Drama Club - 3/19/08

Today was actually a pretty good day. I learned from my mistakes in the previous club. Rather than trying to regulate the behavior of the more energetic girls, I chose a different approach. It's something that I'm surprised that I didn't do sooner. We have a written notice system in our program. If a student gets 3 written notices, they are out of the club. Which is pretty much a bluff. A child would have to be borderline dangerous in order to get kicked out of a club. But the concept of a written letter going home adds that extra element of accountability. So before the club started, I wrote letters of notice for each of my 3 main offenders. But I didn't put the date on them. I pulled each one of the aside and I had them read the letter. I told them that they had a choice. They could either behave and participate and possibly win prizes or they could continue to be disruptive and take that letter home with them at the end of the day. Jasmin was first. She's also what I consider the ring leader of the group. She folded immediately. Next was Cheyenne. She's also a ring leader but she has gotten significantly bolder since Jasmin has returned to Drama Club. After she read the letter, she immediately began to cry, pout, stomp her feet, and plead. I calmed her down and told her that she had a choice. She begrudgingly agreed to behave. Last was Britney. She's more of a follower, but she has this incredible attitude about her. She rolled her eyes, let out an audible sigh, and said, "Fine." Normally, this complete lack of respect for my authority would have warranted a complete forfeiture of any second chance and a letter would have gone home. But I was confident that if I could get the two ring leaders in line, the her behavior would follow suit. As a result, today's club actually went very smoothly. It still took them a while to settle down. (It always has and it always will) But I was able to get them all to work on very brief commercials in teams of 2 and 3. And of course, guess which team gave the best performance. Cheyenne and Jasmin. They actually added some extra lines to make it more believable I guess. I was very impressed. However, they didn't win the contest because I had to take off a point for their behavior during the performance of another team. The lost by a point. The winning team was given Blow-Pops and everyone was given an extra snack.