The Unclipped Linky Party

Tammy at Forever in First has become one of my very favorite go-to blogs because I love how thoughtful she is about how she teaches and treats her students.  She is the teacher I would want for each of my own four, very different, children.  Tammy has again demonstrated her respect for her students with her current post about why she doesn't use behavior charts in her classroom. Tammy says that when she makes classroom decisions (either academic or behavioral) she keeps in mind how she would feel, as an adult, if those decisions were made for her.  What a simple way that is to evaluate our choices...a version of the Golden Rule.  I think that so many of our actions would be better if we routinely asked ourselves "how would I feel if this was done (or said) to me?."  Tammy's post was inspired by a very articulate post by Nikki at Teaching in Progress titled Why I Will Never Use A Behavior Chart Again."  Nikki suggests a "Take a Break" Center where children can go if they need to take a breather or think about making different choices.  This sounds like a wonderful idea.

I wrote a post several months ago about my concerns with Clip Charts and what I had tried in my kindergarten class. You can read that post here. As I describe in that post, I  liked the easy positive  systems created by Angela Watson from The Cornerstone and Sally from Fairy Dust Teaching.

The Cornerstone's Simple Token System

In my preschool class, I have not needed to use any formal system. I address behavior on an individual basis.  If a child is repeatedly having trouble staying in his/her own space during circle time, I will ask him or her to move to a chair until they are ready to come back to the rug.  Similarly, if a child breaks a rule (for example is running in the classroom or throwing toys) my assistant or I will speak with the child. If the behavior continues, the child will be moved to a different activity.

I feel very strongly that one of the most important things I can do as an educator of young children is to make sure that they are excited about going to school and that they feel confident about their ability to learn.  I think that this should be an overarching goal of all primary teachers (perhaps all teachers:)  It has always been my experience that children who want to learn will learn and I fear that any system that relies on publicly degrading (and evaluating) children will interfere with a child's intrinsic excitement about learning.

Fairy Dust Teaching's Safe Pocket System

I am so excited to have just bought this Safe Pocket System from Sally at Fairy Dust Teaching. When I started teaching Kindergarten 5 years ago in a very difficult district, I resisted any Red, Yellow, Green card sort of behavior management system. I didn't like how negative it was and I didn't like the idea that there were prescribed results for red cards (no recess, call home,etc) because I thought that they would not necessarily be responsive to an individual child's behavior or circumstance. I seldom called parents because I knew the child would be beaten (or there would be no response) and I wasn't comfortable with either response. I therefore did without a formal system but tried to respond to individual behavior.