Thursday, March 24, 2011

Stickers are like crack

I'm happy to say that a time-honored trick of teachers around the world works even in the Middle East: stickers.

You'd think that because I teach seventh grade, the adhesive accouterments would be a total dud. Oh no, my friends. Stickers are like crack to seventh-graders. All you have to do is start to open your desk drawer and they go crazy.

Such is always the case with my angels. It's a fantastic classroom management tool.

One day, I was giving out stickers during a quick review of the previous day's information. If the student got the question right, she got a sticker. That's literally all there was to it, but you'd think I was handing out rainbows and unicorns with the way they were freaking out. It was hilarious.

I was just picking the stickers at random, not even looking at what I was sticking to each girl. I loved the fact that after getting the question right, the girls would treat their sticker like it was a newfound friend, stroking it and holding it while looking at it with a loving smile on their faces.

One of my more squirrelly girls was engrossed in her sticker, practically talking to it like a proud mother to her child. I watched as she valiantly placed the marking of her success on her chest and looked around to compare her prize to those of her classmates.

She looked at the girl across from her, and her smile drooped.

She quickly looked at the girl diagonally across from her, and the smile disappeared.

She looked at the girl next to her, asking her to move a lock of hair so she can better see the decoration. Her head snapped back in my direction, a look that was a mix of horror and dismay on her face.

"Teacher!!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, student?" I've started answering them that way every time they just call me "teacher" in hopes that they'll see how annoying it is.

"Teacher, everyone's sticker says 'good job!' or 'great!' or 'nice work!'" she said, stabbing her finger at the offending badges, "but mine only says, 'much better.'" Her shoulders dropped and she gave me her best puppy dog eyes with those last two words.

I threw my head back in laughter, which probably only served to confirm her paranoia. Who knew that stickers could cause so much trauma!?

Vicariously yours,


1 comment:

  1. I hope you gave that sweet baby a "good job" sticker after laughing at her like that!! bless her heart, just wanting Teacher to be proud of her too.....

    ReplyDelete