Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Back to the subject at hand...

Wow, check out this post by Mrs. Ris @ Mentor Matters... I think I need to share this with The Teacher.

3 comments:

Mrs. Ris said...

Hey... I found you via Dr. John L. I'm just reading along, enjoying your writing style and all the news you have to share.... and then, ME. Very cool. Thanks.

Your home reinforcement program from preschool has all the marks of a success. Very impressive; I wish my students' parents were as together about this stuff. Will you be doing something similar this year?

Also, I love how you appreciate The Kid, despite... and BECAUSE of his uniqueness.

I'll be checking in alot. Thanks for sharing...

molly_g said...

Thank you! It was nice to see your program and that they were similar. We are going to try for a happy face/sad face kind of a program in kindergarten, although the Teacher is aiming for a more focused result: one or two goals to earn happy faces on during class. So now, we're going for "keeps self and others safe (no hitting)" and "keeps an inside voice." It's not been going well. He hasn't gotten a happy face yet.

Mrs. Ris said...

If after several days he hasn't been successful, the plan should change. Otherwise, all it does it teach failure. The happyface/ sadface set up is likely, in fact, to be a "set up" for failure. At this point we know your sweetie is just not likely to be safe all day, right? My suggestion, have her count the incidents of hitting/hurting others, then reduce by half or a third, then that is a more manageable goal.

The hard part is no one wants to accept an expectation that anyone will be hurt.

That's why they will likely need to make other changes in the classroom. They probably already have.... does he have close supervision?....the kindergarten aid or some other caring person at his side during high incidence times of day? transitions, large group activities, etc?

Again, good luck to all of you. Keeping you and The Kid in my thoughts!