Here we go again.    Back in the Land of 10,000 Acronyms

 Just when you think you can not possibly recycle the same idea anymore, back it comes, dressed in a new acronym.  I don't know about other professions, but in education, that seems to be the norm.   Either we rename it, e.g. differentiation is a born again version of the one room school house,  or we rebrand it with a new acronym: Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP)  formerly known as Professional Development Plan (PDP) formerly known as pink slip-- something that harkens back to The Era Before Acronyms (TEBA).

Our new acronym is...drum roll..... PBR....  hmmm....that doesn't seem right.  PB&J  I don't think so. PabLum?  nope, that's not right.  Oh, wait a minute....  PBIS ( pronounced  PEE-bihs),   Wait for it......(Hint: A day after it was introduced we were told not to call it that in front of the kids because it sounded like....).   PBIS stands for positive behavior something something. 

The system we had before was called PAWS, an acronym that stands for positive something or other--I guess I'm not good with acronyms, but at least I got the positive part right.   Our school mascot is a tiger so, double bonus there. PAWS were slips in triplicate that we were supposed to give out  whenever we caught students doing the right thing. The PAWS were redeemable for edible and non-edible McDonaldi's type gifts.

Problem 1. First thing to go down was that the kids were angry if they didn't get a PAW when one of their classmates did.  "Why didn't I get one?  Wasn't I good?" was their whiny battle cry.  I tried to hand them out stealthily, but word always got out and I was accosted with, "But you gave __ one last week and I wasn't throwing anything, either."   I tried to help them understand that it was important to celebrate other students achievements and turn it into a teachable moment, but the more I thought about it, the more I sympathized with the kids.  If my co-workers always got the attaboys for the same things I was doing, I think my envy button would light up a bit.  So if an adult is capable of feeling this way, why would students be expected to be twice as magnanimous?

 I  finally resorted to hiring helpers every month.  I chose three types of helpers: Group one were students that demonstrated content knowledge and could be called upon to help instruct other students who were flailing around.    For example I would find the students who could demonstrate proper recorder technique (i.e. not banging it incessantly on the floor or using it as a periscope) and designate a few of them to help new students get caught up to the class. Group two  were the ones who behaved well.  I gave them very important positions like Person in Charge of Closing the Door or Person Who Gets to Sit Next to Me on a Chair in Front of the Class (PiCCDoP and PWGSNM.  (I have a feeling I need help in the deriving acronyms department)  The third group  were discipline problems whom I had finally caught doing something more productive than creating a public disturbance so I used the job as a way to reinforce that positive behavior. (I'm still puzzling over why kids want jobs in the class.  In my school days I would slink down in my desk so I wouldn't be called on to clap the erasers outside in the courtyard, a strangely coveted position)   At the end of the month, if the helpers had performed their jobs well, I would pay them 4 PAWS.  There were enough jobs for all the kids at least once during the year and it seemed to work well for the kids and me.  It was like being queen of a bee hive, minus the honey.

Problem 2:  Uneven distribution.  Some teachers gave PAWS out like candy.  Others were miserly.  Battle cry whine no. 2, "But Ms. blahdeeblah gives them out all the time," or "My teacher NEVER gives them out."  Kids quickly figured out who the Santa Paws were and made sure that they did stuff like picking up imaginary papers in the hallway or smiling like a pre-frontal lobotomy patient when that teacher was looking. 

Problem 3:  Thievery.  A nice little black market economic soon sprang up.  The forms were in triplicate, and that was supposed to alleviate that problem.   There was a white, pink and yellow layer.  You had to press down with a boulder to get something to show on the third copy and were supposed to keep one color, turn in another color and give the white copy to the student.  Everyone kept forgetting to turn in their copies or remember which colors were to be turned in,  turned in illegible copies or lost them.  And then the front office  became so inundated with colored paper that they stopped asking for the copies.  Underground economy went into overdrive.

Problem 4.  No more money for rewards.

Problem 5.  It didn't work.  The good kids were still good and the bad kids were still bad, which took place somewhere between the time the newness wore off and the underground economy exploded. 

