Submitted by Gretchen, Missouri
Idea posted July 21, 2004
I was talking with my mom about my way of dealing with inappropriate comments in class. I used to have the offending students handwrite a copy of a poem. The students that refused were written up and sent to the Principal, who usually assigned them more copies of the poem to write. This didn't teach the students anything and often I would lose track of who owed me copies.
One day, I had a student say something inappropriate, and I made him give me 20 alternative things he could have said instead. He could be creative as he wanted and there weren't any wrong answers. However, if one of the 20 new suggestions were another inappropriate comment, then he owed 20 more on top of that.
I use this when the inappropriate comment is not a personal attack and a write-up is not necessary (i.e., a student is used to cussing at home and something slips out by mistake). I tell him, "Ok, you have to tell me 20 things you could have said or done instead." If there's time, like on a field trip, I make him follow me around and name off 20 things. If it's in the middle of class, he'll have to write them down. I remind the students that NOT saying anything is always a good option.
This works well for name-calling also. I make them list 20 nice things they could have said about that person. I use this even if the name calling is just something mean and not necessarily profane. (I don't like that kind of talk in my classroom.)
By using this, the students have 20 good choices of things to say the next time the urge to say something mean hits them. After they've strained their brains coming up with the 20 nice things to say, I tell them, "Good. Now pick one of those choices next time."
I didn't realize it was a good idea until my mom was impressed, so I thought I'd share.