Primary teachers are fond of saying, “A child has to do well enough on the playground to do well enough in the classroom.” As a self-contained middle school teacher I found the axiom to be true in that setting also. I knew the middle class parents would not let me include social skills in their children’s report cards and yet the gap between those “inside circle” students and the “social outcast” was painful to experience. This is what I did.
We started out the year in straight rows. At least once a week I would wander away from the front of the teaching area and share a vignette from my school days. They were always tales of how being tablemates with my best friends made my day. Within three weeks I had the leaders of the class privately approaching me about forming groups. It was essential that they initiated this request – it allowed me leverage – the currency of adolescence.
The façade of me being reluctant allow me the caveat of “OK I am willing to but (I love those “Buts” when you have leverage):
- being a member of a group was optional.
- all members of a group had to do better than how each student preformed when not in a group. As we neared the end of the first month I had a pretty clear picture of what each student’s academic norm was.
- the group would be limited to a month
- new groups formed every month and previous composition couldn’t be duplicated
- any groups larger than four members had to have special approval.
- if a group was warned about…and did not change the group could be separated… with members not having the option of joining other groups.
With much energy they submitted their requests for groups. A side bulletin board posted the approved groups along with the above rules. And yes, there were some “loners.”
However, the beauty of the design appeared by the start of the third month. As a new month approached, groups of BFF (Best Friends Forever) were in jeopardy. How do teenagers preserve their haven? The answer: add a loner. Every month the loners’ value increased. Of course, in this system new kids where most welcomed. Talk about an easy way to integrate a new member.
It was great to have the two or three academic-oriented middle class students in a group openly seek a loner. As an “in” group approached me to see if it was OK to add an “outsider” I had the leverage of reverse psychology, “I don’t know. Do you really think you could handle his lack of…, her habit of… (sometimes this included social hygiene)?” The key was they were initiating the request.
Norms and Privileges
Each month a side bulletin board listed the group’s names and its members on the left side with rows and columns to the right. As you can imagine several proposed names were rejected. I had to secretly educate myself on what the words meant.
The school dates of the month were the columns. All obligations were listed on an adjacent whiteboard. For instance, doing your spelling homework was worth 5 points; math 5 points; bringing your field trip form 10 points etc. The last column had the running total accumulation.
While the quality of their work was individually recorded in the academic grade book, the fact that an obligation was done was a collective social score.
At the start of the day groups presented their assignments and received their points. All members had to have their obligation done for the group to receive the points for that item. One group might have all members presenting their spelling homework and field trip release form but one member didn’t do the math assignment – that group’s score would be 15 points.
It was amazing how members contacted each other at night to remind them to do each obligation…learning truly is a social event.
All social privileges were bestowed based on a group’s points. This included which groups left for lunch first, first pick of an assigned topic for social studies research, running errands, etc. The group in first place at the end of the month got to pick a charity to donate $10 (Aah, how we subsidise our profession) from a list of approved organisations. When they received a thank you letter – they beamed.