Power Teaching Teaching - Teenagers

copyright 2007, Christopher Biffle 2
Power Teaching Challenging Teens

(and the rest of your class, too!)
Chris Biffle
Chairperson, Philosophy and Religious Studies
Crafton Hills College
Yucaipa, CA
92399
Many teachers contributed their ideas, insights and

classroom practices to the techniques you’ll discover in the
following pages. Thanks and deep gratitude go to the
following instructors: Chris Rekstad, Jay Vanderfin,
Heather Baltz, Andrea Schindler, Roxie Barrett, Angela
Watkins, Zeke Stear, T.L. Brink, Julie Herman, Francene
Fisher.
This book was produced by the clever minds and
busy hands of Power Teachers Press, a nonprofit, zero
salary (!) company run by and for teachers. If you’d like
more information, contact:
Chris Biffle
CBiffle@AOL.com
909-389-3338
Note: All materials in this book are copyright protected. If this book was
purchased from Power Teachers Press, the purchaser is granted the right
to create one printed copy. No part of this text may be reproduced
electronically or by any other means without the written permission of the
author. Individual electronic and printed copies may be purchased by
contacting Chris Biffle. School site licenses are available.
a Contents
Introduction 6
1 The First Minutes of the First Day 9
2 Getting Attention 18
3 Evaluating a Student’s Understanding 23
4 Educational Chatting 26
5 Voice of Command 29
6 Talking One on One 31
7 No Eye Contact Eye Contact 35
8 Strategic Withdrawal 36
9 Don’t Spit In Your Soup 38
10 The No Whining Vow 40
11 Teacher/Teacher Therapy 42
12 Self Evaluation 44
13 Class Evaluation 46
14 Class Rules 50
15 Class Rules Rehearsals 61
16 Rules Buy In 65
17 Classroom Procedures 67
18 Adapting the Scoreboard Game for
Challenging Students 97
19 Making Disruptive Behavior
Self Extinguishing 100
20 The Guff Counter 108
21 Breaking Up Rowdy Cliques 112

22 Breaking Up Talkative Pairs 117
23 Keep the DeeJay Happy! 119
24 The Please/Okay Game 135
25 Student Leaders 140
26 You Bet Your Detention 149
27 Praise Therapy 153
28 The Birthday Game 154
29 Positive Tattling 159
30 The Magic Stopwatch Game 162
31 The Bull’s Eye Game 164
32 Short Form Complaints 171
33 Long Form Complaints 174
34 Separation Agreements 181
35 Item Contracts/Notes Home 185
36 The Top Secret Brown Bag 187
Afterword 189
Case Studies
1 First Year Teacher/ Power Teaching
In Middle School 191
2 Power Teaching and the High School
French Teacher 208
3 The Middle School Rebel: A Bull’s Eye
Success Story 220
a Introduction
All across the country, in fact all around the world,

many of our teaching colleagues go home, night after
night, frustrated, tired, weary of struggling with
challenging students. Let’s face it. We became teachers
because we loved to teach. Who enters our profession
eager to combat rebellious students?
Perform this thought experiment. Tomorrow,
something in the air makes all challenging students less
challenging. Not only would teacher morale instantly
improve, but also test scores would rise. Too many
instructors are putting the majority of their energy into
corralling the attention of a handful of students.
Thousands of our gifted colleagues leave our profession
not because they hate teaching, but because they love it
and are beaten down by fighting a few kids in the back
row.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, every happy family is happy
for the same reason; unhappy families are unhappy for
unique reasons. There can’t be one cure for challenging
students; there are too many different reasons why they
are challenging. Every unhappy family is a unique, misery

producing microcosm. John’s parents are junkies. Joan’s
mother is dying of AIDS and her father is an intermittently
recovering alcoholic. Jack is abused by his uncle. Jill has
been handed by the court from one foster home to
another. And so forth. There is no single teaching
bandage that will cover all emotional wounds.
Despite the claims of education consultants, there is
no one-size-fits-all cure for student rebellion. We believe
the best strategy is to offer multiple techniques that can be
combined, permuted, into a unique pedagogical design
that works best for you. Use the following strategies in
any way and/or order you wish. Mix and match them;
modify any to suit your style. But, don’t give up on a
technique until you’ve tried it for a month, or longer. If
you try one strategy and then quickly throw it out and try
another and another, you may wind up with what you
don’t want ... a challenging student who is even more
challenging!
After nine years of presenting Power Teaching
seminars to over 3,000 educators, we have discovered a
remarkable truth: techniques that help challenging
students to learn, improve the learning of the entire class.

