Compliments

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, a honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

Leo Buscaglia

One of the hardest things I find throughout the school year is getting the students to treat each other with kindness.  They are great at finding each other's faults and mistakes however building each other up and being positive is very hard for them.  I often talk about what it means to compliment someone.  What is a real compliment verses a fake compliment?  

That is something that is so hard to teach.  The past couple of years I have had a wonderful bunch of children.  They worked well together, however one of their faults was they were very social.  I would encourage them to work together to earn compliments from myself and from other teachers.  Real compliments.....in fact the other teachers did not know the deal I had with the children.  

When the class earned a compliment from another teacher they could put a sticker on their reward chart. This was hard to do.  It meant we had to walk quietly in the hallway, line up quietly, they had to be the quietest table in the lunchroom and walk into a speciality classroom and sit down quietly and be ready to learn.  These are not easy tasks to do.  Many times the speciality teachers would say, "They were the best behaved class of the day."  

All these compliments were real and well earned.  It took the children a long time to earn the stickers as you can see.  We did not get a sticker every day.  However we did make it to 100 by the last day of school so we could have all the extra fun.  

My thought is....we are going to have some kind of party anyways...why not make it something they can get excited about it and earn it.  It will be more meaningful to the children if they had a say in the planning and earning of the reward. 

BTW--The children make it to 100 twice a year.  

If you decide to go this route let the kids pick the rewards they love being part of the decision making process.