Teaching Tip of the Day- Creative Discipline

We are patted on the back when we come up with creative lesson plans and assignments which ARE effective methods of teaching. Since it's the end of the year, behavior has been more of a nuisance than ever. Obviously. I find myself giving the same students the same writing assignment for a different "crime" which is worthy of disciplinary action, yet not enough to send the student to the office. Some parents never responded to me through emails and phone calls so I'm not left with many options.

I had a light bulb moment. Why not get creative with my discipline too? Well there is a clear reason why I will try to avoid getting too creative in the future, but for now hear me out. In a book, Restorative Discipline, it says that students should receive an equal form of discipline. For example, if a student throws a paper ball on the ground, the student will have to pick the paper ball off the ground and throw it out. If a student writes on a desk, the student will have to clean the desk. It clearly says to NOT have the student clean ALL the desks because that is not fair. Personally, it sounds fair to me, but anywho.... I would have to think quickly and use students' behavior against them.

Here's where I got creative: Students are divided into groups working on posters with big yellow lined post it paper supplied by me. One student decided to use the paper to create a terradactyl (sp?) size paper air plane. Cute. Real cute. (It actually was pretty hilarious because that thing zoomed across the room). He threw it and it hit another kid in the back of the head and all the kids laughed including the student that just got rammed by on over sized flying post it. I even had to with hold my laughter. But he needed to be addressed so that the other students didn't decide to become paper engineers as well.

I asked him to pick up his air plane and bring it to me. No no that wasn't enough. He needed something more. He needed it to back fire since his prank was such a success. Ah ha. My genius idea (that would give me anxiety for the rest of that week) was to make him wear it. He and I have a friendly enough relationship and he's pretty outgoing so I knew he would go along with it. I told him to turn around because he was going to wear the weight of his decision on his back. Actually I didn't think of that clever line until now. I said "You're proud of this? Great. Cool. I want you to be so proud of it. You're going to show it off proudly to everyone a little longer." And that's when I began to tape the giant paper of flight to his back. He laughed and the kids laughed and I was like a hyena inside. I was like my own comedy show at that point. I had myself in knots cracking up. So he rocked it for about 5 minutes and then I called him back up to have it be removed. And I thought of a witty phrase to say to disguise my overwhelming sense of guilt from the possibility of getting in trouble for taping a kid. "Next time, think before you act because your decisions may be a little more permanent than you originally thought." I said it with dignity like the entire thing was planned from the beginning.

Oh yeah. 1 other thing, I couldn't capture a photo of him sneakily on my own, so I just was upfront about it and asked him if I could take a pic. He was a good sport and allowed it.

Reflection: I'll probably never do that again. Writing assignments it is.

Do you think this was a good idea or a bad idea?