Student voted out of classroom!!!

[laylo]

Kindergarten teacher here. There's nothing wrong with the other kids being involved in the discipline, even occasionally in front of the class. But it has to be done in a loving, positive way (which five-year-olds are certainly capable of). i.e. "It makes us sad that our friend Alex is not following the rules of our classroom. We can't wait for him to fix it [the behavior] so he can come back, because we like him and we miss him when he's not here." I also don't understand this vote happening after the child had already been returned by what I'm assuming was an administrator. However, like Sensuret I am skeptical about the accuracy of this story.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by laylo

Kindergarten teacher here. There's nothing wrong with the other kids being involved in the discipline, even occasionally in front of the class. But it has to be done in a loving, positive way (which five-year-olds are certainly capable of). i.e. "It makes us sad that our friend Alex is not following the rules of our classroom. We can't wait for him to fix it [the behavior] so he can come back, because we like him and we miss him when he's not here." I also don't understand this vote happening after the child had already been returned by what I'm assuming was an administrator. However, like Sensuret I am skeptical about the accuracy of this story.

I would think you'd have to be very careful about how it was presented, and you couldn't do it with every class. Odds are you would have one student who would take their constructive criticism too far, or wouldn't understand the aim of the exercise.

Your example would work well, but I wonder how many classrooms would be able to do it successfully.

[laylo]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

I would think you'd have to be very careful about how it was presented, and you couldn't do it with every class. Odds are you would have one student who would take their constructive criticism too far, or wouldn't understand the aim of the exercise.

Your example would work well, but I wonder how many classrooms would be able to do it successfully.

I suppose it is dependent on a strong culture. In my school, and my class in particular, there is a high number of kids with mental and behavior issues and we modeled this language a lot early on. The kids caught right on and within a couple weeks it went from "Hey, everybody shut up!" to "Class family, please make a better choice." I've never seen a child denigrate another in this process.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

I would think you'd have to be very careful about how it was presented, and you couldn't do it with every class. Odds are you would have one student who would take their constructive criticism too far, or wouldn't understand the aim of the exercise.

Especially with a kid on the autism spectrum.