Georgia PBS Interventions - Florida's Positive Behavior Support ...

The Green ZoneAlthough this section is small, it is in reality one of the most important sections of the book.Classroom structure is the single most important factor in creating a quality climate for yourself andthe students in the room. If this is in place and delivered with consistency then there will be fewerproblems.The ideas in this section are to help you consider your 3-5 behavioral expectations. If your school hasschool-wide PBS in place then you can use those rules and apply them to your classroom. If your schoolhasn’t adopted School-Wide PBS yet’; you can adopt your own expectations.However, just writing the rules on the wall doesn’t set you free to begin teaching. As a matter of fact,if you write “Don’t yell” on your rule poster you will have given the students the key to “how to pushyour buttons”. You just told them what “sets you off.” If you write “Be Respectful” on your ruleposter, you have told the students what you expect when they enter your room if you teach them what“Be Respectful” means.The first few weeks of the year must be dedicated to teaching and modeling these rules andexpectations. Once you have taught and modeled them and given non-examples and exemplars then youmust give the students an opportunity to practice what these look like in a wide variety of schoolsettings. Once you have done these three things, you need to catch students exhibiting thesebehaviors and compliment them for exhibiting excellent behavior. It’s important that the praise isspecific.“Good job,” doesn’t cut it for praise. You need to say things like, “Thank you for holding the door openfor Mary while her hands were full, and that was very respectful of others.” This lets the studentsknow exactly what they did that exhibited the behavior and how they can get your attention in apositive way in the future.I once worked in a school where a first grade teacher was absent and none of us realized it until lunchtime when the students brought themselves down sans teacher, each carrying their lunch cards andlunch boxes as they would any other day. Her classroom was so well set up that the students knewwhat to do from the minute they walked in the door. Someone took roll call. Someone else took the rolland lunch count to the office. Another child had the job of passing out the morning work. Otherchildren had the jobs of watching for recess, picking up the playground equipment, and so on. Theyknew exactly what to do and when to do it. Now you might think that this was some remote classroomand that’s why no one noticed the teacher was missing. It was a pod of three classrooms with no doorson the class. The students had to be well behaved for no one to notice that there wasn’t an adultoverseeing their actions.I’m not condoning children teaching themselves, but imagine how much teaching time exists in a daywhen the children can manage themselves in this manner. This would not have been possible if theteacher didn’t have her routines and expectations clearly taught. She taught behaviors the same wayshe taught reading. She taught it, modeled it, practiced it, and caught the students portraying theappropriate behavior and gave them incentives for “doing it right.”If children know what is expected in the home and at school they will rise to the occasion. If yourschool is part of a school-wide positive behavior support effort then the school has identified three toPositive Interventions and Effective Strategies Riffel -© 2005 - 11 -