So here we go again, except this time the forms aren't in triplicate.  Hooray for innovations. And to kickoff this repackaged failure, we sat in a meeting that lasted for 1 hour and three million minutes.  The presenters and the administration had little cat noses and whiskers stenciled on their faces.  I didn't ask why.  It was fairly obvious.  They had come down with feline leukemia.  

We got to play some fun fun fun games at this professional development led by the cat women.  Fun games like four corners.  Each corner of the room was labeled A, B, C or D.  One cat woman read a question and when the multiple choice answers were read, you went to the corner with the corresponding letter.  I just followed the faculty members who looked serious (2 of them).  We also got to stand up and play a variation of Who Put the Cookie in the Cookie Jar. The cat lady who demonstrated confused the word beat with rhythm, which even my second graders can tell you IS NOT THE SAME THING.  I went to the bathroom. I could've distilled the meeting down to 14 minutes,  and if we had cut out the games and other nonsense, it would've lasted as long as it takes to sing Hot Cross Buns if that song was sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks after smoking crack .  I don't understand why we have to inject a healthy dose of cute into meetings or be forced to play games suited for patients in a mental hospital recovering from aphasia.   I am more open to learning when it's presented in an academic atmosphere.  I don't need to play Pin the Tail on the Mousie to learn.  I am fully capable of comprehending sentences that have more than 5 words.

The day after the Feline Games. I went to talk to the Kindergarten special needs teacher whose opinion I value.  She is a wonderful teacher and has a lot of experience in behavior modification.  She and I remember the first go round with PAWS.  We talked about how she had gone into the classrooms and observed teachers and then implemented strategies for each teacher.  If the strategies failed or stopped working, she went back in and retooled.  The long and short of it was that her system, labor intensive as it was, worked.  I don't know why we asked the cat people and not the expert to formulate a behavior intervention plan.  

We also have instituted PEACE POINTS, which each grade level can accrue if their entire grade goes a day without an office referral. Every 15 points accrued is a reward ranging from a popsicle party to  pizza party to movie day.  I am highly, highly skeptical  that children have the ability to 1. think about the welfare of their group and 2. wait more than 1 day for a reward. "Listen, Jemeese, if you don't slug Antoine for calling you a booger nose, then your entire grade level with earn a peace point."        THWACK

PAWS is just a way to show the county we are doing something about school-wide discipline, and if we wrap it in a positive  acronym, then it looks like we're doing the right thing.  But we're not.  The right thing is research-based.  The right thing doesn't neatly fit into an acronym. The right thing in one school is not the right thing for another.   The right thing takes hard work and is labor intensive, and I, for one, would like to roll up my sleeves, and not take the easy way out.

I do understand the frustration our administration must feel having to deal with daily student eruptions.  I was standing in the principal's office one day when the custodian came in to tell her that for the third time this week, someone had taken a dump on the bathroom floor. I thought to myself,  is it really that hard to walk the extra 4 steps to the stall?"  Then I thought, "Wow, it sucks to be head of this school sometimes."  But to her credit, she took it in strive and told me that you have to keep a sense of humor.  First time I've ever seen an administrator act like a human. 

I think everyone's hearts are in the right place. We are, in effect, all in it together.  I just think the wrong people were called in for advice.  We should've had a faculty meeting that allowed us to talk about the issues in an adult way and not held a pep rally for people with early onset of Alzheimer's.  This is a serious issue; we cannot teach effectively if our students are disruptive.  It's  a complicated and difficult problem and I think we didn't tackle it seriously enough.

I have let a few weeks lapse before posting this.  After the winter break we spent specials time going over the school expectations, something I think should've been done at the beginning of the year and repeated prn (I like that acronym)  The following day the behavior school-wide as well as my classes had improved significantly, so I thought that perhaps I had been too hasty in condemning the initiatives.  I will admit, however; that I was taking bets with a few faculty members on how long it would last.  Bets ranged from 24 hours to a few days.  I said a week.  I won.