I remember making this index card. I remember saying things like “There are some people who are not paying attention right now and so they are going on my list. Oh, now I have to put checks next to their names and each of those checks is a minute off of their recess.” I didn’t say the students’ names so I wasn’t publicly humiliating them. Most of the kids started paying attention as a result and had their checks erased. I remember this being an effective tool for managing their behavior because no one knew who was on the list so everyone straightened up. But now, if I’m trying to ‘teach with compassion,’ I’m thinking this won’t fly.
These are the three things that I set out to do when I started writing this blog:
see things just as they are
accept that I can't control the universe
see beauty in the chaos that is life
That first one, seeing things just as they are, is part of a bigger concept that I’ve talked about: responding to situations instead of reacting to them. I first started using the cards during a meaningless math lesson in a desperate attempt to reel the kids back in from their off- task behavior. I was definitely reacting to their behavior instead of responding to it. I didn’t want to see things as they were: they were just as bored by this lesson as I was.
The second one: I was trying to control the universe and I wasn’t willing to accept the fact that there are times when the lesson is not that interesting and the kids are going to act in certain ways as a result. But does that mean that I just let them be off task? No, but I think that if I had done the first thing- see things for what they are- I would have focused my effort on working with the kids to make it more interesting instead of working against them by threatening to take away recess.
Seeing beauty in chaos: this ‘seeing beauty’ one is about me seeing the individual kids for who they are. The two kids on the index cards are kids who struggled with math all year long. Yes, they did need to be paying attention, maybe more so than others, but they didn’t need fear, they needed support and some scaffolding to make the lesson accessible.
So then I looked at our ‘color card’ chart (our school uses the green, yellow, red behavior system) and I thought “Oh no! Public humiliation at its finest!” But I also thought, “No way, don’t make me give up the core behavior management system of my classroom! I just can’t do that yet.” But then I thought about what I had written earlier- about the difference between the bars of a jail cell and the slats of a white picket fence. If I could use the color cards as guidance for the kids, as a boundary for them, as an expression of my concern for their learning, then maybe it could be a tool of compassion. And actually, one of the teachers at my school explains the color card chart to her kids in this way. She explains that the yellow card is there to help you, it’s like a little flag waving at you to say “Hey, you’re doing things that aren’t helping you right now. Try your best to pay attention to yourself so that you make choices that are going to help you.”
So I need to present it that way at the beginning of the year and I need to use it that way too. I can’t say things like “If you don’t stop talking, I’m turning you to yellow.” Or “You’re on red! No recess for you!” I need to say, calmly, “I’m turning you card for you. I want you to learn and I hope that this will help you to focus on your learning.” Ha! Like that’s gonna happen… But I’m going to try and I think that that calmness, that caring is only going to come if I’m not caught up in my own reaction to the situation, if I’m actually focused on the kids and what they’re experiencing. This is going to take a lot of presence of mind- eeeek! And I still have to teach them how to read and multiply!!!!
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