Lets teach them how to navigate sharing, managing when you feel left out, gossip and peer pressure. Let’s not punish for not knowing, let’s take that as our baseline and work to get better.
Let go of this… |
And try this… |
| Getting angry when your expectations don’t feel met | Analyze your expectations:
|
| Blaming yourself or the kiddos for community mishaps | Repeat after me: “Learning takes time. What can we do differently next time?” |
What is our Actual Desired Outcome in a Classroom? How Do We Define Success?
Christine and I have lately been rethinking what it means to say we teach the whole child. We have been thinking that teaching the whole child can’t mean “I address behavior as it arises in my classroom and use developmentally appropriate methods to accomplish my classroom goals. “
Not any more at least. Now we think teaching the whole child means, “Does this help the child, not just in my room in this minute, but in his or her life to accomplish his or her goals?” Maybe we should move away from thinking about teaching with the whole child in mind and instead think about teaching with the whole child’s LIFE in mind.
This is the work of teaching children how to come together, navigate differences, explore social confusions, and think critically. There is no guided reading lesson in the world that is worth more than the time it takes to help a child learn to solve problems with others productively and with empathy.
Who cares if kids can read at level Z in first grade if they grow up to be narcissists, seeking rewards for kindness and masking shame behind bravado and cruelty?
This work is hard, but SPOILER ALERT, we write at length about it in our upcoming book. In the short term there are other powerful resources out there:
- Upstanders by Smokey Daniels and Sara Ahmed
- Lost at School by Ross Greene, as well as his website
- And I write a bit about teaching into social skills here.
Back to Our “Child Interrupts on the Rug” Scenario
What do I do now when a child shouts something out on the rug? I do the teacher thing and run 90 million questions through my head at rapid fire pace to make a decision just like I do when I am in guided reading and a child makes a miscue.
- Am I doing something that is going to inspire a lot of shouting out? Like reading a highly engaging read aloud or modeling a story about Chuck E Cheese? Does the shouting out REALLY distract from what we are doing? Can I roll with it?
- Is this a pattern I know from this child? What function did the shouting out have? Attention? Anxiety? Anger? If so, I have to find a way to address the function of the behavior that feels more productive than interrupting a lesson
- Have I taught a strategy for waiting? Can I reference a visual or give a gesture that reminds the child of the alternative behavior?
It has taken a while for me to shift gears, the same way it took a while to stop saying “sound it out” to every single miscue in reading. It will take time to shift, it will take intentionality to shift. It will take your own growth mindset.
So what can you do tomorrow?
- Get rid of the clip chart, stickers, marble jar. If you have it you will be tempted to use it.
- Expect things to be rocky at first, this doesn’t mean it’s not working, it is just a big change. STAY THE COURSE
- Tackle one thing at a time. List the behaviors you see your community needs to build: listening, sharing, problem solving. Choose the one that has the most bang and make a plan to teach into it
- Think about building a toolkit for that skill: what are the steps? What are the options?
- Practice and role play with your class, make a supportive visual
Addendum…
*Yes, of course, there are some research based reasons you might use a short term behavior management strategy with some children for specific reasons. That is not what I am talking about.
** If you are not convinced it is shaming, imagine if the presenter at the your next conference/meeting announced to the whole group when you are talking/looking at your phone/fidgeting/getting up to use the restroom as a way to get you to stop doing those things.
Behavior management has been a big challenge in my building. I am an EL teacher and travel around to many classrooms which means I see all styles of classroom management and ways that teachers integrate building community and teaching social skills into their classroom (or not).
I’ve struggled especially with a co-teacher who has just made a switch from fourth grade to first. She often expects that students can solve problems and self regulate on their own. On the flip side, she also tends to “fix” the problem ie “Give Danny his pencil back. You can’t take his pencil.” I’ve struggled on how to approach some of the challenges I’ve seen with her. I am hoping to use this as a tool that might help me have a conversation about how we’d begin to think about the whole child the goals beyond our classroom. I especially loved how you explained…
…teaching the whole child means, “Does this help the child, not just in my room in this minute, but in his or her life to accomplish his or her goals?”
Thank you! I know that I will keep coming back to this post all year.
I also recommend Jane Nelsen’s work on Positive Discipline, right along the same lines.
Amazing! I love this as a parent, as teacher, and even as a wife and friend. Tolerance, respect, and patience are always the way. Thank you for your brilliance!
A valid point- it is not an exact match. But in both cases, the analogy is made to frame our thinking (as teachers) away from bribing or punishing. Another analogy is a child giving the wrong answer publicly to math problem. Our reaction in that moment is to teach in a way that helps everyone learn and grow, and (I think) we want to think the same way about things like interrupting.