My Management System

When I started my second year, I set my rules, I set my consequences for breaking the rules, and it was working. It was so simple, and it was working, so I stuck to it. But then there were so many infractions, I became overwhelmed with all the consequences. Students were asked to apologize, shake hands, hug, make apology cards, and clean up messes, but the consequences weren’t affecting the behaviors. In fact, things were only getting more out of control.

So after four weeks, I switched up. I brought in the elaborate system of stickers, rewards, and phone calls. Everyone’s name was on a board, and I wrote a letter for each time students did something great. If they earned five letters by the end of the day, it would spell GREAT, and they would get a sticker on a chart. If the students received three stickers in the week, then on Friday, they got to pick something from the magic grab bag. If they got twelve stickers in a month, then they received a ticket to a class party. When they were bad, I erased letters. When all their letters were erased, then they got an X, and after three Xs, it was a phone call. I tried to run this system as perfectly as I could because I believed it was the system that would save me. I let the system dictate how I managed the class because I couldn’t trust my own instincts; I had failed too many times. It worked for some, but it really didn’t work for most.

Ryden was a student who was smart enough to use GREAT to play me. When I took away one of his letters, he typically slammed both hands on his desk, gripping the corners tightly as if he was steadying his launch to charge me and stuff the dry erase marker down my throat. He grunted, “Put back the letter.” Any normal teacher would say, “You don’t demand anything from me, you sit down and do your work or it’s another letter!”

The problem was that I had already done that many times. I had called Ryden’s family again and again, but they stopped picking up. There were was one day I left three messages for three different instances of extreme behavior. One time, when I called his mom, in front of him and the whole class, I left the message, and then, he smiled, “She doesn’t give a s--- about your phone calls.” I called her right back and left another message, “Ms. Valrie, I just thought you should know Ryden just told me and the whole class you don’t give a s-h-i-t about my phone calls.” Ryden had reduced me to a twenty-seven-year old tattle tale.

Plus, losing letters only caused Ryden to get more enraged. Imagine that.  The assumption behind the system was that misbehaving students wanted to earn their letter back. When the teacher erased a letter, then the student would get right to work to earn it back as quickly as possible. For most of my students, losing a letter was a public slap in the face, and the only response they knew was to retaliate. I was trapped in the logic of the system so I tried to negotiate a truce, “Alright, Ryden, just sit back down, get back to your work and you’ll get your letter back…” He would sit down, slowly, with his eyes still on the board, making sure I honored the promise. And just as his pencil touched the paper and I rewrote his letter, he crept back out of his seat, and the game began again.