Pick Me Ups

To encourage students to do homework, I have a homework pass lottery every day. If the students do all their homework, they receive a ticket and I draw out a name every day from my basket and that child gets one free homework assignment pass. I find this works very well, the children want to receive their tickets. I have a class of mostly boys, 10 boys to 7 girls, so naturally I tend to pick a boy's name most days. So far this year, a girl has only won one time. As I pulled the name I slowly reveal one letter at a time. You should have seen the look on the girls faces when they realized that again I had pulled out another boys name.

I love this system with the tickets, it has reduced a lot of the problems I had last year with students not turning in their homework. Today, after seeing the girls's faces, I realized I needed to give a girl the opportunity to win one of those homework passes. I decided I would give Raphael his pass and draw out another name, I pulled out Maximus. Not showing the class whose name I pulled out I threw it back in the basket. Immediately, Joseph calls me out as being unfair.

Well, if there is one thing I do not like, it is being called unfair as a teacher. I work hard not to be an unfair teacher, I stick to classroom jobs like they are the law, no child is allowed to do someone else's job. I work hard to hear all sides of the stories and do not get mad, but instead encourage the children to see the other persons side and why they would be upset. So, I responded back to Joseph, "How am I being unfair? Raphael will still get his homework pass. I just would like to give an opportunity for a girl to receive a pass, too."

Joseph tells me, "but you already drew a name."

"I realize this and I would never take Raphael's pass away from him, but in order for this lottery to work (meaning the kids continue to do their homework), I need to draw another name out for the girls. This will not happen everyday. It is just that the girls I notice are beginning to feel like they will never win and this might discourage them from doing their homework. Right now they do not care what girl receives the free homework pass, but just want to know that a girl is capable of winning."

The girls in the class begin to shake their heads yes and smiles appear as they realize that one of them will be the winner of a free homework pass.

Joseph asks, "if the girls start winning all the time, will you do this for the boys?"

"Of course, I will, we will call this pick me ups, because sometimes we need that boost in knowing we can win. So, today the girls got a pick me up and maybe later in the year I will have to do a pick me up for the boys."

Joseph is satisfied with this answer and no longer sees it as being unfair.