You know those moments when you’re excited for something, and you share that thing with somebody, and they look at you like you just suggested skinning a puppy to make a wallet?
My director gave me that look when I showed her the below slideshow. It’s not going to my district staff, but it’s just too fun to keep to myself.
For older students, this is a good way to pass the time on the last day before break:
In one of my favorite TV shows, Dr. Gaius Baltar is called in to help with questioning a prisoner. He says, “You’ve tried the stick; it’s time to try the carrot.”
That was me two months ago.
But, you know… without the creepy smirk.
Not just sick of detentions, tardies, phone calls, and discipline, I was sick of the time and energy I was giving to the students who earned it the least.
Outside the frame, 29 obedient students are NOT getting the teacher’s attention.
It took my wife to point it out. The conversation went like this:
Vaudrey: I have six students that are consistent behavior problems. If each one gets a warning, a conference outside, and a detention, that’s 18 things.
Hot Wife: Why just send them out right away?
Vaudrey: Well, that’s not fair to those kids. I have to go through my steps.
Hot Wife: Well, it’s not exactly fair to the rest of your students that their education is interrupted by distractors. Also, those rotten kids are getting all of your attention.
Truth Bomb.
So I went to observe another teacher in the district who has SDC students for math support all day. These are students who ALL struggle with math, and a myriad of behavior issues come with it.
She awards her students with poker chips when they are on task.
Let’s just stop there–that’s the change that I made.
Yes, I know that Alfie Kohn wouldn’t be a big fan of a rewards-based system for discipline. Sorry, Alfie–this worked.
Also, not a mathematician.
A roll of tickets is cheaper for me than poker chips, so I went with that. I prepped each class on how the tickets would be awarded and jumped in.
The bell rings, I do a round of tickets for those already on the warm-up.
I play the Notes Song, I do a round of tickets right when it ends to students already noting.
During classwork, I do a round of tickets to those focused.
I started noticing signs of on-task-ness that I hadn’t before: A pencil in hand is the best example.
Fast forward four weeks to today, a minimum day before winter break. Auction Day.
Like this, but with less Levis.
I printed a list of auction items, brought in a cowboy hat (don’t all auctioneers wear those?), and displayed the items attractively on the wall.
I laid down a fairness rule: One item per student.
Then we went to town. This was the highlight:
Ryan (yes, that Ryan) proclaiming, “I’m finna git that Gatorade!” Then, after a student bid four tickets, Ryan screamed, “Thirty-nine!” Then he drank the entire 32 ounces in about 3 minutes. Pointing to his distended stomach, he boasts, “Look! I’m all pregnant!”
Improvements for the next Auction (which will probably be in six weeks):
Use Poker Chips instead.
Which means: Buy individual student bags and one bin per period for those bags to be stored.
Assign a Banker to collect and pass out the bags at the beginning and end of class.
Multiple auction items per student? Maybe.
No poker chips changing hands during the auction. Savvy students who wanted two items gave their tickets to another student and said, “Get those glowsticks for me!”
Kick out students that disrupt. I wanted so badly for this to be fun for everyone that I just spoke louder and louder. I know–I realize how silly it is. But it’s the day before winter break; they were probably going to be difficult anyway.
Some kind of activity to keep those busy who already bought an item. (See previous bullet)
In case anyone is interested, here are the coupons I used.
When I was a kid, I loved the Friday after Thanksgiving.
My dad would trundle all five of us kids out to the garage to carry in boxes of Christmas decorations and we’d set to work draping the house in greens and reds.
Huddled over a cardboard box, I’d blow the dust off, then lift the flaps and gaze into a mess of ornaments wrapped in newspaper.
That smell… to this day, when we take out the ornaments, I’m reminded of lush green Douglas Fir trees and Johnny Mathis.
Today was the first day back from two weeks of Spring Break.
That’s right, 16 days.
Twenty-three thousand glorious minutes of restful mornings, cleaning projects, and video games.
Today, when I returned to my class, the smell took me back. The class had sat, unoccupied for 4.4% of a year, and in that time, had reverted back to the same smell that it had when I walked in on August 5th, 2011.