The environment you create to help your most difficult
students will nourish all your students.
The strategies you’re about to explore probably won’t
transform your difficult students into wondrous, attentive
learners. However, the multiplicity of teaching techniques
does address, perhaps even solve, one of our profession’s
most common, and painful complaints, “I’ve tried
everything! I don’t know what to do next!” Here are 36
things to do next.
(Note: In the following, we’ll call our challenging

students John, and Joan. Each represents a different facet
of the challenging student personality. The teacher is
referred to as Mrs. Maestra. The grade is Any Grade In
Middle School or High School ... any grade with
Teenagers. )
1 The First Minutes Of The First Day
Mrs. Maestra taught teenagers. She knew, right from

the first minute of her first class, she couldn’t dink around.
She had to immediately get her students’ attention,
establish herself as the Leader and create orderly
classroom routines. Thus, on the first day of class, Mrs.
Maestra had the following diagram on the board.
THE SCOREBOARD GAME
More Homework Less Homework
Today’s Homework = 10 pages
RULE 1: KEEP THE SCOREKEEPER HAPPY

With a firm Voice of Command (see chapter 5) Mrs.

Maestra said, “Welcome to my class. You’ll find it is a bit
unique. All semester we’ll be playing The Scoreboard
Game. It begins fairly easy, and then it gets harder. Your
goal is to reduce your homework, which today stands at
10 pages. You reduce your homework by keeping the
Scorekeeper happy. Tell your neighbors who you think
the Scorekeeper is .... Oh goodness, that was much too
slow. I’m the Scorekeeper and I’m unhappy already!”
Mrs. Maestra then made a quick mark under More
Homework and said, “now you have 11 pages of
homework! Pay very close attention, and I certainly hope
no one is talking.”
Mrs. Maestra then, dramatically, wrote the following
under Rule 1.
Rule 2: Follow directions quickly!
She said, “Now, if you’ll follow Rule 2, and I mean
quickly!, you can reduce the homework.
CLAPYOURHANDS! ... Oh, that was better ... but a few
of you were a little slow. Unfortunately, that now means
you have 12 pages of homework!”
Mrs. Maestra then put another mark under More
Homework.
She then said, “I can tell that many of you are trying,
but not quite hard enough. One more time ... wait for it ....
CLAPYOURHANDS! Much better!”
Mrs. Maestra’s students were laughing now.
Mrs. Maestra then made a mark under Less
Homework. “Now, your homework is back to 11 pages.”
She didn’t care that they hadn’t clapped their hands
perfectly ... the point was that the second time her
students clapped, they were much more in unison than the
first time.
Next, Mrs. Maestra said, “Now, listen to me very
carefully. When you get a negative mark on the
Scoreboard, I will quickly point at you. Everyone needs to
utter a mighty groan, and lift your shoulders.” Mrs.
Maestra then demonstrated, lifting her shoulders and
groaning, “Awwwwww.”
Her students laughed.
Then she said, “All right, Mighty Groan!”
No matter how quickly her students groaned, Mrs.
Maestra put a mark on the negative side and exclaimed,
“Some people didn’t groan! Some people didn’t even lift
their shoulders! I said, ‘Mighty Groan!’”

“Awwwww!” her students cried laughing and lifting
their shoulders.
“Much better!” Mrs. Maestra continued. “Now,
when I make a mark on the positive side, you can have a
one second party! Clap your hands and shout ‘Oh, yeah!”
Mrs. Maestra demonstrated and soon, whenever she
made a negative or positive mark, her students where
groaning, or giving the Mighty Oh Yeah ... and laughing.
Mrs. Maestra loved both the Mighty Groan and the
Mighty Oh Yeah, but she knew the Groan was far more
important than the Oh Yeah. Whenever she had to make a
negative mark, her students might be upset; by telling
them to give her a Mighty Groan, they not only vented
their unhappiness, but they also laughed ... and thus were
back on Mrs. Maestra’s side. If she didn’t make a mark
under “more homework” too often, she could penalize her
students without alienating them.
At this point, Mrs. Maestra had the attention, and
allegiance, of many students. Many in her class were
indeed working hard to keep her, the Scorekeeper, happy.
Mrs. Maestra had begun to move toward her first goal, to
unite as many students as possible behind her leadership. In

