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classroom anonymous social review (TEACHERS)

READ THIS IF YOU ARE A TEACHER!
  (+6, -9)
(+6, -9)
  [vote for,
against]

A simple sheet with kids faces are printed and given to a highschool/preschool classroom, mid semester.

The students are then simply told told to select 10% of the students in their classroom in different social review section.

1. Who appears to be a loner. 2. Who appears to be annoying. 3. Who is demotivated. 4. Who is depressed. 5. Who is getting bullied.

(You can also allow a extra box, for people to write the name of other students outside their classroom who also needs help. This will have a higher weighting as it is 'volunteered information')

etc... You get the idea. The above are only suggestions as to what you can ask the students to tell you.

The students then folds and drop their paper into a box, where it is then plotted into a spreadsheet. From the information presented, an action can be taken by the teachers discretion/intuition or 'automatically' if its beyond an agreed threshold.

This approach help tap into the bits and pieces of student knowledge (This is the same for large organizations as well, such as Intelligence agency like the CIA) and pieces them together to give a bigger picture.

Potential actions: You can have a student mentor(Bribed by free pizzas), to help guide and integrate problem students. You can request students to come to a special meeting to ask them how to improve their social standing. You can tell their parents that their child needs support... and so on!

mofosyne, Jun 01 2010


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       ... you can give the class the opportunity to gang up - anonymously - on one particular victim ....
8th of 7, Jun 01 2010
  

       Then perhaps we shall add, that the 10 percent bracket, gets free pizza.
mofosyne, Jun 01 2010
  

       Too bad if they pick on the fat kid ...
8th of 7, Jun 01 2010
  

       This would have to wait until kids learn about percentages to do the 10% thing-- so, college for many kids in the U.S..
swimswim, Jun 01 2010
  

       "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."   

       Children generally seem to learn percentages from video games, so it'd work from basically the beginning of compulsory education.
nineteenthly, Jun 01 2010
  

       It's a good idea, but it runs a serious risk of helping to create a classroom full of happy, integrated, well-adjusted kids. That's the last thing the world needs so, sadly, [-]
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 01 2010
  

       //1. Who appears to be a loner. 2. Who appears to be annoying. 3. Who is demotivated. 4. Who is depressed. 5. Who is getting bullied.//   

       I don't like these metrics - all of them are negative and even posing them encroaches on the innocence of children who shouldn't be worried about these sorts of things. i.e. this is a case where measurement may actually have a tangible effect on the thing being measured.   

       And can you imagine being the kid on the recieving end being asked personal questions about their family life based on the votes of their classmates?   

       If I were a child who didn't necessarily get on with the kids in my class, I'd like to be left alone to deal with it in my own time - I would not want to have to deal with the additional problem of living in a Stasiesque regime and learn early on that in addition to my own problems, I also need to put on a shallow front of conformity in order to avoid being brought up on my "fun-crimes".   

       On the other hand, I can see how this kind of information might be of interest to a teacher. If we can think of a way to collect that information in a transparent way (i.e. without having to resort to questionnaire) then maybe it's workable, but I'm still not sure that this level of information has any practical, concrete use other than being "of interest".   

       I say let kids get on with it, there will be bullies, there will be victims, there will be loners - just like in real life. Imposing a wierd regime of informants just isn't like real life (unless you live in a Police State, in which case, maybe something like this might provide an early exposure to later life)
zen_tom, Jun 01 2010
  

       The more that a teacher does things intended to empower students, the more they accentuate the power relationships between one student and another. This is a bad thing. [-]
pertinax, Jun 01 2010
  

       [-] further function overloading teachers and school system.   

       The point where there's a large enough percentage of young people that need help integrating into society is the point where you should take a look at the society itself: maybe it's not the kids.
FlyingToaster, Jun 01 2010
  

       //1. Who appears to be a loner. 2. Who appears to be annoying. 3. Who is demotivated. 4. Who is depressed. 5. Who is getting bullied.//   

       6. Who is all of the above and likely to move from your school in a few months.   

       Seriously though, zen_tom got it right. Bullies need to learn why it's wrong, not just that it 'is' wrong, and victims need to learn to stand up for themselves.   

       Isn't this already at least part baked? or maybe the complement of it. High school yearbook preparation involves determining things like "The student most likely to..." and although common ends to that sentence revolve around successes; ...own their own company, ...win a Nobel prize, it would be trivial to alter the line to find out "The student most likely to ... go postal ... commit suicide ... marry their pet ..."   

       Without explicitly asking these questions, it may be possible to deduce from the *lack* of peer 'support' which students are *not* viewed favourably by their peers.
Tulaine, Jun 01 2010
  

       (+) Doing something about bullies is a good idea in general, and something can be done. There's some amount of social hierarchy that's just human, but sometimes situations get toxic - and something that helps that come to light is good.   

       I wish there wouldn't have to be a questionnaire, and there are probably good and bad ways of wording it, but I don't object to supporting a gut feeling with statistical data; that doesn't amount to a "regime of informants" or "fun-crimes". You can overdo social control, but that's not what the idea is about.   