On August 5th, I pulled up to my new job, excited with the prospect of a new school, new colleagues, new students, and a new culture. I unloaded the cardboard boxes from my car with the same excitement as when my family decorated our house in the wheat fields of Eastern Washington fifteen years ago.
Even though the students dreaded returning to school today, I started the day with the enthusiasm of Christmas boxes.
In my job, I banter with students quite a bit. I record a lot of their chatter on my computer–it makes for good writing later.
Avery: None of the solutions work!
Vaudrey: You have to show your work on paper. Paper is smarter than your brain.
Daniel: Nuh-uh! Paper is made out of trees and trees arenb t smart.
Vaudrey: I know that, I mean your brain is smarter on paper.
Victor: Your brain canb t get out of your body or you die.
Mark: Mr. Vaudrey, I heard about this guy on the History channel who ran, um, from San something all the way to LA without stopping. It was like three marathons in a row.
Nymnh: Duh, itb s called Forrest Gump.
Vaudrey: Forrest Gump is a fictional story.
Nymnh: No! Then why is there Bubba Gump Shrimp Company?
This particular short post isn’t about those, however. On Wednesday (before Nancy’s Christmas gift on Friday), Jasmine came into my class and said, “I brought the shirt!”
Now before you write angry comments about what a terrible person I am, there is a backstory:
In my class of Honors students, I permit a little more time for non-math chatter because the actual math doesn’t take them as long as the other classes. I permit some chatter in all my classes because I want students on my side. One day in the Honors class went like this:
Vaudrey: Good morning, first period. This is as loud as I can talk, so go easy on me today.
Student 1: What’s wrong?
Vaudrey: Eh, I’m just a little sick.
Student 2: You should stay home!
Vaudrey: I could, but it’s easier just to come in. Besides, who would teach the class?
Student 3: I would!
Student 2: When we’re sick, we stay home.
Vaudrey: Well… I’m more important than you.
This, of course, was met with rolling in the aisles and several rounds of “Aw, naw!” We all had a little chuckle and Jasmine’s shrill voice rang out.
Jasmine: I’m gonna put that on a T-shirt!
Several more guffaws and rounds of “I’ll buy that shirt!” and the class went on to discuss the addition of polynomials.
Well, a few weeks later, I got a homemade Christmas present that I wore proudly all day.
Here’s the front of it.
Obviously, I explained the shirt to every teacher, student, and staffer that saw it. As a stand-alone article, I probably won’t wear it to the mall or anything, but as a student gift, it’s fabulous.
And if she thought I meant what i said, she wouldn’t have made the shirt.
(Names and details have been changed for confidentiality.)
b b &and was recently examined for ADHD.b
I lean back at my desk withB relief and close the e-mail. I wonder if she got prescribed anything. Maybe that will calm her down.
Thatb s the problem with students like Nancyb they really challenge your teaching philosophy.
On the one side, I want all of my students to succeed and learn Algebra in my class. On the other hand, I would secretly love for a test to render Nancy a b Special-Edb label, so she could have an aide to supervise her, or (even easier) get her out of my class. About 92% of me wants her to succeed in my class with no help.
But that 8% of meb & oh, I hope for a release from her yelling, leaving her desk, poking other students, standing next to me during a lesson with her hand up, and other impulsive middle-schooler behaviors. But that 8% is present in every one of my sighs, every exasperated response, and every time I rub my temples as she asks, b Mr. Vaudrey, am I annoying?b
Yes, Nancy. Yes.
You annoy me and every other student in the class when you call out to them across the room during a test, when you ask questions to people who arenb t even looking at you, and especially when you monitor whob s next for the bathroom pass. Youb re annoying when you proclaim that youb ll buy students expensive birthday gifts, but never follow through.
Itb s annoying, even though Ib m pretty sure your mom is unemployed, and your promise to buy Brandon an iPad is all pomp to mask the shame.
Nancyb s mom is baffled at how to control her. There are rumors that she has Nancy stand in the corner for hours at a time just so she can have some peace. The staff at school isnb t sure where Dad is, but we know that the family doesnb t have much money. Nancy waited weeks to get glasses and didnb t bring any of the four items she promised for the class party.
