Submitted by Tamela Cook, Camden, Tennessee
Idea posted February 17, 2004
I would like to share some ideas that I have tried for group discipline purposes in the past couple of weeks. Some of these ideas were obtained, modified, or inspired by posts from the MusicK8.com Mailing List.
I have been reading up on some techniques and kind of molded some to my own needs. I have stressed to my classes that music is supposed to be fun, and we won't have any fun if they make it not fun for me. I also teach equal partnership in my room, treat-others-as-you-would-want-to-be-treated kind of thing. Anyway, if they make it hard on me, I'm going to make it hard on them.
What I started doing just this week is telling them we can either play games, sing, dance, and all of the other fun musical activities we do or we can read from the textbook and write definitions, answer questions, et cetera for the following class period until they show me they are ready to listen, be still, et cetera. I simply walked over to the board and put tally marks for every misbehaving action. I made sure the students knew that for each tally mark, there would be one definition to look up and write down from the back of the music book or the tallies can also be questions to answer or paragraphs to read, whatever. Then with those definitions, they would have to find an example of it in the book, write a sentence using the word, et cetera. The possibilities are endless here! You can mold it to your own needs. It has worked wonders for me so far with NO WORDS to look up. Oh, you can also erase some of the tallies for good behavior. Another thing along the same line, I will cover some skill then say we can either apply it to a game or we can take a test over it next time. This works well for going back to their regular classroom in a quiet and orderly fashion.
I have also made letters that spell MUSIC to stick on the board and give/take away letters. At the end of class if they spelled it, then we would play a short game or listen to a favorite song from the book, et cetera. You could also use this towards a game or party. I have even used chalk talk with the letters with every 20 points earned during chalk talk goes towards a letter in the words MUSIC. This way it is a double discipline tool and can stretch over more than one class period.
One 7th grade class I had last week went ballistic on me and was extremely disrespectful. In keeping with my conduct code, I treated them the way they treated me and went military on them. I stated the rules and exactly what I expected them to do in such a succinct way that there was absolutely no question about it. (e.g. You will walk to the end of this hall quietly and in a single file line, you will follow directions the first time they are given, et cetera.) When we got back from lunch, they rounded the corner coming into my room like a pack of wild dogs (and this is all 7th grade girls nonetheless) so I marched everyone back into the hall and we practiced several times getting into our spots QUIETLY and such. We have also practiced how to get/put up books, lining up for lunch and other activities. I also made it VERY CLEAR that they were not to speak for my entire music class unless they are spoken to. They hated it but it worked EXTREMELY well. I plan to continue with this sort of thing. We went so far as to hold up a number one for a certain answer and a number two for another and the shaking/nodding of heads for yes/no answers.
Another final idea that I would like to share is come up with a code word for your classes. Our code word is SHABOOM! and it means empty hands, eyes on me. You can mold it to your needs, I went so far as to model a democracy and let the students come up with/vote on one code word to use for everybody. We decided on SHABOOM! and I love it! In some classes, the kids automatically do it in others I have to sing, "SHABOOM! SHABOOM! sha la la la la la la," and so on to grasp their attention.