It All About The Rewards

So I took classroom management this summer. And all the stuff I learned about not giving the students rewards and bribing them to be good. Well, it's all shit! All I can say, is DO IT! Do it until they want you to up the ante and you do. Do it until they have no motivation to do something unless they get a reward for it. You know why? Because that shit doesn't happen .. at least not to high school students. As mart as high school student are, they won't up the ante unless you do. They'll keep doing what you say for them to do if you reward them sporatically.

The VP who took over my class, offered the students a pizza party if the whole class earns 300 tokens. That means if they show up to class on time 30 times, they earn a pizza party (for those of you who want me to do the math, there are 10 kids in the class). He also offered them a poker day every second Friday if the work well in between those days.

My new "class" is great. It has four students in it: two girls who are hoping to complete Math 11 and 12 Apps by the end of the year by correspondance, one guy working on SS 9 and one guy working on Communication 11. The best part, is I don't HAVE to do a year plan (but I will for the math so I can keep the girls on track).

I'm starting to lose my grade 10s. They pretend they know what's going on in class, but when I give them homework, they can't do it. So I have to back track with them. We'll be reviewing cross-multiplication tomorrow in drill form to get them ready to tackle unit conversions.

I'm a bit frustrated because I'm starting to see a similar pattern with the students. I see that they say the work is "too easy" and "stupid" when they really mean, "I have no clue how to do this when I think I should know, but I don't so I'm not going to try and I'll stay stuck and become frustrated". I'm frustrated more with myself for not seeing this before. I'm going to approach this by being honest with the kids and telling them my observation and by telling them they have to speak up or I can't help them and that, at the same time, I can't stop everything if only one kid has a problem and I'm trying to balance this. I'll also tell them that if they don't know, there's a good chance other don't know too. Ideally, I'd like as much feedback from them as possible. But teenagers never want to communicate. I swear that by the end of this year, I'll get them better. I thought I did, but obviously I've been an adult for too long to get them. I have to learn the teenage mind all over again.