The Power of Movies

I had to add Matt Damon for Google to find it.

I've never been a big movie person. I saw Jaws for the first time two years ago. I don't think I've ever seen National Lampoon's anything and I hated Citizen Kane. That war movie with Nathan Fillion is what I call (...goes to Google it...) Saving Private Ryan. It's not because I think it's a terrible movie. It actually tells a wonderful, albeit tragic story. It just illustrates how much of a movie person I am not. Yet, what I love most about my job is making movies. We're not talking blockbuster Hollywood anything. I make morning announcements. I make movies about having an incredible bagel dog for lunch. At least that was my gateway drug.

Our story begins when our school started universal breakfast a couple years ago. Universal breakfast means every kid in the whole school (we have almost 900) gets breakfast or at least the option of having breakfast at school. That also meant we had to make the most of our time in the morning. The librarian, ECS, and I set out to change the format of morning ceremony in order to save some time. Little did I know what it would become.

courtesy of CCSD Food Services

It started out basic. We mentioned the color day (we run on a six day schedule red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), the date, said the pledge, and had the moment of silence. Soon, a student suggested we add the weather, so we did. Then the PE teacher asked if I'd create an advertisement for rec center. Pretty soon morning announcements were nearly 10 minutes long and included nuggets of information from random facts about fruit to events coming up on the school calendar. This got me to thinking, "It's like the morning news." LIGHT BULB! What if the kids became reporters and created their own news segments? So I set out to create a curriculum around that idea for 4th grade.

In the meantime, word had gotten out about these commercials and I started making them for all kinds of things. We made one for smencils, Harvest Festival, Showcase Night, Reading Week, secret valentines, running club, and the Black & White Dance. It didn't stop there though. We made Good Idea/Bad Idea a regular segment to reinforce good behavior and procedures throughout the school. The crowning achievement of movie glory was the CRT pep rally. Third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers all made videos to get the kids pumped up for the CRT pep rally. By the end of the 2012-13 school year all I wanted to do full time was make movies.

This is really what happens when I get an idea.

Over the summer I went to the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute which you read a little about in my post, Passport to AWESOME. We were asked on the second day to write down what we were passionate about. I wrote down and erased a few things before I remembered what I said over and over at the close of the school year, "I wish I could just make movies." So I found myself in a group with other people who liked to make movies. Some of them had made real big screen movies and that was a little intimidating, but it was also an opportunity I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere else. Some of our group liked the storytelling aspect of movies and some like the production aspect. Another ADE, Mr. Don Goble, has a hashtag #powerofvideo on Twitter that leads to wonderful stories and resources on the topic. I learned a ton while I was there, but one project in particular stuck out to me. It was Mr. Josh Mika and his video about ChooseKind. You might want tissues for that one. It moved me.

So here I am now, getting ready to go back to school and I'm thinking about how my students can use video to give voice to their stories, their learning, and their ideas. I will probably still call it "the war movie with Nathan Fillion," but this experience has made me realize just what a powerful medium movies and video can be. It can give voice to kids who don't have it and inspire kids who just needed an outlet. Most of all, it gives kids power and invests them in their own learning in a way few other forms of media can.

Quick Tip: Managing Kid Flow

Often times the sheer number of bodies in your room will make you realize your power is all an illusion. An illusion you must keep up at all costs. Thus, sending these bodies to do things like return to their desks or work areas, line up, or retrieve materials can become a running of the bulls type situation. This is especially true with kindergarteners and fifth graders. I posit these solutions (I'm using getting in line just for the example's sake, but you can substitute any other similar situations):

• Call students by what they are wearing. If you're wearing green, you may line up. 
• Side note: Kids who camp out by the door in an effort to be first bother me. I will intentionally avoid calling something which includes them because of it. This is part of maintaining that illusion of power and control.
• Also, this is a good opportunity to discuss things like what a collar is and give some inverse examples like, "If you're NOT wearing your hair in a ponytail, line up.
• My favorite is when only a couple kids are remaining and I say, "If you're wearing clothes, line up." Inevitably, at least one kid just looks at you with a blank stare.
• Call them by the first letter of their name.
• Call them by their job title. I posted here about classroom economy and classroom jobs. Even if you're not using the economy portion, the jobs would still apply.
• In the same vein, use their numbers. If you have your class assigned to numbers make it a mini math lesson. Call all people whose numbers are prime or divisible by three. It makes lining up a little more challenging.
• Avoid using things that are not factual. For example, do NOT say, "Line up if you like Justin Bieber." There's no way to prove this and even though you're positive not every boy in your fifth grade class is a Belieber, you will find yourself on the losing end of a stupid argument if you try to say any of them can't line up.
• Call them by who is following directions. I always say, "Criss cross, applesauce, hands are in your lap, voices are off." It's to the point where the kids will finish it I say it so often.
• Use a ticket out the door. Use this as an opportunity to reinforce your objectives or I Can statements for the day. Have them solve a math problem or tell you a way to say eight. For example, one plus seven or two to the power of three. They can tell you a fact from the reading or answer a question about the material. This could even be written down on a literal ticket and they can line up when you approve it.

