Lesson 12: How to be a Tyrant

     It all started with a simple suggestion. "It's a new behavior plan," I claimed, which was completely true.  To claim that it was simply about behavior, however, would have been a lie.  It was a simple idea: I would give the students tokens for good behavior. By collecting the coin-shaped tokens they could accumulate enough to purchase something at the class store.  Simple.

Inspiring, huh?

     The first two days went very well. The class was behaving better than they had all year, and we were getting lots of work done. I was giving tokens for completing work, making good lines, and behaving well.  After two days, however, the students were getting quite prosperous, and, well, we couldn't have that. I implemented a punishment for talking out of turn. I had been awarding mostly 5 cent tokens, so to make it simple, the talking penalty was also 5 cents.  Later that day, it became clear that students could be dissuaded from many irresponsible behaviors if they were threatened with the loss of tokens.
     I started taking tokens for talking, but soon I was taking them if students forgot to get their books, if they forgot to get papers signed, or if they forgot their homework. At that point, most students were still gaining tokens every day. But what fun is that?      We still had students talking out of turn, so I raised the talking penalty to 10 cents. I also started charging them for anything that required getting out of their seats.  It was so easy to get them to behave that I needed some more rules.  At the end of the fourth day of the token system, I started requiring students to pay for any paper they used, which was quite upsetting to them. They are required to use lined paper to take their Spelling tests. A few of them wanted to use their own paper, but of course I couldn't allow that, so I picked up an easy 10 cents from each student.
     At this point, the students were getting upset.  Some of the boys couldn't stay away from the talking tax and ended up in debt.  Some girls were still gaining tokens each day, but they started paying for the boys so they wouldn't lose too much recess.  I put an end to that by starting a Recess Tax. Each student had to pay 10 cents to go to recess.  Now no one in the class ended the day with more tokens than they started with.
     The next day, I got a note that said, "Mr. Stoddard, please stop the taxes. Signed, 5B". I promptly discarded the note, saying "you'll have to do better than that!" It may have seemed like the students were getting unruly, but this was precisely what I had wanted all along.  But it wasn't enough.  In order to get the class moving in the right direction, I had the guidance counselor step into my class for a few minutes to get an honest answer to how things were going without the looming presence of my ever-watchful eyes. That opportunity was when the students made the golden connection: in Social Studies we had been learning about the 13 colonies and the events leading to the American Revolution. We learned how the British started putting taxes on the colonists for everyday things that they needed. When prices and taxes got ridiculous, the colonists took action in the form of the Boston Tea Party, which was one of the major events that led to the Revolution.
     The connection was made. Later that afternoon I received another note which said the same thing as the first, but added the fact that the guidance counselor agreed with the students. I responded that they needed to give me their own reasons, and sure enough, by the end of the day I had a well-worded petition complete with grievances and demands and the signatures of every student.

It looked exactly like this.

     The next day I came clean. I told the class the truth - that the whole thing was a project that the 5th grade teachers were doing to help the students understand the emotional plight of the American Colonists. My students were understandably upset at first, but appreciated it once they realized that there would be a question on the test related to the experiment.
     But I wasn't finished. I continued the simulation one step further by suggesting that we democratically reform the token system instead of completely repealing it. To avoid repeating history and causing an actual rebellion in my class, I let the students decide what tokens could be used for, including rewards, penalties, and purchasing prizes. We came up with a list, and we all agreed on it, and from what I can tell, we've been a more focused, better-behaved class ever since!
     I have to admit, I felt bad a few times about the ridiculous taxes, especially for the students who rightfully earned the tokens only to have them taken away for ridiculous reasons. But I got to embrace "bad cop" mode for a few days, all in the name of learning! By the end, the students definitely made a meaningful connection to the subject, and hopefully didn't hold any of it against me.
     Thanks for reading to the end and hopefully you don't think I'm a terrible teacher! I promise it was just an experiment to prompt connections to Social Studies. I didn't cause any long-lasting emotional turmoil or overall dissatisfaction with the educational system. There - now I feel better.
   Stay tuned for future posts answering the questions: "Do you have a class pet?" and "How has it been living in Honduras?"