addition, she had presented her self as a strict, but
entertaining teacher. Within a few minutes, Mrs. Maestra
had accomplished a great deal.
Mrs. Maestra continued with her normal classroom
introduction. Occasionally, she would make a mark under
More Homework or Less Homework depending upon
how her students were responding. She had too much to
do on the first day to mark every infraction or example of
good behavior ... also, it was important to keep her class
guessing about what and when their homework would go
up or down.
However, the first time anyone made a smart remark,
or complained, (she was waiting for this), Mrs. Maestra
whirled to the board, exclaiming, “Oh, goodness. That
kind of comment makes the Scorekeeper unhappy!” She
put a mark under More Homework. “Everybody Groan!
And please tell your neighbors how unhappy you are
when someone makes your Scorekeeper unhappy and
causes you to get More Homework.” This always had the
effect of uniting many members of the class against the
person who made the smart remark. One thing Mrs.
Maestra knew about teaching teenagers was that they

were always eager to cap on each other.
Now, here is a very important point. Mrs. Maestra
would only mark the first few occurrences of deliberately
disruptive behavior on the first day. If she made too many
marks, she would unify her opposition. Mrs. Maestra
knew from experience that the teacher had the upper
hand when challenging students didn’t know what to
expect.
Mrs. Maestra always followed the plus/minus three
rule when using the Scoreboard. She never let the
negative marks exceed the positive marks by 3 points, and
vice versa. If there were too many more negative marks
than positive, her students lost hope. If there were too
many more positive marks than negative, her students
became lackadaisical. Thus, if Mrs. Maestra had to make
several negative marks in a row for disruptive behavior,
she would then add one or more positive marks by noting
a few students who were on task.
At the end of the period on the first day the score
always was two points higher on the More Homework
side than the Less Homework. This showed Mrs.
Maestra’s students that she was serious about increasing

their workload. (Mrs. Maestra knew that some of her
students wouldn’t do the homework. But she also knew
that they hated the idea of having extra homework ...
whether or not they were going to complete it.)
As you can see, the Scoreboard Game was fixed.
The score always came out to be what Mrs. Maestra
wanted. When she had slightly increased homework for a
few days in a row, she could then slightly decrease it ...
and still be exactly on her lesson plan.
Mrs. Maestra knew one of the great rules of Power
Teaching:
Students will work extremely hard to avoid a small
amount of work.
Now, let’s think about the advantages of the Power

Teaching system that Mrs. Maestra used. With the
Scoreboard, she immediately established herself as the
person in charge. She believed nothing motivated her
teenagers more than avoiding homework, and so, she
used this as motivation. Later in the semester she might
decide to change the reward on the Scoreboard to more or
less free time, more or less video time, more or less music
(see Chapter 23) ... but beginning with homework as the
motivator always captured the immediate attention of her
classes. In addition, by using the Mighty Groan and the
Mighty Oh Yeah, Mrs. Maestra generated large amounts
of on-task laughter. She knew her students loved to have
fun and their reactions to the Scoreboard reinforced her
classroom management system. Mrs. Maestra understood
that the more fun students had following her rules, the
more energetically her rules would be followed.
What if you want to be just like Mrs. Maestra but

you’ve already started teaching? How can you make the
switch to the Scoreboard?
Here’s what you don’t say, “Class, we’re going to try
a new system today. I’ll be very interested to see if you
like it.” DON’T SAY ANYTHING LIKE THAT. You’re
inviting your students to criticize the new system. Instead,
say something like this, “Class, usually at this point of the
year I move to a more advanced system. Initially, it will be
fairly easy, but then it will become more challenging.”
In other words, you can begin the Scoreboard at any
point in the term, even the last month. Simply pretend as if

the particular day you introduce the game, was part of
your plan since the beginning of the year.
2 Getting Attention
Mrs. Maestra knew that teaching began with getting

