Teachers, have you ever used a 5-star chart as part of a behavior plan with one of your students? It seems like a simple thing, at least it did when the SPED teacher gave it to me. Her instructions were, “Every time your student does the right thing, give a star. When the student has earned five stars, give the student a five-minute break.” That seemed simple enough, and she had gone to a lot of trouble laminating the chart and attaching Velcro, so the stars could be moved over and over. I was happy to give it a try. Heaven knows, nothing else I had tried was working. The things this child needed (medication and therapy), I could neither give nor suggest.
The first problem came with implementation. It was very difficult, if not downright impossible, to catch the student making the right choices. This student was so impulsive that she wasn’t still, not for a second, and every movement was the wrong one. The child could find a million different contortions to use to perch upon her chair, but none of them the right one. She blurted out constantly, always with something unhelpful, usually with something that would get another child riled up. As a result, stars were earned infrequently.
The second problem came when I started the GEI process, the practice of online tracking of behaviors and/or academics that are of concern and meeting with a “team” of colleagues (classroom, SPED, and sometimes specials teachers) to brainstorm ways to help the student. I really didn’t have a choice, because she was in a similar process the previous year, and we were told that we should continue with the GEI process on those children from the previous year.
I didn’t know what I was walking into. I came armed with my data, because I’d already been tracking one of her behaviors on a different chart, and I had evidence of her academic growth, or rather lack thereof. I knew we had an hour and a half for the meeting, and there were two other students on the agenda before her, both in another grade level, and one listed after her. I listened as each teacher presented what was going on with their student, what they had tried up to this point, and what impact it had. There were tales regaled of help they had already received from the SPED teacher and further suggestions of things they could try. “This is great!” I thought. “I can’t wait to see what they come up with for my student!”
However, despite the fact that we were told only 20 minutes would be allotted to each student, I watched the clock tick by, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Finally, on to the next student! The same thing happened with the second student, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes went by. “Surely, they will table my student and have me present in the next meeting,” I thought.
But no! I was wrong. My student’s name was called, and I was told to present. Well, maybe we’ll stay late, or maybe we’ll just start and finish at the next meeting, or maybe they know my student so well already that there won’t be much question about her, and we can jump straight to solutions. Nope! I was wrong again. I was given five minutes to present and basically told I had to deal with it myself, but to keep tracking data. Case closed. I was stunned speechless as everyone got up and left the room.
The next GEI meeting was no different. Well, it was, but it wasn’t any more helpful. In fact, for me, it was worse. The student’s mother had decided she wanted to attend the meeting, so they had to allow it. They brought her in at the point where we started discussing her daughter, so the rest of the meeting was confidential. I began to present my data on the behaviors I had been tracking. I projected my graphs onto the screen for everyone to see.
Then it came time for the helpful suggestions. One or two ideas were half-heartedly thrown out and then shot down before the SPED teacher that works with me more closely spoke up. “I just have a couple of questions. Have you been using the five-star chart with her?” [yes] “And how many breaks does she earn per day?” “At least one, sometimes as many as three, but probably on average about two per day” was my reply.
“Oh! Well, that’s not nearly enough!” exclaimed SPED teacher #1. At this point, SPED teacher #2 chimed in. “If you want her to buy into the system, you have to give her at least one break every 30 minutes.” It would have been nice to have known that when she gave me the now- loathsome chart! I could feel my face turn fiery red. They went on and on about how I wasn’t using the chart properly, making me look like an idiot in front of the child’s mother.
But even if she had told me, I would still have been at a loss to find a way to reward the child more often than I already was. She just wasn’t earning them. She hadn’t done anything to deserve them. I struggled with how to express that in front of the mother. “It’s not that she doesn’t buy into it. She looks forward to her breaks. I’m just not sure what it would look like for her to earn stars more frequently,” I lamely replied.
SPED teacher #2 jumped on the bandwagon again, happy to enlighten ignorant, little, ol’ me. “Well, you have to reward her for every little thing she does correctly. Like, oh, you are in your chair, not under the table, you get a star. You picked up your pencil, you get a star. You wrote your name on your paper, you get a star.” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? I don’t have time for that. I have four other students with IEPs in my room, other students whose behavior I also have to track, plus the rest of my students. Besides, I would feel like an idiot doing that. “Oh, you picked your nose, here’s a star.” “Oh, you hit your neighbor, but you half-heartedly and unconvincingly said you were sorry, you earned a star.” No, absolutely not. A thousand times, no. I walked out of that meeting feeling completely beaten up. This was not helpful. They were acting like that stupid little five-star chart was the only thing in their arsenal to help my student, as if it were the ultimate antidote and her life depended on only that one thing, which I was administering so ineptly.
I licked my wounds, started over the next day, and tried really hard to find more things to reward without feeling like a complete sell-out. In the meantime, there was a new diagnosis from a new doctor and new medication and new hope. The child and I both did a little better with the five-star chart, but not because I lowered my standards to ridiculous levels, but because her new-found hope gave her the drive to work even harder to the right thing, and I was able to reward her more often.
Then, the next GEI meeting rolled around. I was so happy to be able to report that we were using the chart closer to their expectations and my student had been enjoying more frequent rewards for her efforts. Then the speech teacher opened her mouth, and I couldn’t believe what came next. “Well, I was checking up with the specials teachers, and they reported that the chart isn’t always coming with your student to specials.” You were what?!? You were checking up on me? Who died and put you in charge of me? Who the heck do you think you are?! I was furious, but I was trying to calm my thoughts enough to answer. I could feel my face go fiery red again. What she said was true. My student usually didn’t remember to grab her chart, because that is her nature, and I didn’t always remember to remind her, because I have a million and one other things to keep track of as well, but I had a system in place to take care of that.
I noticed that none of the actual specials teachers were in the room to either condemn me themselves or back me up. Not once had any of them complained about the chart or its absence directly to me. I simply asked them at the end of every class how the student had done. I responded, “That is true, the chart doesn’t always make it to specials, but I always award my student as many stars as she earns tickets [another reward system our school uses], and I give her any breaks she has earned during specials when we return to the classroom. I never expected a specials teacher to take time out of their precious 45 minutes to give one of my students a break. They have the kids for such a short time. Just today, when I picked up my students from music, the music teacher told me my student had earned a break during music, so I gave it to her when we got back to class. Nobody has ever expressed a problem with this.”
It was at this point that both the media center librarian and SPED teacher #2 piped up. The media center librarian explained that she never used the tickets, she was too busy to hand them out, and that she WANTED to give students the breaks they earned in media center. Oh, really? You can’t be bothered to use the school-district’s adopted method of positive behavior reinforcement? I’m sure they’d love to hear that. And if you felt this way, why didn’t you say something to me earlier in the year? SPED #2 chimed in with “It’s YOUR responsibility to remind her to take her chart with her.” If this were an old Batman episode, this is where the words “BAM!” and “POW!” would be exploding across your T.V. screen.
How many different ways can I be blindsided by a simple little laminated chart with such cheery-looking stars on it? At this point, all I can think about is taking the blasted thing out on the blacktop and setting fire to it. I feel like the cartoon character that has just had an anvil or a piano dropped on its head, and it’s sitting there with a loopy expression on its face, a wreath of birds and stars encircling its head. I don’t know what I’ve ever done to incur the wrath of these ladies. I don’t even know them! How can we control bullying among our students when we are doing it to each other?
My student may be earning stars, but I’ve been verbally assaulted over this so many times, I’m the one SEEING them.