I’ve always been obsessed with the psychology of relationships, and as a newlywed, it was no different. As many couples do, my husband and I read Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages to ensure that the love we feel for each other is also felt by each other and that our expectations are aligned accordingly.
Through this process, I discovered the subsequent books: The 5 Love Languages of Children and The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers. The middle school teacher in me was very intrigued by the idea of emotional equity over emotional equality in the classroom. We love our students, but do our students feel loved?
You can assess your and your students' love languages here!
I know what you’re thinking: How in the world could you possibly use this in the classroom, especially with 160 students, who you only see once a day, in 52 minute intervals?
That’s precisely why this became so important. If I only have a small amount of time with them, how can I make sure I am building relationships in the most efficient way possible?
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I reflected on my traditional classroom behavior system and realized that verbally praising students (+words of affirmation) was my most utilized reward. Reprimanding students (-words of affirmation) and/or a timeout in the hallway (-quality time) was my most utilized punishment.
How could I be more intentional with my actions to cast a wider Love Language net?
Inviting students to be a part of this conversation was always going to be the way forward. I asked for their input on how to best customize a reward and discipline system, and received feedback on a variety of considerations such as, on what to base rewards/reinforcements, allowing them to have choice, input on reward/reinforcement ideas, etc.
So, how might I define what rewards/reinforcements will be based on?
We (myself included) set goals around the e2L Life Ready Skills at the start of each unit and reflected on them throughout, utilizing the rubrics and our individual tracking tools.
The e2L Life Ready Skills include Autonomy, Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Growth Mindset, and Professional Ethics. At the end of each unit, students collaborated with their teams to discuss evidence of, and determine who met their goals.
But, how can I clarify the relationship between discipline issues and the Life Ready Skills?
We connected discipline issues back to the e2L Life Ready Skills by identifying behaviors that were negative examples of each:
So, if a student was struggling with any of these issues, that was the skill they had to set their goal on in the next unit. Some even required one-on-one behavior goal setting conversations to ensure they committed to a strategy we came up with together that would help them specifically, and the reward/reinforcer they would choose, when they met their goal.
I facilitated these individually with about 10% of my students. The other 90% were done together in collaboration with their teams and my formative assessment.
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When students met their goal, they had a choice in the love language aligned reinforcers, and our list grew as students contributed new ideas:
It was interesting to see which students chose which reinforcers as their love languages became more and more evident. It eventually led to some challenging thinking about discipline as well.
I soon realized that raising my voice towards a ‘words of affirmation’ student, or sending a ‘quality time’ kiddo into the hallway was potentially damaging the relationship I was working to build.
After collaborating with students and staff, we agreed to consider a student’s love language when deciding between a variety consequences. I encourage you to dig into the discipline piece more as a campus leader, teacher or parent.
Implementing this system decreased classroom discipline issues, and equally important, built in consistent opportunities for us to reflect, set goals on and be held accountable to growing in the e2L Life Ready Skills that ensure success in and out of school.
Aligning reinforcers to the 5 Love Languages and allowing student choice created a culture of individualization, growth, and celebration. Not to mention, collaborating with students on the initial idea, trial and error process, and multiple iterations was a total blast!
What ideas do you have for utilizing the 5 Love Languages in your classroom? Tell us on Twitter!
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