Interested

Are you interested in the best way to keep a Kindergarten student on task during this time of year? Well it's funny because it is a method that never worked for me while teaching third grade. Maybe because the children were too old to care about such things or it was not cool for them to care. Either way this never worked. I happened to be in a teacher's classroom. One child was crying because she did not have a chance to complete an activity before it was time to switch centers. The teacher and students tried to ignore her and continue with their next center. She started to get louder and louder until she was screaming about it not being fair. The teacher did not say anything directly to the student; instead she went over to the list of things that they made telling Santa what they wanted. Then the teacher says in a calm voice, "I guess I'm going to have to tell Santa that 'Taylor' does not want that special toy that she said she wanted since she's crying and scream. Maybe I should call him on my cell phone now and let him know." In the time that it took the teacher to walk from the list over to grab her phone, the little girl stood up, stopped crying, and moved to her next center.

The lesson that I learned from this moment was that it not force that will make children mind an adult. Instead, it is finding something that they care about to make them listen. That child really cared about Santa coming to her house and bringing the things that she wanted. We are allowed to have corporal punishment as a consequence at our school. It has been nice that around this time of year I don't hear or see children crying and screaming down the hallway headed to the Principal's office. Instead, within each classroom is the simple reminder that one special night this month there is a possibility that if they are good enough they might just receive something that they hoped for.