I spent several weeks at the beginning of summer vacation reading old education textbooks as I sat along the Intracoastal Waterway in Dulac. This water highway hugs the Gulf of Mexico coastline and connects to many inland water routes. I perched at the end of a shell road on a small cliff obviously cut by water erosion, but just how unknown to me until the first big offshore supply boat roared by. These big commercial boats have enormous multiple engines powering huge propellers. The wake generated by such force creates an enormous wave I didn’t appreciate until one knocked me right out of an old aluminum lawn chair. I had my nose buried in a text book, a fishing pole in the other hand, and didn’t see the wave coming. Never made that mistake again. I also desperately wanted to avoid even worse mistakes I’d made as a classroom buffoon.
While my self-study program worked well and led to good scores on the National Teacher Exam (NTE) I was required to pass to keep my job, I was absolutely certain waving my NTE scores at kids like Marvin would be even less effective than the futile efforts I’d made previously. Marvin repeatedly tumbled my world far more than any wave did, and I sought a means of survival far more complicated than stepping back a few feet. As for which force scared me more, I’d give a big nod to Marvin and crew.
After my first few months pretending to be a teacher, I gave up on verbal reprimands because I hadn’t yet developed a teaching style where these comments had positive effect. Later, when my teaching abilities grew along with the increasing respect of my students, a carefully chosen word or two would normally be sufficient. But as a novice teacher, my corrective comments had effect similar to a referee’s warnings during a professional wrestling match; I’d get due consideration, briefly, because I was the only “official” in the ring, and then it was right back to today’s script of mayhem and madness.
I now realized utilization of office referrals was best employed sparingly, as too many resulted in questions about “class control” and “teaching ability,” and I sure didn’t need external criticism. Marvin and company made all of my shortcomings most obvious.
I’d experimented with tokens briefly at the end of the school year and the practice appeared to hold promise, so my plan was to come out with token guns smokin’ on year two. I’d been told a solid truth that it was far easier to begin an orderly classroom atmosphere at the very start of a school term, instead of trying to make changes once unsettling conditions set in. I desperately wanted to start off on the right foot, instead of trying to pull a bleeding stump out of a bear trap Marvin and crew set for me daily.
Token economies existed in various forms for years before I heard of them from my Aunt Ethel, a retired teacher with a PhD in education. Originating in special education classes and institutions for people with behavioral problems, these systems utilize the psychological concept of immediate positive reinforcement having more lasting effect on behavior than negative reinforcement and the direct relationship between the resulting reinforcement from the time of actual behavior. In simpler terms, it’s better to use the carrot than the stick, and make it quick. And since the local school board strictly prohibited a classroom teacher from any physical punishment, much less the use of a stick, I predicted the need for a very big carrot or a new career. I guess I should add our PE teacher repossessed the shotput shortly after I used it, so that was also out of the question.
In all seriousness now, I had and still have deep philosophical and moral problems with corporal punishment still legal in many places. While I’d been provoked to anger levels where I truly did want to take some of my worst discipline problems out for 30 lashes, systematic paddling supported by the school bothered me. I also had huge problems with assigning writing as punishment. I wanted alternatives. Tokens provided them. I ended my career 33 years later still using tokens, much to the delight of students and supervisors.
Like anything, token economies depend greatly on skillful and fair application, and for me worked very well under many different conditions. The only students I found mostly unaffected were those who were already highly motivated and self-directed, and these kids do not need external motivation to do well. Still, even highly motivated students seemed to get a kick out of seeing how much “money” they could make.
Mary first assumed the duties of mint director after foolishly saying “I do” just the month before my second school year started. Several ditto sheets, a ruler, and a few hours of her labor produced our first plates of ones, fives and tens.
The newly endowed millionaire played to a highly skeptical audience the first day of school in August of 1980.
“We don’ want no funny money,” Marvin countered to my introduction. “If it ain’t got no president’s picture on it, it ain’t no good.”
I began a futile explanation of the similar lack of intrinsic value of US currency, only to be immediately interrupted, most typical during any of my lectures.
“I gotta go to the boy’s room.”
“OK, five dollars, please,” I replied
“You mean we gotta PAY to go to the rest room?”
“You got it,” I nodded, holding out my hand like a railroad conductor, calling, “Hall passes, hall passes, last call for hall passes.”
The classroom, for the first time in memory, was not only completely quiet, but poised for my next pitch.