What are your favorite ways to manage the flow of your kids to prevent them from becoming an educational mosh pit? 

Classroom Economy including Jobs

Classroom economy seems to be a love/hate thing. Either you love it or you hate it, but I think it depends a lot on how you manage it. I liked the lessons my kids learned and the black markets that popped up along the way. Just like many successful classroom management ideas, this one is very front loaded. Setting it up and getting good practices going might take some time and you have to know it can always be tweaked, but I believe the pay off is worth it because your students become invested in being members of your classroom society.

What is a society?
I started with a discussion of what society is and what people do in a society. I led the conversation to point out that if everyone made their own clothes, took their own trash to the dumb, manufactured their own cars, and had to grow and harvest their own foods, raise cows, chickens, etc., it would be very costly and people wouldn't have time to do fun things because they would always be working on something. So, we each take on a job. One person makes cars for everyone. One person takes out everyone's trash. One person makes all the food. This way, everyone has a job so we all share the work. However, some jobs are ickier than others. Some job require more expertise and therefore, those people get a little extra money because of that.

Jobs
This naturally leads into the question: What jobs do we need done in our classroom? By putting the responsibility on the students to create the jobs, it creates investment and dedication from the beginning. They've chosen what needs to be done. It also gets them thinking critically. Be sure to point out that kids will be absent and someone needs to take care of that. Some jobs might require two people. Delegating will make your life easier too. While you can't delegate your gradebook, you can delegate checking papers like I mentioned in my post A Whole New View on Math Practice. Really take a look at what things in the classroom you CAN delegate to your students and give them that responsibility. It takes a lot off your plate and gets them further invested in your microcosm. Avoid giving students anything that has sensitive information about other students. Checking papers isn't usually an issue because students in the same class tend to know where one another stand. However, always ask yourself if it is infringing on the student's educational time. If you're using your higher level students to check papers every day and they aren't getting enrichment time from you, that's a bad thing.

Once we had a list of jobs, we would write a description for each one and evaluate, informally, if the jobs were extremely out of balance or didn't make sense. Each job was assigned an A, B, or C and that was the pay grade. A was $40 per week, B was $35 per week, and C was $30 per week. The C grade jobs were a little lighter than the A grade jobs. Next, each student was assigned a job. All of my students had numbers and I kept a jar full of popsicle sticks with their numbers so I could pick a kid actually at random. I used numbers instead of names so I could reuse the popsicle sticks each year. Drawing at random, each kid would choose a job. The following week, the students with C level jobs would pick first. Basically, I would reverse the list. I kept an Excel document so that if I needed to see who was assigned to which job or if I needed to see which jobs kids had already had in the past.

Credits & Debits

Just like the jobs, the kids mostly generate the credits and debits, but the teacher is an equal member of the classroom society so, he/she can contribute ideas as well. As the teacher, you can usually use reasoning to guide the discussion. To the left are some examples of things my third grade class from my third year of teaching chose. From my experience, the kids are actually pretty harsh on themselves. This is one particular area where you have to re-evaluate these every week to make sure the fees and credits are extreme. As students earn credits and debits, make a note on their credit/debit sheets immediately. If you wait until the end of the day, you'll forget.

Managing Their Money

While I think all the parts of a classroom economy benefit students and reinforce standards-based skills as well as real-life and character-building skills, managing their credits and debits has a direct connection to math. I usually just kept a general eye on my students, maybe a little closer on kids who might have the tendency toward shadiness. At the end of the day, as part of the closing routine, students would balance their accounts for the day. At the end of the week, students would get paid and be able to buy things from my store. The store was comprised of random things from around my house and things I found in clearance bins at Office Max. Folders, game books, erasers, pencils, books, and other useful things as well as some fun things. It gave students who came from low income families an opportunity to buy things for themselves as well as siblings. This was a big confidence builder for a lot of students. I just put post-it notes on items as "price tags."

Credit/Debit Log: Students had to write how many 1s, 5s, & 10s they would get/lose.

A Word on Black Markets

While your first reaction might be to quash black markets, you might want to think twice. Maybe you're thinking, "What do you mean 'black market'?" I had a student in my third grade class who saw the other kids needed a way of keeping their money safe, so she started making wallets out of duct tape. She made designs on them and made them in different colors and soon, she had a fat wad of cash. She was quite the little entrepreneur. On the other hand, I heard tell of a class where another young girl started requiring students to pay her protection money otherwise she "wouldn't be their friend." As long as the black market goods are within the guidelines of the classroom rules and promote positive, helping behaviors, I'd let the free market reign.

A Whole New View on Math Practice

You know how it goes: You teach the lesson then assign 30 problems for the kids to practice out of the book. Maybe it's a worksheet that came with your teacher's manual. The kids are dreading 30 of the same problem over and over for myriad reasons. The smart kids find it redundant. The middle of the road kids find it boring and the struggling kids want to give up before they start because you've pretty much asked them to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen.

Rather than assigning 30 problems they'll never finish, I started running my math practice as such. This idea is stolen from another teacher and I don't even remember who at this point, so thank you. Once the direct teaching portion of the lesson concluded, I would ask would was still completely lost (usually those Mt. Everest kids). They would meet me at a separate table for a small group reteaching and practice with teacher support. Everyone else would start practice. However, I would not give them 30 problems. They had two choices: they could do 6 problems I selected which encompassed the concepts from the lesson at low, medium, and high levels or they could do all 15ish problems (usually I would assign 1-30 even or odd). I would then put out my teacher edition answers with a marking pen. The kid who finished first with 100% correct answers would be in charge of the pen and grade everyone else's work.

I know what you're thinking: Why wouldn't every kid just do the 6 problems? Well, here's the catch. If a kid chose to do those 6 problems, he/she would have to get 100% on the first try or he/she would have to do all the problems, not just the evens or odds, but ALL the problems 1-30. So a kid had to have some serious confidence to give that a shot. As for cheating, when that first kid got 100%, he/she would have to bring it to the teacher to double check to make sure cheating wasn't going on. However, that is the only interruption during that small group time because once you have a kid who is checking work, he/she is the person the kids go to for checking. If someone turns in a paper and gets a certain number wrong, let's say 5, that kid gets sent over to the teacher to get help in small group.

As a side note, when it came to homework, I'd assign A, B, & C homework. If a kid wanted an A, he/she had to attempt both sides of the homework page. If he/she wanted a B, it would be side 1 of the homework and a C would be side 2 of the homework only. You could adjust this by grouping your kids and just assigning them A, B, or C instead of letting them choose.

Privileges & Consequences: A Classroom Management Gem

My second year of teaching fifth grade was THE worst. I screamed. A LOT. My class was unruly I had no idea how to fit everything in and it seemed like everyday I was just trying to avoid complete and utter collapse. For example, all in that year: a kid held a pair of scissors up to another kid's throat, most of my supplies were stolen, a girl told me her friend brought a gun to school, I had to call CPS, and my best friend was the counselor because of all the girl drama I had going on. That, however, was my last year as a screamer. I might raise my voice in excitement, but screaming, for me, is a thing of the past. Luckily, I had a fantastic teacher a couple doors down and I came in on my break (we were year-round) to observe her and pick her brain. The best thing I learned from that was the privilege and consequence charts. Observe.

Day one, you introduce the privileges and consequences. She said the key was to make sure to made them something that you would be willing to enforce when it came to the consequences and make sure you do it the same way every time. So just cause the kid is perfect the other 179 days of the year, if he/she shouts out or talks above a whisper, he/she still goes on the consequence chart. I'll use my privileges and consequences:

Privileges
Level 1 (aka Single A - because I <3 baseball mine was all baseball themed): Everyone asks for everything. The only thing they can do on their own is breathe. Now, this might seem annoying, but you're training them so they don't do things like get up while you're talking. They stay here for 10 days or 2 weeks of school.

Level 2 (aka Double A): Students can use the following WITHOUT asking as long as the teacher is NOT teaching a lesson or giving directions:

• Classroom library
• Paper towel and facial tissue
• Pencil Sharpener
• Waste basket

Level 3 (Triple A): All of the previous privileges PLUS:

• Supply cart
• Paper

Level 4 (Major League): All of the previous PLUS:

• Hole punch
• Stapler
• Tape
• Water fountain

Level 5 (All-star): All previous PLUS:

• Restroom
• Games (when work is finished)

Now, you can adapt this based on what your students value. However, restroom is usually best as the top privilege because most kids covet that. The agreement is that they may use these privileges AS LONG AS YOU ARE NOT GIVING DIRECTIONS OR TEACHING A LESSON. That's important and you tell them that if they abuse the privileges, they lose them. Nowadays, I level the kids up by class because I only see them once a week. Back in the day, each kid moved up (and down) independently. You could also move them as a table if you wanted. The deal is, the kids spend two weeks at each level, once a kid gets through a week without getting past level one or two (depending on the teacher) of the consequence chart, that kid moves up.

