A World of Their Own

Two weeks ago, Anh and I attended an open house at Jaxon's school. I found the timing a bit odd considering that the school year had just started, only 4 weeks had passed since Kindergarten Orientation night when we met Jaxon's teacher, Mrs. P. Was there already new information to share? Turns out there wasn't much to report which is why I opted not to post the event on the blog, but Anh and I did have the opportunity to meet 2 of Jaxon's 3 tablemates and their parents.

Jax and his 3 tablemates have become an extremely tight-knit clique in a very short amount of time. At the open house, Mrs. P shared a story about how one day she decided to move Jax to another table, but then quickly changed her mind and returned Jax to his original table because "The Fantastic 4" was so sad when separated. I found the news cute, but also wondered why Jax was relocated. Was he being silly at inappropriate times and not able to concentrate around his new buddies?

Mrs. P has two classroom systems in place to help with the children's behavior. First, each child has a frog that they move along a color-coded behavior scale. The frog starts out on white. After 2 verbal warnings, the child has to move their frog to green. An additional warning advances the frog to yellow, and if the bad behavior continues, the final stop is red. The frog's color is recorded daily in a notebook that is sent home for the parent's signature.

Since the start of school, Jax has received 3 green frogs. The first 2 came during week 1 when he was clearly still learning the ropes. Since then, there has only been one infraction. One afternoon, The Fantastic Four decided to return to the classroom early from recess on the playground (a fenced play area directly off the classroom). When Mrs. P entered the classroom, she discovered them sitting at their table chatting like a bunch of old friends. They were in a world of their own. She said it reminded her of a coffee shop scene from the tv show Friends. Mrs. P explained that she hated to scold the kids when they looked so cute and were calmly sitting at their table, but leaving the supervised playground was a safety issue and needed to be discouraged.

The second classroom system involves positive reinforcement. Each time Mrs. P witnesses good behavior, she places a marble in a container shared by the table. At the end of the week, the table with the most marbles gets to raid the class treasure box for a reward. Jaxon has shown me quite a few treasure box rewards since the start of school which made me confident that he wasn't the class terror.

So, I was surprised when I crossed paths with one of his tablemate's moms, and she told me, "I have some news to share with you about your son after volunteering in the classroom yesterday." I asked, "Good or bad news? He's not the problem child, is he?" She laughed and responded, "NO, quite the opposite! Our kids are perfect!" Perfect??? Clearly, she was exaggerating. Jax is a good boy and all, but "perfect" is a bit of a stretch. When I told her that, she laughed again and said, "I couldn't believe some of the things I saw other kids doing! Trust me, our kids were perfect by comparison. In fact, Mrs. P had our kids offer the rest of the class tips on earning marbles because our kids are the only ones to ever make it to the treasure box! Our four sit at their table like they're in their own little world." Odd...Mrs. P said the same thing.

Suddenly, things clicked in my mind. Mrs. P had not moved Jaxon that day to correct his behavior, but rather she was attempting to resolve a problem at another table by rearranging the seating assignments. Thank goodness, Mrs. P realized that the wrong child was ending up punished by her strategy. Hearing the other mom's report was definitely a proud moment. Jaxon has always had an astoundingly high level of energy. Seriously! People comment on it all the time. Knowing this, has always led us to worry that Jax might have trouble focusing at school. Like so many other occasions, it turns out that we were worrying over nothing. Our little guy is off to a great start!