July 10, 2008

From Tami Scruggs, a teacher at Huntsville Intermediate School in Huntsville, Texas

"Before a field trip or special event, I have the students verbally provide what they think are proper manners and behaviors for the event. They usually provide a more complete list than I can think of. Creating this list helps the students take ownership of their actions. In addition, our school uses a management plan where students earn 'bucks' that are used in the school store or can be saved for the big end-of-year carnival celebration. When we go on a field trip or have a special event, I take some of the bucks with me and hand them out to students that are demonstrating expected behaviors and manners. When individual bucks are hard to handle, I carry a clipboard and paper on which I take notes so I can handle the bucks or consequences later. On our end- of- year field trip this year, our class was complimented by each of the tour guides as one of the best mannered classes they had ever had, and as an inclusion team we had many special needs students with a lot of challenges! I was very proud of them!"