I'll admit, when I heard the idea of the Super Improvers Wall, I had my doubts. A lot of the WBT ideas are cooked up in Elementary. I teach middle schoolers with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities. When they get kicked out of every other class for behavior they come to me. I run a Response to Intervention period for the students who are on their way to being in my class all day.
Last year I attended a seminar I was sent to by my Director of Special Services run by this gentleman who runs a private day school for kids with Oppositional Defiance Disorder, BD, etc, who straight up said, "You cannot get these kids to be better without a token economy. Unless you run a token economy, you will never succeed."
I hate doing token economies. I am not an accountant. I am not good at them. They're great for some people, but not for me.
So I said, "Well, every other WBT idea has been great. I'll give it a shot," and I put up my wall. And I was scared to death. Is this going to work?
When they came in, I explained it. When you improve on something, you put up a star. "Well, what happens when we get stars?" When you get 10 stars, you get a new color? "Well, what do we get when we move up a color?" You move up a color, and you've improved ten times! "Oh...ok."
They weren't super excited about it. But they didn't knock it either! They just weren't sure what to think.
It started slow. I would put up a star, then they started asking me to put up stars, then I had them put up stars.
My all-day students bought in right away. The RTI students took a bit longer. It's taken them about a month and a half to buy-in. But here's the real story, here's the zinger:
Today, Peter came in. I haven't seen him in about two weeks because he's been in in-school suspension for various reasons, or with the counselor. Today he comes in and says, "Mr. Sudia! I went a whole week without a TAP! (our school wide mark on their agenda for bad behavior of some sort, lost homework, dress code, behavior, etc) Can I put up five stars?!" "Yeah buddy!" I said, giving him a high-five.
He put up five stars, getting him to 10, and his first level gain, up to blue. He was so excited.
I don't think there's anything that shows the universality of our principles than a 14 year old gang-banger who is always drawing his gang's tag on his school supplies and getting them taken away, who I know has had guns held to his head several times in life, who got suspended last week for shoving one of our more athletic male teachers, who has almost been in regular fights after school, get super excited and bright-faced about using a marker to draw a star on a colored piece of paper, so he can get to the next color.
This stuff works people, doesn't matter who you're working with.
WBT Intern 2011-2012
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