       // victims need to learn to stand up for themselves.   

       Once the rest of the class has ganged up on one scapegoat, even techniques that would have ended an early attempt at bullying can be broken by prolonged beating and isolation. It's torture for grown-ups; now apply it to a six-year old. (And you don't need to make her talk - just make her cry.)   

       They moved me out of a toxic classroom and gave me a student mentor. It was really nice to no longer be hit every day and cry myself to sleep every night. It didn't make me "happy, integrated, well-adjusted", it just let me survive.
ping, Jun 01 2010
  

       //now apply it to a six-year old.//   

       I hear you. I didn't survive academically so my input on this matter probably isn't worth much, I just know that nobody cared and that the beatings didn't stop until I took it on myself to fight back.   

       I applaud your intention of making classrooms more harmonious, but I agree with the general sentiment that this is not the best way of achieving it.   

       Teachers are generally aware of the social structure /interrelationships and moods of their students. They will make subtle changes in the classroom and teaching style on the basis of this awareness to encourage cooperative behaviour (it makes their job easier, and the students learn more). However, there is only so much a teacher can do.   

       As others have noted, your proposed system might:
-encourage the teacher to overreact.
-give more workload to teachers
-make the students into spies.
-make the students overly sensitive.
  

       I think that if the classroom is sufficiently stimulating and encourages personal responsibility, this type of inward-looking analysis is unnecessary.
xaviergisz, Jun 02 2010
  

       I'm not a teacher and I read it...whoops.
xandram, Jun 02 2010
  

       // I didn't survive academically //   

       Woah, that comes as a shock ...   

       // there is only so much a teacher can do //   

       Yes, now that the pansy pinko bleeding heart liberals have insisted that teachers are no longer allowed to wallop miscreants into the middle of next week.
8th of 7, Jun 02 2010
  

       "People's Committee to Promote an Environment of Harmonious Educational Awareness"
FlyingToaster, Jun 02 2010
  

       //Woah, that comes as a shock ...//   

       Must be 'cuz I hides it so good.   

       /A simple sheet with kids faces are printed/ I like this idea because of the possibility for added facial hair: different for each kid. Also hats, blackened teeth, long rasta doobies with smoke going into mouth of adjacent kid face, pet bats on heads, mohawks, little hats and more. Do not neglect the classic erase the eyes (a pencil eraser with a little moisture works fine) and draw in new ones with cat pupils and big eyelashes! Then whiskers! Hum the theme from Cats! Mrow! Oh yes, yes, all that. Big bread from me.   

       There was some other stuff written after about teachers, loners, rebels, Dottie etc which in my opinion distracts from the beauty of the original idea.
bungston, Jun 02 2010
  

       this was done in my 8th grade class but the teacher was going for the diff between fact and opinion.But she didn't TEACH the difference and 2 people said I was annoying. I was mortified for life.   

       You want to insult and bully people go to Facebook.
dentworth, Jun 03 2010
  

       Quips about Facebook are pretty annoying, [dentworth].
swimswim, Jun 03 2010
  

       sh'up swim. I'm still annoying but I embrace it now.   

       what I mean in a nutshell is you cant trust kids to hand over the valuable information in this format.
dentworth, Jun 03 2010
  

       I've tried really hard not to comment on this, but i can't restrain myself any longer.   

       This idea is a little like trying to find a humane method of torture. Schools are for childcare when there's no opportunity of finding an alternative, rather like children's homes. They have no other legitimate role unless children can themselves freely choose to attend or not to attend without sanctions or putting themselves at risk, which is generally impractical. However, there may be situations where children somehow end up at school, either because they've consciously chosen to be there or the last resort has become necessary, which it often does. I suppose this method might make sense in such circumstances, but to be honest it seems quite an inauthentic way to behave. Is the problem not that the kind of situations you describe can arise because of the nature of the institution?   

       Also, ten percent of the children in a classroom implies that there are at least ten children in a class, which is too many.
nineteenthly, Jun 03 2010
  

       Schools are also for socialization. Long ago, before the days of the internet, that was important.
RayfordSteele, Jun 03 2010
  

       That's a very old and tired argument. In adult life, the situations which resemble school socially are the less wholesome ones. The children get plenty of socialisation, perhaps at the expense of academic - oh, i can't be bothered with this, i wish i'd just never said anything. Just forget it, i won't say anything else, OK?
nineteenthly, Jun 03 2010
  

       // absolutely nothing //   

       A pretty good working definition of Australia, actually ...
8th of 7, Jun 03 2010
  

       19thly sounds like your experience with public (US tax funded) school was/is similar to mine. My kids went to a "good" school in an affluent district and I can't say as they learnt anything of value except how to swear in Japanese, and a bitter hatred for history lectures.
dentworth, Jun 03 2010
  

       Can't speak for anyone but me, but I wouldn't mind hearing your views on education nineteenthly.   

       Yeah nineteenthly I was about to jump in with Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy and all that.
rcarty, Jun 04 2010
  


 

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