Shaming Students One Wall at a Time
The losers in school know who they are at a young age – usually by kindergarten or first grade. And losers are easy to pick out, because their reading progress, or lack there of, is usually displayed on a bulletin board somewhere in the school for everyone to see.
I’ve had numerous opportunities to visit schools, and too often I see cringe-worthy data walls being used to “motivate” students.
One such day, an enthusiastic teacher was walking me around her school, excited to show me the students’ progress and growth. We stepped into a dark, first grade classroom, and she flipped on the lights. Eight round tables were positioned in the room and on the tables were baskets with neatly arranged bottles of glue, color pencils, sticky notes and other supplies. Around the tables were miniature chairs. I love seeing those tiny chairs; they just make me smile.
My smile faded as I looked to my left and saw a huge bulletin board that said, Ribbit Reading Progress. On this bulletin board were 15 or so frogs with five segments. Some frogs were colored in a mosaic pattern– the head was green, the right arm was purple, left arm was green, right leg was purple, left leg was orange. I saw two or three frogs where the entire body, head and legs were green. Two frogs were completely orange. I knew right away, the orange frogs were the losers.
Even though I knew the answer, I asked, “What’s with the frogs?”
Proudly she said, “It shows their reading progress. When a student can read a passage fluently in a minute, they color part of the frog in. Then we post the frog on the board so the kids can see their progress. If they improve, they get to go to the treasure box in the front office on Friday.”
I took a breath and said, “Let me guess, the green frogs are the winners and the orange frogs are the losers”
“Well, I wouldn’t say losers,” she said defensively. “They just need more time and more remediation. And we use orange not red, because we feel red is a little too abrasive. We don’t want to break anyone’s spirit.”
I smirked and said, “Don’t you think the owners of the orange frogs feel like losers when they look at this wall?”
She gave me a sideways glance and said, “I suppose, but having this competition in the classroom is an » Shaming Students One Wall at a Time:
