Welcome to a new school year! This time of year is similar to that of Christmas morning. It’s a day so many have anticipated for weeks. There are fun surprises and lots of new things happening. As a teacher, the fun happens in watching our new students participate in the lessons and activities we spent the summer creating. It’s like watching someone open a handmade gift. Teaching is our passion and we love to watch our students light up with excitement over learning.

However, not everyone comes to school with a positive attitude. We all have bad days. We all have days when school doesn’t feel so important when there are important matters happening at home. Life can get in the way of learning. But being at school can also be a safe place to be distracted. A place to feel encouraged, confident, and needed. What we learn at school can have a direct impact on our future. That’s why, even on bad days, it’s important to find the self-control and show up for class.

We can’t just show up physically, we have to all show up mentally, too. That’s why we would like to reward those students who choose to participate in class each day in a positive manner. The way we do this is by awarding each student, each day one point.

When you walk through the door, on time, your point is collected. Now you are tasked with being a positive presence and participant in order to keep that one point. Here is a typical expected scenario for a student who just walked into room 008:

Walk through the door and drop off my cell phone in the pocket with my number. I couldn’t find my pencil this morning, so I grabbed the one in my pocket and noticed the sign above said “highlighters needed,” so I grab that also. I head over to my desk, take a seat and begin to fill out my homework organizer for the day. After I’ve written the daily target I open my book and read.

This is a typical day to start class. If this student had been absent the day before they would have visited the absent file before heading to their seat and taken care of anything they might have missed. If this student finished their current book that morning at breakfast they would take the time to find a book from their future reading list, locate it in the library and check it out on a Chromebook. There are lots of different scenarios based on lots of different factors. However, notice that none of those include horsing around with other classmates, running around the classroom, walking in the room empty-handed, sitting at a table rather than a desk, hiding in a corner to check a Snap/text, or any other disruptive behavior. That’s because these disruptive behaviors would be grounds for losing the point for the day.

The objective is to be a positive presence and participant in our classroom. It doesn’t mean having all the right answers. If you had all the answers then we teachers wouldn’t have jobs! Being a positive presence means being friendly to classmates, sharing by raising your hand or waiting for someone to finish talking, helping someone when they need help. Participating is just as important if not the most important part of learning at school. When you choose to sit at your desk and not try you are making the conscious choice to not learn. Choosing not to learn is not ok in room 008! Asking for help is important, but sometimes we just need to get started and try something to work it out for ourselves. This can often teach us more than we expected. The standard in room 008 is that every student will try to provide an answer or idea for every assignment and activity. Sure we might need to ask a question first or go back and reread directions, but the expectation is to always try.

Here is another example of a student who might be having a bad day. Maybe they come in the room and get started like they are supposed to, but during the lesson, they keep talking to the person sitting next to them. That person is distracted and not learning anything along with the person doing the distracting talking, so now two people aren’t learning anything. Plus the class is starting to pay more attention to the talking rather than learning from the lesson. At this point, the teacher would stop the lesson and verbally tell that student, “Jay, you’ve lost your point. Please get focused.”

This is the equivalent of a verbal warning. The student recognizes they are not focused and now have two choices: get focused and earn the point back or continue to be disruptive and receive a consequence from the teacher. Earning the point back would mean this student changes their behavior, begins to pay attention to the lesson or activity and starts to show they are being a positive presence as well as being a positive participant. If the student can’t get it together and continues to be disruptive they may earn a lunch detention that day. If the disruptive behavior escalates and they can not handle being part of the class they will be sent to talk with Mr. Paramore or Mr. White. Either of these consequences will result in a phone call or email home.

The REWARD!

So you’ve racked up all these points throughout the quarter, but what does that mean? It means you’ve earned a FREE DAY! At the end of each quarter, so after quarter grades have been submitted (with the exception of 4th quarter) any student who has maintained 80% of their points will be invited to a FREE DAY. Our first free day will include a movie with popcorn, snacks, and drinks. Those who do not earn the free day will still have ELA class, with a teacher, and be expected to complete an assignment that day.

Each quarter students will start over with collecting points towards earning their free day. We hope that this will be a way for all students to have a positive experience this year in 8th grade ELA.