Week of August 18, 2008 - Page 2.....Page 1.....Page 3
"Do you assign class jobs?"
(Email question)
Teacher: Do you assign class jobs to your students? The presenter we had yesterday said that it was a good idea because it helps to make students more responsible.
I am in complete agreement with the idea that teachers need to help students become more responsible. I just don't think forced labor is the way to go. And forced labor it will be whenever a student is assigned a classroom job he didn't ask for.
Most job assignment procedures follow the same basic format.
- Classroom jobs are posted on a bulletin board.
- On Monday, student name tags are placed next to the job titles so that everyone knows who is doing which job for that week.
- At the beginning of the new week, names are rotated so that everyone has a new job.
Either it's the big job wheel--with job titles written like spokes and student names written around the outside of the wheel--that rotates once a week or it's the pocket chart--with job title cards and student name cards--that is used to keep track of which student is doing which job. Regardless of the actual device used to assign jobs, there are two big issues every teacher using this time-honored strategy is going to have to confront.
Issue One: What do you do when a student doesn't want to do the job he's been assigned for the week?
Requiring a student to perform a job he either didn't ask for or feels incapable of doing is going to be counter-productive to the original goal of building responsibility. What will most likely occur in this situation is that the student will try to ignore the job as much as possible. He won't do it voluntarily. He won't do it on his own. He's going to wait for a verbal reminder from the teacher before he does anything. And if the teacher is doing all of the reminding about the completion of classroom jobs, the development of responsibility is mere lip service.
Issue Two: How well will a student perform his job-related duties if the job only lasts a week?
It takes time to develop job skills. (Just think about your own teaching career.) There's a lot of trial-and-error. There's also a lot of problem solving that occurs as the student figures out how best to do the job. At the same time, you need to factor in the time needed for a student to develop a "job memory" or, the automaticity of completing the job without the need for any kind of reminder from someone else. Put those things together and it's not too surprising to see a student finally getting good at a job just a day or so before he's assigned a different job. And then, of course, the whole job-learning process will have to be repeated.
But what if we went a different way? What if we just asked students to help out--allow them to volunteer for a job--and then let them keep their jobs for as long as they wish?
That's what I've always done and it's worked great. In fact, there are several advantages to handling classroom jobs in this fashion.
For one, the feeling of being forced into a job is forever eliminated. And since safety is a student need, a policy of a volunteer work force will be a big step in the year-long journey of making that need a reality. Want a job? We can use you. Don't want a job? That's okay. After all, your main job is being the best student you can be. Take care of that obligation and there's no real need for you to do anything else.
Note: I personally feel that the great majority of students truly want to help in the classroom. A student's contribution to making the whole classroom a happier, more productive place fills the need for belonging, the new sixth student need identified by William Glasser. More than the responsibility building is the bond being established between the teacher and the student worker not to mention all of the student-to-student connections being made.
Another huge advantage is that the students actually get good at their jobs. Keeping a job for more than a week enables them to figure out the best way to complete the job in addition to the opportunity to expand the job duties.
Case in point:
We used numbered clothespins clipped to a box lid--the kind from a case of xerox paper--and an empty coffee can as a way for the students to hand in their Daily Oral Language assignment. The student placed his assignment in the box lid, removed his clothespin, and dropped it in the coffee can that was sitting next to the box lid. A quick glance at the box lid provided me with the identities of the students who had yet to finish their DOL.
Anyway, in order to be used for the next day's assignment, the clothespins needed to be reset around the box lid. That was a job ideally suited for a student to complete and, within a week or two, was being handled quite well.
One year, the student worker wrote the numbers around the outside of the box lid so that the placement of clothespins was easier to do. He always knew right where to put them since they come out of the coffee can in a random fashion. That's problem solving, baby; one of the six Core Principles of Effective Teaching.
And, now, we begin to glimpse the true benefit of allowing students to keep jobs for longer than a week: the opportunity to take the job to a new level. I'm able to meet with the student whose job it is to reset the clothespins and suggest he take on a new duty.
Mr. Morris
Speaking privately with the DOL worker:
Hey, I've got an idea. You know how there always seems be a student or four who are not done with DOL before lunch? I was wondering if you could check the box lid at the beginning of Op Time (the ten minutes before lunch my students are given to choose an activity) and remind everyone whose clothespins are still clipped to the box that they need to work on DOL during Op Time. I'm thinking that with you reminding them, more students would be able to complete it and turn it in. What do you think?DOL worker
Thinking for just a second:
Sure, Mr. Morris. You want me to start doing that today?Mr. Morris
Sounds good to me.
Note: If he didn't want the promotion, I would just find another student to do the follow-up portion of the job. And now I've got two students taking care of one job which means that the likelihood of the job being completed will increase since the two students connected to the same job could actually serve as reminders for each other.
The only challenge to running a voluntary jobs program is coming up with enough jobs for everyone. This will be especially true for your underachievers who won't volunteer at first. They're going to need to spend a month or two feeling safe in your classroom before they'll venture forth and seek out a job. Unfortunately, most of the typical classroom jobs have already been taken. Problem or opportunity? Well, what I tell the job seekers is this:
If you can think of a job that will help to make this a happier, more productive classroom, I'll hire you.
The reality, though, is that not everyone has a job. And, again, that's okay. Nonetheless, I can always ask these students to collate assignments, file papers, transfer scores from assignments to a grade sheet, or any of a number of simple tasks that need to be completed on a daily basis. With so many things needing attention, it's tough for anyone to miss out on an opportunity to help.
Last thought: At the beginning of the third trimester, I would officially lay off all of our workers. Job Application forms were handed out. Anyone wishing to have a job was asked to apply for one by filling out a job app. In addition to the novelty of handling classroom jobs in a more sophisticated manner, this layoff/new hire process created an opportunity for a student to get a job that had been taken since the beginning of the year. Also, I'm going to start paying them credits and take the whole shebang to a totally new level. (Download the eBook, Credit Cards, Level Two, for more information.)
But, as I've stated on other entries, this is just my opinion regarding the whole classroom jobs thing. You might have a different take. As always, whatever works for you AND your students is the bottom line.
