We had just wrapped up K-1 Monday, and I sent the Kids Plus students back to the after-school program after everyone else had been picked up. Remus, Romulus, and Cassandra (not their real names), three of the four helpers I’d had that day, were helping Mrs. Lamb clean up while waiting for the Kids Advisory meeting to start. But Apollo (not his real name, either) was nowhere to be seen. I told Mrs. Lamb I was going to see if he went back to Kids Plus and headed down the hall.
Apollo was standing around in the gym when I approached. “Hey there, did you forget about Kids Advisory today?”
“No, I just don’t feel like it today.” Hmm – problematic. We’ve had this issue – the older kids like to come for K-1 Monday to help the younger students explore coding games (games where your skill at computational thinking is the primary mechanism for making progress), but less than half show sustained interest in Kids Advisory. We decided to attach them, so if you want to be a helper, then you also come to the meeting, so we can get some of your ideas. I tried to remind Apollo of this without guilting him into compliance, and made him an offer I thought he’d take.
“OK, I hear that,” I started, stroking my chin. “But here’s the thing: remember how we said a while ago that K-1 Helpers and Kids Advisory are attached?” Apollo nodded his head and rolled his eyes. “The reason for that is because there’s so much more enthusiasm for helping than for meeting, but we want to try and tap into that enthusiasm so that you kids can have more of a voice in how Tech Time goes. Does that make sense?”
Apollo sighed and nodded, then shrugged his shoulders and said, downcast, “I know. But I just don’t have any more ideas.” Ah, there’s the rub.
“OK,” I said, nodding slowly. “Tell you what: if you come today, if you just show up and that’s all, then I promise not to call on you unless you raise your hand. You can be quiet the whole time if you want, I just need you to be physically there so you’re setting a good example for others. Is that a deal?” He thought about it for a second, then agreed and we returned to the library.
When we got back, Remus and Romulus broke into a run as soon as Mrs. Lamb turned her back on them to greet Apollo and me. I reminded them firmly that there was no running in the library, and Mrs. Lamb spun on them and said, “I had to tell those boys three times to stop running.” We did stop; but then you started again; but we stopped again; but you shouldn’t have started running at all and you know that. To make a long story short, in light of some other misbehavior earlier (working on their own stuff instead of helping the K-1 kids), I put them on probation for a week. After explaining what probation was, I told them that this behavior needed to stop, but I was confident that they could be on their best behavior for a day and then everything would be fine. They got upset and started fretting about trouble with their parents, but we took a Reset and got down to our meeting.
Wow.
So many good ideas! There was a lot of back-and-forth, we ultimately had to take turns going clockwise around the table because everyone had something to add to everyone else’s ideas, and we were getting a lot of good perspectives. Apollo chimed in quite a bit, too – he took his turn just as often as everyone else, and had a few really insightful comments and original ideas.
When the meeting ended and Apollo got picked up, I called after him, “Hey, you remember an hour ago when you said you didn’t have any ideas?”
He looked back at me sheepishly, rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah.”
“I thought you might have had a few tucked away. Does it seem maybe a little silly now?” He nodded slowly, with a wry grin. “I thought that might happen,” I said with a smile. “Well hey, thanks for sticking it out – I really appreciate it, and I don’t need to tell you how it paid off.”
His grin widened, and he was nodding more quickly now. I was glad I caught him and got him to think it through. We bade each other good day.
Oh, and as for the boys on probation? Yeah, they totally crushed it the next week. I took the helpers aside after check-in and advised them as a group that, if they looked out for each other and helped keep each other on-task, then that would be great because it means I don’t have to spend my own time keeping them in line. They wouldn’t be snitching or tattling on each other, just reminding each other to focus on helping the K-1 students instead of working on their own projects (or in other words, helping each other stay out of trouble, rather than getting each other into trouble). It worked out really well, and I made sure to thank them for their hard work and assure them that we were all good now.
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