Entry #4: Old issues of motivation
and discipline rear up anew. Yuck.
As a first-year teacher, I attended induction seminars where classroom management
was discussed. One of the presenters had a large jar on his desk. He explained
that whenever his students performed well, he would place some marbles in
the jar. When the jar became full, the class was rewarded with a movie,
pizza or some other mutually agreed upon bonus.
I adapted this strategy using tricolored macaroni instead of marbles and
my students won a pizza party sometime around Thanksgiving and two other
rewards over the course of our first year. My macaroni jar set me on the
management road of positive reinforcement. I never took macaroni away. Instead,
I focused on any progress I could find and counted on the positive peer
pressure of the group to carry the day. It usually did.
When I moved to middle school and began teaching multiple sections, I developed
a point system for my groups and rewarded the top group in each section
with a choice from my prize bucket. For about $5.00 a week I still got the
students to buy in and monitor their own section's behavior.
I had occasional doubts about "bribing" students to behave and
do their work, but felt that the results spoke for themselves. I believed
that my students were happy to have the prizes as an excuse to behave. After
all, my pencils, stickers etc. weren't really that exciting. I also noticed
that while points and prizes were pivotal in the early fall, by the winter
months they weren't so central to the class dynamics. Sometimes we'd be
so busy with our work that I'd forget the points entirely and so would the
kids.
In any case, last spring I attended a seminar about the "Urban Learner"
and one piece which we discussed directly addressed the whole question of
extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation for student learning. I felt guilty as
I listened to the presentation. Had I really hurt the students I was trying
to help? Had I robbed them of the pleasure of learning for its own sake?
I really struggled with myself about these issues and decided that while
I had my doubts, I would stop bribing my students. I didn't stock up on
dollar store prizes this September, and I didn't construct charts for my
clipboard. And this week I was really sorry that I hadn't.
I just wasn't getting the kind of cooperation I'd grown accustomed to getting.
I tried to figure out why. Was it because I didn't really know the kids
yet? Was it because I'm just a "prep" teacher now? Were my classes
too loose?
I decided to tough it out. I fine-tuned my lessons to make sure my kids
had easy transitions from one activity to the next. I prepared a written
daily schedule to minimize the amount of time I'd use giving directions.
I brought in a kitchen timer to ensure equal computer time for all groups.
I tried to motivate the kids with the computers and the skills we were learning.
It didn't work. My classes were still noisier, and I don't mean busy noise.
My voice was scratchy from trying to talk over the din, and I was feeling
frustrated at the end of the day.
I decided on Wednesday night to return to my point system, but instead of
prizes from the dollar store, I was offering free time on the computer to
explore the web or use some of the puzzles or games which I have. On Thursday
I began laying out the system to my classes. It worked like a charm, until
my last class of sixth graders arrived on Friday.
My last group treated me like a joke. They talked and played around basically
non-stop. I was correcting people the whole period, pretty much ineffectively.
Yuck.
It was actually like a sitcom class. One girl got up for a book, stepped
on a sticky mouse trap, and freaked -- to everyone else's delight. A boy
told me he had a laptop like mine at home and proceeded to tap away madly,
freezing my computer and knocking one of the key pads off. The talking at
the computers and at the desks kept getting louder and louder. Last, but
not least, some kids were insisting that while they hadn't touched anything,
their computers had suddenly jumped to other pages that had nothing to do
with the work we were trying to do. I was not amused.
So now I'm faced with two problems. I'm still bothered by the whole "where
should the motivation for good behavior come from" thing, and now I've
got to figure out how to reach these sixth graders without becoming the
kind of teacher I'd sworn never to become. You know the kind -- all threats
and detentions, etc.
My lessons can be tighter still. The group that isn't on the computer is
my biggest problem. In an ideal world, they'd work independently, and I
think we'll get there at some point. In my real world we aren't anywhere
close.
Last week I prepared computer work and a mini-lesson for each class. The
computer work was substantial and except for the minor problems I outlined
about freezing screens etc. the lessons worked well. The mini-lessons were
less successful.
After I presented and kids copied their notes, they were bored. They treated
it like down time where they were just waiting to get on the computer. So
they talked and played and by the end of the day on a Friday...I responded
by becoming a cop.
The more they misbehaved, the more irritated I became. Or maybe I should
say, the more irritating I became. Instead of coming up with a short activity
to get their attention, I tried to police them...yuck!
This will not happen again. I will overprepare this week. I'm sure some
students will try to slack off, but everyone will be busy.
Once again, I began by wondering what was different about this one "difficult"
class. I began feeling sorry for myself and angry at them. Now I'm feeling
like, "duh, what did you expect?"
I guess it's human nature to blame the other guy first, but by now I wish
I'd just switched gears and refocused the group. Getting annoyed only exacerbated
the kids' behavior, and I wound up with a headache and a bad attitude.
So I'm back to the drawing board on my lessons and that's fine, but what
about the motivation issue? I guess I'm still on the fence.
I always read when I'm in doubt and I usually read more than one thing at
a time. Right now, I'm reading "FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience"
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and "Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of
Teaching And Training" by Karen Pryor.
By the end of the weekend, I'll either be totally crazed ( some of my closest
friends would think this was redundant ) or maybe I'll be blessed with some
new insights into the way to achieve a healthy balance between behavior
modification and self actualized, positive behavior.
Right now, I'm going to crawl back into bed with yet another book. I just
treated myself to 'Tis by Frank McCourt, and I plan to experience
"flow" for about an hour while I get lost in Frank's world. I
think I need a break from mine.
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