Our Most Requested
Classroom Management Interventions

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Our Spring '08 workshops were really packed with participants so we read a lot of evaluations. I'm workshop instructor, Ruth Herman Wells, M.S.

Many of the evaluations from the Spring inservice tour included requests for us to post favorite classroom management interventions.

We noticed that many workshop participants requested the same handful of interventions. By popular request, we are posting your favorite behavior and classroom management interventions right here.

Most Requested Classroom Management Interventions

# 1 Favorite Intervention
Where Will Your TV Watching Skills Be Needed?

Any classroom management intervention that used a classified ad format was very popular. The method listed here was the most popular of the bunch.

The intervention is to ask students to write Help Wanted ads based on the set of skills they are acquiring. Many participants liked the examples we gave in class of the ads students create and wanted copies. They like how these silly ads may leave students wondering "Where will my TV watching skills be needed?"

Here are some of the classified ad-style interventions that drew the most comment:

Experienced TV Viewers Needed for High Paying Jobs

Large company seeks TV viewers to work long hours in a horizontal position. Must like donuts and chips.

National Firm Needs Nappers Now

If you like to sleep, this job opportunity will open your eyes. If you wake at the crack of noon, we can wait. On-time applications not accepted.

Mall Rats Wanted for Executive Positions

Years of leaning against the wall or sitting on a bench required for exciting opportunity with major corporation. If you know how to hang out for hours, then your future as one of our hard-driving employees is simply unlimited. If you can demonstrate the ability to say something really nasty about everyone who walks by, then you may be that special person we need in customer relations. Put those valuable years of experience as a mall rat to work with us.

Violent Video Game Pros Needed for Government Espionage

If you can navigate mazes, break codes or kill the beast, then a career with the CIA or FBI may be for you. We need people like you who can get to the highest level no matter what vicious dragons or pre-historic dinosaurs get in the way.

# 2 Favorite Intervention
Gallons for Graduates
 

Participants really like interventions that sell the value of school, and wanted some more.

Here is a new one. Right now it is a particularly easy sell if you relate school to the price of gas. Here is the connection. The typical dropout earns about $500 per month working minimum wage at one or more jobs. With gas currently approaching $4 a gallon, and minimum wage approaching $7 an hour, have students calculate how many hours a dropout must work to buy a tank of gas.

To make the numbers come to life, have students determine how long they must work to just drive to a neighboring city, nearby state, or popular regional destination. Have them determine how much they will spend just to go to their job each day.

With gas expected to top $5 a gallon in the near future, be sure to help students discover that one dropout with one job may not be able to afford a tank of gas while also paying housing, medical bills, car payments, clothing, recreation and so on.

Help students to discover that if gas prices continue to rise, dropouts may be able to afford a car they can't afford to drive. By contrast, graduates earn roughly twice the salary of dropouts and may be better prepared to stay on the road. You are re-shaping students' image of school by making it critical to being able to afford to drive.

A fun follow-up intervention: have students illustrate the phrase, "Gallons for Graduates." They can use art supplies or computer clip art to create fanciful images like a merged diploma and gas pump, or by showing a gas station where everyone who is buying gas is wearing a cap and gown, or clutching a diploma.

# 3 Favorite Intervention
The Best-Liked Bully-Busters

 

Our Spring workshop participants commented a lot about our behavior interventions for bullies.

They liked that our interventions don't rely on remorse or compassion because so many bullies appear to lack those qualities.

They appreciated how the interventions were always related to the bully's self-interest, and agreed with what we teach in class, that many bullies only care about I-Me, I-Me, I-Me, and nothing else.

On the workshop evaluations, a number of participants asked us to post more examples of relating anti-bullying interventions to the self-interest of the bullies.

Here are a couple of posters that illustrate that. They are good examples of how to always be sure that anti-bullying interventions are closely tied to what the student can lose or gain by using bullying behaviors.

A lot of the counselors also liked the use of humor when working with bullies. An example of that is shown in the second poster. We do strongly encourage that humor be incorporated in anti-bullying interventions to streamline your interactions and improve your results.

Here are Posters 71 and 97. You don't need to buy the poster; you can just use the technique pictured. If you do want to buy posters, they're $8 each.

If you want additional anti-bullying ideas, we have many more posters that you can view to get innovative methods that you can easily adapt and use.