“Now if some of y’all want to make money, turn to page 156. I’ll pay five dollars to anybody who at least tries to read this story and then another five if you write a 100 word paragraph explaining why the main character didn’t obey his mother. And for those of you who want to get rich, there will be bonuses if you volunteer to read your paper to the class.”
If I had told my mini-terrorists I’d hidden a “real” $100 bill in one of the textbooks, I don’t believe the enthusiasm would have been much different. In seconds, 30 eighth graders were engrossed in a reading exercise with a passion I had never seen under my direction.
Only two students weren’t reading, and these were frantically searching for a book both refused to bring to class. “Too heavy bringin’ all dem books aroun’,” one explained just minutes earlier. Today, though, books had a decidedly different value.
“Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown,” they called almost in unison. “You got any extra books?”
“Sure, fellas. That’ll be a three dollar rental fee, please,” I said, reaching for the spares atop a file cabinet next to my desk.
The looks of anguish were too much to bear. “OK, guys, as a special introductory offer you can use these today for free.”
“You’re a cool dude, Mr. Brown,” Larry said, his hanging buddy nodding in agreement.
I remembered a time the year before I’d given Larry a book. He used it to smack the girl in front of him, resulting in a screaming 13-year-old, a few choice curse words, and another office referral. After that, I resolved to let Larry sleep or do whatever he wanted short of manslaughter.
Initially, I used simple dittoed money I would exchange just like regular currency. I soon discovered my mini-economic system fostered identical ailments found in all capitalistic societies.
First came a poker game during recess, and later shakedowns in the boys’ bathroom of seventh graders by big eighth graders. Then, a clever counterfeiter with the aid of a student office worker produced a startlingly good copy, but tripped up when he misspelled the name of our school.
In reaction to these practices, I began requiring the bearer’s signature in ink across the back of each bill when issued. Secondly, I began stamping all bills in red ink with my signature stamp. With these controls in effect, I refused to accept bills with any appearance of alteration and prohibited transfer of funds between students, excepting minor above board use with my approval. Since the signed token was only good for the person it was issued to, the extortion rackets stopped and the underground economy disappeared without dimming student enthusiasm. Tokens also introduced a much less punitive system that discouraged negative behavior while greatly promoting positive action.
“Well, well, well, Sammy’s broke and forgot his textbook. Anybody want to help poor Sammy rent a book to keep him out of jail?” I’d inquire melodramatically when a pauper ran afoul of class law. Jail was the new name for my now most infrequent recess detention. But much more frequently, like at a ratio of 100 to one, I’d use tokens as a reward, and tended to allow the use of anyone’s tokens for situations that could and should be quickly and painlessly resolved.
“Yeah, I’ll bail him out this time,” someone would almost always respond to a penniless peer. As long as no one abused the favors of a generous group, I encouraged such exchanges, but would sometimes call in a personal payment from chronic offenders. “Dum, ta dum dum,” I’d call out using the first four notes of Dragnet everyone knew signaled detention.
“Don’t forget to write da wife,” Marvin often called out in reaction to the tune.
But it was the positives that largely motivated and changed behavior for the better. At least once a week I’d auction or directly sell small prizes, pens, pencils, crayons, decorative stickers, nothing that I had to spend more than five bucks a week on, but still received an enthusiastic reception for the effort. When I noticed a surplus growing in the economy, and subsequent inflation, I’d burn off the excess cash with something like a Three Stooges Film Fest during recess. A few VCR tapes and small bags of popcorn and I’d be in business, selling tickets to the show and running the concession stand. Later, I’d train student staff who gladly set the whole show up for free admission and popcorn. Maybe the best thing, I found the entire effort enjoyable, being a Stooge and popcorn freak myself. I also started to fall in love with teaching in general and my students in particular. This love was returned 100 fold and remained the main reason I stayed in the classroom for as long as I did. For the record, Marvin and I became good buddies and I grew to enormously appreciate a natural comedian and his large cast of bayou characters.
My successes did not go unnoticed, much to my delight. The increased positive interactions in class dramatically changed many relationships, the most important one being the relationship between the students and me. While there are almost innumerable roads to this destination, every good teacher must arrive at the same station: mutual understanding and respect between student and teacher. I started to view my students just as differently as they did me. Finally, we were in this learning thing together, and boy, we were still in a heap of trouble, but starting to enjoy the many challenges together.
And then I became a very big star in a very small world.