Valentines Day, the sweetest day of the year. Suddenly the front office smells like a florist or a funeral parlor depending on ones perspective! Love is in the air, couples smooching around every corner… kinda makes you want to gag!! I look forward to this day as much as I do Groundhog Day being that I am single and unattached myself. However today I received the best Valentine’s present of all… Diego checked out of Royal!!
After my one more strike you're out speech this week, he couldn’t help himself but to cuss out his PE teacher the very day he returned from suspension. And… although his mother was a bit reluctant to move him to our continuation school "with all the bad kids," we eventually convinced her that he had slim or no chance to graduate from Royal. We also added he would headed toward an expulsion hearing soon if he remained. They finally agreed they would check out the continuation school OR send him back “over the hill” (aka Los Angeles) to his sister where he came from in the first place. Somehow with this news, the cloud lifted from above the office and the day just got sweeter… the smell of fresh cut roses filled the air and all was good in the land!
I managed to dodge the Senior Hug Day activities by burying myself in a mound of testing data. After counting my fingers AND toes I managed to find a positive trend for once. Today's data digging revealed a 5% increase in the number of students who improved their scores from the previous year.
Last year we began giving incentives or “rewards” for students who improved their STAR scores. Names of students who had improved from the previous year were put in a hopper for a drawing for gift cards. Students with the largest gain in each grade were treated to a limo lunch with afriend of their choice. Now this may sound like bribery to you, but attempting to convince teenagers to take a state-mandated exam seriously with no ties to grades or graduation is an uphill battle. Of course this exam will ultimately determine whether a school is taken over by the state (PI status) or eventually lose its accreditation. This however, has no relevance to the average 15 year old. But… a $50 gifts certificate to Best Buy, now that is a different story.
When we were discussing this year’s awards, we launched into a debate about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Now being a former psychology teacher, I have never been an advocate for handing out candy bars for A’s on math exams. I understand that once that Snicker bar (aka stimulus) is removed Pavlov's dogs will stop drooling. However, in a desperate attempt to convince kids to see the relevance of this exam, we resorted simple bribes.
So what’s up with this generation? Doing well for the self-gratification no longer seems to work. We have “conditioned” these children since birth that if they are going to invest their time and energy there should be some reward at the end. I don’t know the answer to this one. I do know we are attempting to steer our ship into new waters so that every teacher and student has “ownership” of the school as well as a vested interest in its success. This process won’t happen overnight… until then bring on the gift cards!