her students’ attention. If her class wasn’t focused on her,
she was just talking, going through the motions of
instruction. Mrs. Maestra taught her students that when
she said “Class!”, they should quickly respond with “Yes!”
She found this much more effective than saying “Okay,
everybody, I need you all to pay attention to me. John
look over her. Joan stop that. Back row you need to look
at me ...” and so forth.
Mrs. Maestra said “Class!” countless times a day. At
the beginning of the year, even Joan and John usually
responded with “Yes!” When her students responded
quickly several times in a row, she gave them all a positive
mark on the Scoreboard. If they needed prodding with a
penalty, she gave them a negative mark. Mrs. Maestra
understood that the way the Scoreboard should be used,
was part of the art of teaching ... and there are no exact
formulas for any art. She did her best to read her
students’ faces and body language, rewarding and

penalizing them as she thought appropriate. One thing
she always noted, however, was that as the year
progressed she used the Scoreboard less and less because
her students gradually learned to stay on task for longer
and longer periods.
One of Mrs. Maestra’s great talents as a teacher was
that she always had a plan B; in fact, as a Power Teacher
she also had plans C through Z. She knew her challenging
students, like all her students, needed two apparently
contradictory things ... consistency and variety. Part of
Mrs. Maestra’s genius was to structure her class the same
way but differently! When Mrs. Maestra noted that
“Class!” wasn’t working quite as well with Joan, John and
a few others she introduced a variation: “Class! Class!”
Her students responded “Yes! Yes!” Later in the year,
Mrs. Maestra would say “Classity, class, class, class!”
(This variation was developed by Andrea Schindler, a
Power Teaching Veteran.) Her students responded
“Yesity, yes, yes, yes!” Then, for more variety Mrs.
Maestra introduced funny tones of voice, a high voice, a
low voice, a s--l--o--w voice, a fast voice, a robot voice, a
pretend angry voice, a spooky voice.

Then, one day Mrs. Maestra brought in a duck call.
She said, “When I toot my duck call, you say ‘yes’
however many times I toot.” Mrs. Maestra discovered she
could make the duck call “talk” using different tones.
Mrs. Maestra had countless ways of getting her students
attention ... lots of various techniques to do the same thing
... consistent variety and various consistency!
Mrs. Maestra noticed that often John would respond
with a “Yes!” and then, almost immediately, drift off into
Johnland. Mrs. Maestra introduced a new way for
students to respond. She told her class, “Occasionally,
after I say ‘Class!’ and you respond ‘Yes!’, I will say
‘Hands and Eyes’. You should say ‘Hands and Eyes’ and
look at me and fold your hands on your desks.”
Mrs. Maestra found that using “Hands and Eyes”
helped her rebel students in two ways: first, it reminded
them that it was time to pay attention and second, it gave
Mrs. Maestra a visual clue, hands folded on the desk, to
tell if they were focused on her.
Whenever Mrs. Maestra introduced a Power Teaching
technique that she thought her teenagers might object to
as too babyish, she used a stern Voice of Command

(chapter 5) and actually looked forward to her students
objection.
When John said something like, “that’s too much like
kindergarten” Mrs. Maestra whirled to the blackboard and
made a quick mark on the negative side. She exclaimed,
“Mighty, Mighty Groan! Tell your neighbors how
unhappy you are when ANYONE says something that
makes your dear teacher unhappy!”
Invariably, her students, especially her rowdies,
groaned loudly and made several unpleasant remarks to
John.
In other words, Mrs. Maestra, expecting her
challenging students to be rebellious, used these
occasions, and the Mighty Groans to unite her students
behind her leadership ... and squash the rebellion!
Isn’t that wonderful!!
John’s individual rebellious behavior prompted
rebellion squashing class behavior!
You’ve already learned a great deal about our

approach to teaching challenging students. Mrs. Maestra
had a multiplicity of fall back plans, plans A-Z; she

understood that each plan might only be a temporary fix;
Mrs. Maestra recognized that techniques that helped her
challenging students also benefited the rest of her class;
finally, she knew that by varying her consistent technique
she could achieve a surprising amount of engaging variety.
3 Evaluating A Student’s Understanding
Mrs. Maestra often needed to gauge the degree to