So itb s Thursday before Winter Break. Nancy comes to my class before school starts.
b Good morning, Nancy. Youb re about 5 hours early to class.b
She smiles, shuffles her feet and avoids eye contact. b Umb & Mr. Vaudrey? Likeb & my mom works at Nordstromb s andb & umb & I didnb t know what to get youb & sob & umb & like, web & uh. We got you this.b She holds out a small, unassuming gift bag with a bent tag and a card. To: Mr. Vaudrey. From: Nancy.
b Thank you, Nancy! This is the first gift Ib ve gotten this year. Thank you very much.b I shake her hand and hold the gift still, hoping to signal to her that itb s polite to leave after you give a gift. She gets the hint and clumps off to first period in her too-big shoes.
Back behind my desk, I open the card first, like the good boy my mother raised. The card, written in Nancyb s pointed scrawl says, b Mr. Vaudrey thank you very much for help me in my work and helping me be a good person inclass.b
I peel back the tissue paper. Inside the bag are cologne samples from Nordstromb s.
From a low-income family who wanted to give a gift to their daughterb s teacher.
Creed Bratton once said, “I’m a pretty normal guy, I do one weird thing.”
My birthday is the same as Carrie Fisher‘s, sometime in mid-October. Growing up, I never got to do the fun, aquatic-themed birthdays like my friends who had Raging Waters parties in June, because it was always too damn cold in Eastern Washington in autumn, during my birthday.
You may get to drive before me, but you don’t have inner tubes, so who has the better birth month?
Naturally, when I went to college in L.A., we went to the beach at San Diego for my birthday and got lip rings. In order to be a California college student, you must have a lip ring, long hair, a longboard, and a popped collar, and in the autumn of 2005, I was at the apex of my douchebaggery.
As I turned 21, then 22, then left college, then had less and less friends nearby to celebrate the day when I burst forth from the womb, I found that birthdays are not quite the party that they were in college. Instead, my wife gives me a poster reading “Everything I learned in life I learned from Star Wars” to accompany my Obi-Wan bobble head. While these gifts would have been appropriate in college, they feel more substantial now. In college, everything feels temperate; like I don’t expect the gifts to last past graduation. I can’t recall a single birthday gift that I received in college, save for the electric razor that my parents gave to me in 2003.
With each passing year, I feel that my birthday becomes less and less a big deal. As my age increases, my birthday becomes less and less important, as you can see here in Figure A:
Figure A
By the time I’m 3, birthdays are rapidly beginning to lose their appeal. By 50, it’s just another Tuesday between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.
Naturally, I have to find ways to make my birthdays more exciting. In the latter half of college, I began to use October 21st as the marker to begin the most sacred of seasons: Christmas music.
Whoa! Don’t be so harsh now, dear reader! Baby Jesus can never have enough lauding, so what’s the harm in starting the season off with a few old school renditions of “Here We Go A-wassailing” before mid-terms come out?
This year, my plan to welcome a high [Yule]tide was kicked up a notch with the onset of a record player birthday gift from my parents. You better believe I hooked that baby up and the first wax I spun was this guy:
Whatever cares I had before the delightful crackling of LP reached my ears melted away with the first lines of “Slumber Song of the Infant Jesus”. Look at him; how can you not be put into a better mood? Aside from the obvious satisfaction I get from a guy who sings bass who can make it in the music biz, he was also signed to Capitol Records! The folks at Capitol got something right, before they went downhill in the next 30 years and started to give record deals to guys like Varsity Fanclub and Dem Franchize Boyz.
If I’m to be honest for a moment, Christmas music for takes me back to home. It makes me think of our house in Valleyford with vaulted ceilings and huge windows, of a wood-burning fireplace and a 20-foot Douglas Fir making the whole top floor smell like the forest. Whenever I hear the voice of Karen Carpenter, I can close my eyes and see myself, 11 years old and laying on the thick carpet at dusk, reading Calvin and Hobbes and somehow knowing that I have nothing — absolutely nothing — to worry me. When I think of peace, I think of Christmas.
Sing out, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sing We Now of Christmas.
