I briefly saw a piece on the news the other night about students being given monetary or other incentives for good performance. This is not exactly a new story, as parents have been doing it for eons and schools have had programs for this for years (Renaissance comes to mind). But I was thinking ... can it work the other way?
No, seriously. Can we start fining the students who waste our instructional time?
I don't mean those who fail our classes. There are a variety of reasons a student fails a class so it would not be fair to charge them money for failing, but what about those who cause us to get behind in lessons because we spend 5-10-15-20 minutes each class getting them to be quiet? What about those who have us running around like crazy making sure they have makeup work because they have an unexcused absence or that they have work to do in ISS because they are in trouble and will therefore miss class because of it? The chronically tardy? The always-in-the-bathroom? The truants?
Seriously, I think you can make some serious coin as a teacher if you start fining the miscreants in your classes. The money could go to buying classroom materials from the smallest box of chalk or the most high-tech smart board, so it does go back to the school. And you could set it all up in some sort of rubric (and set up a contract that you have them sign off on along with your syllabus). It could be something like this:
Each minute tardy = $.50; 3 tardies results in additional $1 fine.
Each recorded instance of wasted class time due to talking, being out of your seat, etc. = $1
Each recorded instance of eating or drinking that is not allowed in class = $2
Each recorded instance of use of unauthorized electronic device (cell phone, iPod, etc.) = $3
After-school detention assigned by teacher = $5
ISS, not assigned by teacher = $5 per day
ISS, if assigned by teacher = $6 per day
OSS = $10 for under 5 days; $15 for more than 5 days
Enact it, record it, add it up and send a bill with the report card. If my kid came home with that, he'd straighten up REAL fast.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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6 comments:
There was a teacher at the school I student-taught in that seriously did this. He would fine students something like 25 cents each time they had a late paper or disrupted class. Then, if students ever forgot their lunch money or whatever, they could use the spare change from the jar.
As this is the first time I've ever visited, I'm going to assume that you would (if you were truly going to pull the trigger on this) plan to weave such a system into a classroom agreement at the beginning of the year; think on how you can leverage that language of public agreement in ways that benefit the classroom, as Mr. Bleckley related; and generally seek to find ways to keep "miscreants" from disrupting the classroom that do not involving sending their parents a bill after a year of misbehavior.
Don't mean to sound harsh, but this sounds less "jaded" and more "completely burnt out."
Yeah, but don't take it too literally. I was really just kinda having some fun here, to be honest.
The best part of your plan is that you could probably completely fund those positive $$ rewards with the fines and still have money left over.
Oh, wait, that's not a good thing, is it?
Did you enact this plan in the second semester. I would be very interested to hear about how it worked out for you.
No, I didn't enact it. I figure I'd wait until I got tenure ;)
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