which Joan, John and others understood her teaching
points. Mrs. Maestra never used two common techniques
for evaluating student understanding.
Mrs. Maestra never asked, “Who knows the answer
to this question?” She didn’t ask this because Joan, John
and many others never raised their hands. Mrs. Maestra
also didn’t like this technique because it wasted precious
seconds of learning time. Her students would raise their
hands and then she would have to pick one ... that might
take 5 seconds! All day long ... week after week ... month
after month. Mrs. Maestra needed every second she
could get. Finally, Mrs. Maestra did not like asking for
raised hands because when she picked one student to
answer, other students in her class were disappointed that
they weren’t chosen.
Mrs. Maestra also never used the “read my mind--fill
in the blank” technique. She would never say something
like, “Okay now last week we were studying ... you
remember, we were studying those numbers ... you

remember the number that was on top was called the ...
you know the top number with the line under it was called
the ....” Mrs. Maestra disliked this technique. Filling in
the blank took too long; only the best students were
successful; many times she had to correct wrong answers.
Mrs. Maestra evaluated the understanding of her
students by saying something like this, “John, last week
we studied fractions. The number on the top was the
numerator. The number on the bottom was the
denominator. Now, tell me what I just said.” Mrs.
Maestra loved this approach. She always gave John and
Joan a task that was exactly suited to their intellectual
ability. John and Joan, like all her students, enjoyed being
successful. John and Joan never drifted away when given
the opportunity to be correct in front of an audience of
their peers. Of course, Mrs. Maestra also used this “say it
back to me” approach with all her students. It was
wonderfully educational because her class heard the
correct answer from Mrs. Maestra and then listened to a
student repeat it.
John often drifted away when he was confused about
what Mrs. Maestra was teaching. To get him re-involved

in class, she would say something fairly simple to John, but
relevant to the lesson, and ask him to repeat back to her
what she said.
If the student made a mistake, Mrs. Maestra taught
the class to say “It’s cool!”
The “it’s cool” made Mrs. Maestra’s class a no-failure
environment. No one laughed when a student made a
mistake, and the student never felt ashamed. Mistakes
only produced a soothing, “it’s cool.”
If the student was successful, Mrs. Maestra taught
her class to give him or her a 10 finger woo. This involved
pointing their hands at the successful student, wiggling
their fingers and saying “Wooo!” This always produced
smiles and laughter.
The 10 finger woo produced a class that was
continuously rewarding. Students need to be recognized
for correct answers; the 10 finger woo gives the entire
class an opportunity for a brief, entertaining celebration.
4 Educational Chatting
Joan, especially, loved to talk to her neighbor. No

matter where Mrs. Maestra sat the energetic teenager,
Joan gabbed with whoever would, or even wouldn’t, listen
to her.
Mrs. Maestra however had a plan. She had plans
beyond plans.
One day Mrs. Maestra said to her class, “When I say
‘Teach’ I want you to say ‘Okay!’ and then turn to your
neighbor and explain whatever point I made in my lesson.”
Mrs. Maestra helped her students rehearse this
pattern. After several rehearsals, her class was
happily teaching each other any point Mrs. Maestra
wanted them to review.
Mrs. Maestra saw nothing wrong with students
talking to each other, so long as they were talking about
course material. In fact, she loved this kind of interchange.
Mrs. Maestra knew that students didn’t understand her
lesson until they could put it in their own words. By
walking around the room and listening to her class, she
could easily determine if she could go on to a new point,

or review a previous point.
Mrs. Maestra enjoyed watching Joan teach her
neighbor. Joan’s gabbiness worked to her learning
advantage.
Mrs. Maestra knew that Joan would eventually get off
the task and start talking about subjects that had nothing
to do with the classroom. Mrs. Maestra had been around
for a long time. She always had a backup.
Mrs. Maestra introduced the concept of “speaking
and listening gestures.” She showed students a set of
expressive gestures to use when speaking and a different
set of expressive gestures to use when listening. If Joan
wasn’t using either set of gestures, Mrs. Maestra knew
that she was not talking about the lesson. Many times she
could get Joan back on task simply by standing near her
and pantomiming the gestures Joan should be using.
Mrs. Maestra was very big on students employing
body language to explain her lessons. Students enjoyed
moving around; using body language amplified and
clarified abstract concepts; non-English speaking students

