Dares, Deals and Challenges

Wednesday, 05 September 2007

It’s been 8 days that I have not had a taste of my dear old, old friend – the soda! I was telling my kids about it when suddenly, I was struck by inspiration. And I thought to myself, why not? That day, I offered my class a deal. If every single one of my students were to complete a dare or a challenge within 21 days, I would give them either a pizza party or a movie. They took it, and were even pretty excited about the whole idea. It took us several days (15 minutes each time), before everyone thought of a challenge for himself/herself, or a dare for a classmate. The challenges all had to do with school, of course, because we had to have a way to monitor things, and the whole idea is for them to be a means of support for the goals they want to achieve by the end of the year. Here are a few of the challenges/dares:  “I will speak only English in all my classes.”  “I will do all my homework in all subjects everyday.” And of course, as for myself, I should also have another challenge aside from my soda battle. So my challenge would be to make sure I check all homework everyday, and give appropriate feedback (grades, comments or both) to students the following school day. The rules: The whole class has to participate. Everyone is accountable to one another. If one fails to do his/her challenge, there are two choices: he/she can treat the whole class to pizza or start another 21-days cycle. Once everyone has completed one 21-days cycle successfully, I treat the class to a pizza party or to a movie of their choosing. Why 21? According to Stephen Covey, author of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, it takes 21 days for somebody to make or break a habit. Thus, the 21-days cycle. Stay tuned as I bring you news about how this will turn out. I’m so positive about its results I’m getting ready with that big pizza order. Hedda Tan MA – ELT Language Arts and Social Studies Teacher – RIST, Bangkok Hedda has been teaching in Thailand for more than 12 years now. She has taught students from diverse cultural backgrounds from kindergarten to corporate executives in their 30’s and 40’s. Presently, she works at an international school in Bangkok. Share your views This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it More about Hedda