I can't believe it! I've stumbled upon a school wide behavioral system worse than Whole Brain Teaching.
It's called "Make Your Day Citizenship program."
Ford Middle School
Parents and kids who've lived the Make Your Day nightmare read the comments.
A teacher who's adding Whole Brain Teaching on top of Make Your Day Poor kids!
Wow, this is incredible (and not in a good way)! Do you know if there are actual, physical steps involved? I'm a little confused about how it works, but it looks bad--very bad.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they literally mean steps. Good gravy, I hope not!
ReplyDeleteI think it's - Steps 1 through 3 small to greater forms of teacher led ostracism for breaking rules.
Step 4 a parent is summoned to school. Parent has already signed an agreement to come whenever called.
Poor Kids. Poor teachers. There's also a point accumulating system wherein the kid must give himself a grade several times a day. How Orwellian.
You know, Title 1 schools must have School Improvement Plans to get federal funding.
Part of the plan must include parental involvement with the school (School Site Councils fulfill this requirement in many schools, for example) and part of the improvement is a straight up and down reduction in the number of student suspensions and expulsions.
And this sort of bologna fulfills those requirements.
Meanwhile, Earl Brown (whoever he is!)is making money. According to his website plenty of schools around the States, especially Arizona use this system.
Ha! Silly me, here I was envisaging a bunch of steps at the front of the classroom, kind of like the stool the boy with the dunce cap would be forced to stand on in the "good old days." I initially thought they were just steps in a process, but something about the way the kids and parents were describing the method (that it involved being publicly humiliated in front of peers, for instance), made me think that, just possibly, the steps were physical as well as metaphorical. Well, I'm glad they're not, but it doesn't make the system any better. In fact, if there were three or four actual steps at the front of the class, the system (of humiliation) would be more overt and more honest, with respect to its regressive nature.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for explaining. Thankfully, nothing of the sort has surfaced here in Canada, that I know of.
SCF, this is interesting. I'm working on a post about "Choice" for Kid-Friendly schools. Thanks for the reference!
ReplyDeleteSCF, can I add a link to your blog on the Coalition for KFS page? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSure. Thanks for reading.
ReplyDelete