Classroom Community

The balance between kids buying into the system and someone being in charge has always been a delicate one for me. Years ago I did all the classroom helpers thing with a line leader and the paper monitor and the trash collector, etc., etc.. When I realized how much time I was spending every Monday morning setting up the new jobs of the week, it had to go. There's nothing I hate more in the classroom than wasted time! It slowly morphed into the special person of the day which meant I had one person who did everything that day attendance, lunch count, you name it. I would go through the list in alphabetical order or whatever order we came up with. I swore I'd never go back to classroom helpers again. For some reason this year, I just never got things organized. I still haven't even memorized my class list in alphabetical order. (Once again the phrase "old age" is clanging in my head.) We've tried a few different systems to handle attendance and calendar and they just keep falling apart. I basically would just give the attendance to whoever looked somewhat focused. We started the year doing calendar at the beginning of math time with the advisory that it wasn't very important to me. I have since learned that Sutter 2nd graders LOVE doing calendar whether anyone else is participating or not! A couple weeks ago I succumbed to their whining and assigned a person each day to do calendar first thing in the morning while I was checking in homework and everyone else was doing their Daily Language Review. That worked until I forgot about it 3 days in a row and the incessant whining returned. Yesterday we had our first class meeting to just check in and see how everything was going. I'm still not sure how it happened but for some reason after we finished, the conversation returned once again to the calendar problem and the burning desire to have JOBS like room 8 does. They came up with some interesting systems - a different person for each day of the week for the month and then switch to a different 5 kids for the next month. Not bad. I never would have thought of that one on my own. But when it was all said and done, I pulled out the classroom helpers pieces (frogs, of course) and before I knew it the class was quietly doing their math - a bribe - and RW and I were labeling the frogs with jobs and names. They were so darn happy I couldn't believe it. Was it about finally breaking down the teacher and getting their own way or do they just think it isn't normal not to have jobs in school? After all, that's the way it was done in kindergarten and first grade. Looking back on it I still find it hard to believe the way it all happened. I'm not usually that easy. For some reason this class is teaching me to relax and let down my guard. They are just one of those groups you can have fun with and still get back on task. So, today my most vocal students had their jobs in place. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy they were and how happy everyone else was just to watch them do their job. It is amazing the power that buy-in has. Suddenly their voice has power and they can help create their own classroom community. I can stand up there and talk about teamwork until I'm blue in the face but one small victory like classroom helpers and the entire room feels different. Everyone is participating in class discussions, they're creating punctuation charts, their library books all came back, they're helping each other figure out regrouping. Would that have happened if I assigned classroom jobs on the first day of school? No way. It came as a result of fighting for something they believed in. As trivial as it may seem those jobs made all the difference between a class led by Miss Allen and one that hears every voice.