were given engaging visual cues about what was being
taught.
When Mrs. Maestra found it necessary, she
introduced a variation on “teach your neighbor.” She had
the class count off by 2’s. Every student was either a 1 or
a 2. The 1’s always started as the expressive, energetic
teachers; the 2’s always started as the expressive,
energetic listeners. When Mrs. Maestra shouted
“Switch!”, her class responded “Switch!” The 1’s became
the listeners and the 2’s became the teachers. This was
another technique Mrs. Maestra loved. It ensured that the
chronic talkers would do their share of listening and that
chronic listeners would do their share of talking.
Joan needed listening practice. When she was a 2, she
got the practice she needed.
5 Voice Of Command
Mrs. Maestra rarely lost her cool. Under even the

most challenging teaching situations, she tried to maintain,
as a police manual put it, “professional face.” Mrs.
Maestra reasoned that if a good cop could maintain self
control on a murder scene, she could control her tone of
voice when facing Joan and John at their rowdiest.
When Mrs. Maestra talked to the entire class, she
generally used a special voice, loud, firm, authoritative ...
the voice of command. She had noted that other teachers
who are respected by students used a similar voice.
When Mrs. Maestra had to talk to John or Joan
individually she employed a special procedure (see
chapter 6) and added a slight edge to her voice of
command. She didn’t sound angry or threatening; Joan
and John had learned how to block out angry, threatening
adults. Mrs. Maestra simply signaled by a slight change in
her tone that the issues she was speaking about were
serious and must not be ignored.
Mrs. Maestra noted that she tended to speak more

quickly when she was losing her cool and so when she felt
her emotions rising, she spoke slowly to John and Joan,
with deliberately, controlled pacing. Mrs. Maestra thought
of this as her special “I am serious” voice of command.
6 Talking One On One
Mrs. Maestra often needed to have a one on one talk

with John or Joan to correct behavior problems. She
avoided confronting them when they had an audience of
their peers ... audiences could make Joan and John even
more rebellious than normal.
Mrs. Maestra had worked out a special routine for
talking to Joan or John when they were misbehaving; this
routine gave her two students the illusion that they
controlled the situation. When Joan and John believed
they are running the show, they were unlikely to block out
what Mrs. Maestra has to say.
Early in the year, Mrs. Maestra said the following to
her class, “Occasionally, I may need to talk to you
individually about something you are doing that is harming
your education. I will start by giving you a simple choice,
‘Short talk or long talk?’ In other words, you can choose
whether we have a short talk or a long talk ... but I
suggest you pick a short talk. If you pick a long talk, I’ll
do all the talking and, believe me, you will not like hearing
what I have to say.”
Next, Mrs. Maestra rehearsed as follows with Polly, a
particularly cooperative student, “Okay, Polly. Let’s say
you’ve been having trouble staying in your seat and I’ve
decided I need to talk to you about it. When we are able
to talk one on one, I’ll ask you, ‘Short talk or long talk?’
What will you say?”
“Short talk.”
“Good choice! In my short talk, I’ll give you some
clear instructions about what you need to do, and then
you can be on your way. If you said something like ‘I
don’t care’ or ‘long talk’, we would have a much, much
longer conversation and it wouldn’t be pleasant.”
One evening Mrs. Maestra decided she would need
to have a one on one conversation the next day with Joan
about talking to her neighbor. This was Mrs. Maestra’s
usual strategy ... to plan the night before the encounter so
that she could control her emotions and the time and place
for the talk. Mrs. Maestra tried to avoid spur of the
moments confrontations with John or Joan; because these
kinds encounters were unplanned, they frequently went

awry.
Mrs. Maestra waited until Joan talked to her neighbor.
Mrs. Maestra stepped up to Joan, bent down to her level,
and said quietly but firmly, “We are going to have a talk
right after class.”
Then, after class, when Mrs. Maestra knew she would
have the time she needed, she talked to Joan one on one.
She began by saying, “Please remember what I told the
class about short talks and long talks. Now, I need to
make a few points about your chatting with your
neighbor. Short talk or long talk?”
In most cases, Joan chose short talk. (When Joan
didn’t choose short talk, Mrs. Maestra gave her a longish,
very stern lecture.) During the short talk, Mrs. Maestra
made her points briefly but firmly and then sent Joan on
her way.
Mrs. Maestra never asked anything like the following,
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” or “Have I made
myself clear?”; she never posed a question that would give
Joan an excuse for rebellion (silent or otherwise). Mrs.
Maestra wanted to maintain control of the one on one talk
and not give her student the opportunity to resist her