It's a system though, and you need the consequences as much as the privileges.

Consequences

Level 1: Warning

We all make mistakes, forget, get excited, shout out, whatever. Even the most angelic kid will have a bad day. That's why level one is a warning.

Level 2: Now they get a time out based on their age. However, when I was in the classroom, they lost one day of recess and moved down one level on the privilege chart.

Level 3: Lose the rest of the week's recess (so if it's Wednesday after recess they lose Thursday & Friday; Wednesday before recess, you lose all three remaining days) and move down on the privilege chart. So if a kid makes it to Thursday, he/she only loses Friday. Now, if a kid got to level 3 on a Friday afternoon (when kids tend to be squirrely - he/she would lose the WHOLE next week, Monday-Friday). This helped me because I didn't have to worry about which kids still owed me time. Everyone either had a week's worth or none at all come Monday morning. As a specialist, level 3 is that the kids sits out for the whole class period.

Level 4: Contact home and another drop on the privilege chart. Notice I say "contact," not call. Most of my parents that awful year did not have working numbers, so a note would go home with the kid. If it didn't come back signed, the kid lost recess until it came back. If that meant the rest of the year, so be it. You keep it and it's a record that you contacted home. This way, when the parent is wondering why her kid isn't doing so well, you can bring out all the level 4 notices that were signed. Calling is best and you should log that in your parent contact log, but if you can't, this is a good alternative. Paper trails are important and cover you as a teacher. Now that I'm a specialist, level 4 is a referral, cause, come on, 4 consequence chart moves in 50 minutes? Really?

Level 5: Any additional measures as necessary

This is the level that strikes fear into the hearts of kids. It's mysterious and foreboding. You can make up whatever you want on this level. Parent conference, referral, lost computer privileges, whatever. If a kid makes it to this level, he/she is at your mercy. 

When a kid gets on the consequence chart, I have it on my whiteboard and he/she just writes his/her initials on the proper level. KIDS NEVER ERASE THE CONSEQUENCE CHART. This way if you see a kid with eraser in hand, you know that kid is up to no good. The kid just initials in the level 1 box, then again in level 2 if necessary and so on.

When I was a classroom teacher, the kids used their numbers and moved those accordingly. Additionally, you can keep a log and have the kids write their offenses in it. I could keep track, but this might help if you have a particularly unruly class. Other choices might be to separate a kid from the group, although never in the front because that just gives the kid more attention. I find apology letters don't work too well, but they make great documentation if you want that to be a level.

Always remember, it's never too late to start something new OR to start over. Sometimes, you have to go back to those 10 days at the first level. Kids are like adults. They like freedom and privilege and this system puts the accountability back on them. I saw my stress level go WAY down when I started doing this. However you HAVE to be willing to stick with the consequences. NO SECOND OR THIRD WARNINGS. This is the hardest thing to get used to. 

Here's what this might look like in action (as much as I can in words):

"Ladies and gentlemen, you will be working on your writing for the next 20 minutes. While you're working, you are to be at or below a whisper. You are to work independently. If you become a distraction, if it even LOOKS like you're talking, you will move on the consequence chart."

You go to conference with a kid and Joey leans over to talk to Sherry.

"Joey, move yourself on the consequence chart for talking to Sherry."

Joey: But, I...

"It looked like you were talking and I said if it even LOOKED like you were talking you'd move on the consequence chart. Keep your eyes on your own paper."

You get right back to work conferencing with that first kid. If Joey whines and goofs at the board, he moves another level. You are no longer part of the equation. The kids decide if they get on that chart or not. You'll notice within the first week after that initial 10 days that the kids will get it right away as long as you're serious and don't say, "If you do that again..."

Walking in line: I expect you to have your hands in front of you, at your side, or behind you. Your voice is off so you can hear directions in case of an emergency.

Joey talks. 

Joey, consequence chart when we get back for talking in line.

No yelling or shouting or lecturing. Simple as that. Nowadays our smartphones don't leave our sides so you just make a note, "Joey - talking in line." If he forgets, remind him when you get back to class.

If you have questions or comments about this, please leave them in the comments below. I hope you give this a try and you find it helps deal with the stress you might feel in your classroom.