I teach at a private school, and some teachers/parents are concerned with the class as a whole receiving punishment for the negative behavior of two or three students. I understand that there are different levels to WBT that target individual students, but I am obviously starting with level one and therefore explaining my management technique as it pertains to level one.

I see the value of the scoreboard and I am very excited about using WBT; I just want to be confident in explaining it to others. What do I say when I am confronted with the issue of treating the class as a whole for positive and negative behavior? Also, how do I tell parents about the levels? I really want to use WBT, but I am not confident explaining WBT to others at the moment. When I say that students are treated as a whole group, the mood in the conversation suddenly shifts and others say that students need to be treated individually . This is my first year teaching and my first year implementing WBT, so any advice is appreciated.

This is such a great question and one that I dealt with at the beginning of this past year! Here was my response:

I understand that many of you may be used to individual behavior grades and reports. However, in our classroom, as well in society in general, it is important that we learn to work as a team. We must learn how encourage each other, set examples for each other, and in the end come together for the common good. The scoreboard, in the beginning of the year, helps us to learn this cohesiveness that will carry over into your child's everyday life. There will be a time in which individual behavior will be addressed and your child will have every opportunity to shine like the bright star they are! We will have leaders that will step up and lead the class in various activities (just like life outside the classroom) and we want each child to lean how to be a leader, not a follower! If you will give our classroom behavior plan a chance, you will see that your child will rise to the top and become the leader and star you already know they are!

After my response, I really didn't have any problems. Sure I had parents that were skeptical, but in the end they were so happy with the "family" feel in my classroom that they were requesting that my students siblings coming into Kinder be placed in my classroom. Once they saw the results, they believed. Many times we as parents just go into a natural protective mode. We all think our child is perfect and an angel (unless you are me lol...who knows that my kids halos are held up with horns some days). Just be as understanding as you can but ultimately it is your classroom. There will come the time for the individual behavior reports and the parents of the little "challengers" in your class will be wishing there was just the scoreboard again!

HTH
Farrah Shipley
WBT Texas
Co-Director Model Classrooms