Savings Account of Choices

Classroom management is the trickiest aspect of teaching. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet for classroom management, you have to find a technique that works for you personally. Different teachers will have success with different strategies. Finding a classroom management style that works for me will take trial and error.

Currently, I'm reading Teaching with Love and Logic by Jim Fay and David Frank. In this book, they discuss the importance of giving students choices. If you give students choices, you create a savings account you can later make a withdrawal from. For example, you can ask students, "Do you want to turn your homework in before the test or after?" or "Do you want to try a problem on your own, or do you want me to demonstrate another one?" or "Do you prefer a lunch detention or a call home?" These are examples of choices that create a saving account. Then, when students object when you tell them they have a project to complete over Spring break, you can make a withdrawal from the savings account of choices by saying, "Wouldn't you agree I do a good job of giving you choices and letting you make your own decisions most of the time? Well, today I have made the decision that you will work on this project over Spring break". The hope is that students will see you as a fair teacher and will agree that it is not unreasonable for you to make this request.

I like this idea of giving students choices. We don't see teenagers as adults, but they see themselves as such. Imagine how they must feel when we make all the decisions for them. The key to giving students choices is you can only give them choices about things that don't really matter. That way, your day will not be thrown off by the decisions they make, and they will appreciate you valuing their opinion. Everybody wins. I've been brainstorming things I can allow students to make decisions about, and here is what I came up with:

• 5 Hall passes, instead of bathroom passes, that can be used to do anything outside the classroom as long as it is school appropriate and as long as they come back within 10 minutes.
• On their first offense, students can choose between a lunch detention or a phone call home. 
• Students can use the X-box method, the Bottoms-up method, or any method of their choice to factor polynomials.
• When they finish their tests, and others are still working, they can work on homework for another class, read, rest, or work on their math homework.
• They can show their work on the worksheet, or on a separate piece of paper.
• They day before tests, they can turn their homework in, or hold on to it and turn it in the next day with their test. This will give them a chance to study their homework, if they want. 

These are a few I came up with, I'd love any input you can offer me about more choices I can give my students.