instructions.
Using the short talk, long talk strategy with her
challenging students, Mrs. Maestra was able to avoid
unpleasant encounters that often developed into out of
control, back and forth arguments. She hated how she felt
after these arguments. So did her husband, Paciencio
Maestra.
7 No Eye Contact Eye Contact
Mrs. Maestra frequently had to correct John’s

behavior while she was involved in another activity.
Whenever possible (and it was not always possible) she
made a verbal correction without looking directly at him.
Without making eye contact, Mrs. Maestra would say
something like “John, please stay on task.” She had found
avoiding eye contact was often a good strategy.
When Mrs. Maestra corrected John and then looked
at him, he often used this as an opportunity for further
challenging behavior. Of course, there were occasions, like
the one on one talks described above, when Mrs. Maestra
might judge that eye contact was an effective way to
underline her point. Mrs. Maestra’s general rule was this:
there is no point in forcing a student into eye contact, if
this results in making the student more rebellious.
8 Strategic Withdrawal
Even though she was a wonderful, self controlled

teacher, Mrs. Maestra occasionally had an encounter with
Joan that truly upset her. Mrs. Maestra knew that
scolding or yelling at Joan would be ineffectual. Joan came
from a family of professional, high volume yellers ... and
had learned strategies to fight back against verbal attacks.
But what was Mrs. Maestra to do when she found herself
losing self control?
After many unpleasant experiences when she spoke
angry words to students, and later deeply regretted it,
Mrs. Maestra trained herself to recognize when she is
about to boil over. She then steps up to the problem
student, in this case Joan, and says quietly, and truthfully
(using her special “I am serious” voice of command), “I am
starting to lose my temper. We will talk about this later.”
Mrs. Maestra has found there are five great advantages to
this strategic withdrawal:
-- Mrs. Maestra gives herself time to calm down
-- She takes as long as she needs to plan exactly what
to say to Joan
-- Mrs. Maestra gets to choose the time and place of
their next interchange
-- She leaves Joan hanging, wondering, about the
nature and content of their talk
-- Mrs. Maestra often discovers that after she has
calmed down, what upset her in Joan’s behavior was not
as terrible as she initially felt
Mrs. Maestra has found strategic withdrawal a very
effective device. When she talks to Joan after her
emotions are under control, Mrs. Maestra makes all the
points she wants to make in just the way a good teacher
would make them.
9 Don’t Spit In Your Soup
Mrs. Maestra is from the country where they have

wonderful, picturesque expressions. Her father taught
her to never “spit in your soup.” He meant, don’t
respond to a bad situation by doing anything that will
make it worse. Don’t spit in the soup you’re going to eat.
Early in her career, Mrs. Maestra formed an
unfortunate habit. She sat with unhappy teachers at
lunch, many of them veterans, and engaged in their jovial,
anti-student humor. Mrs. Maestra laughed when teachers
made unpleasant jokes about their classes and/or least
favorite students.
After awhile, Mrs. Maestra realized that the worse
she felt about her class, the more difficult it became for her
to teach ... which caused her to feel still worse about her
class ... and her career ... and her life choices ... and her
unsympathetic spouse, Paciencio ... and her rebellious
children, Courageous and Fortitude ... and the absolute
refusal of the climbing Queen Anne roses to ascend the
expensive copper trellis she had bought especially for

them.
And so, Mrs. Maestra stopped sitting with unhappy,
soup spitting teachers.
She changed the way she thought about teaching.
Teaching was like climbing a magic mountain. The more
you complained about the steepness of the mountain, the
steeper it became.
10 The No Whining Vow
When Mrs. Maestra realized that complaining about

her students resulted in creating a mental attitude that
made it harder for her to teach, she took a private “no
whining vow.” Her mother had told her stories about her
grandparents who left their native country, suffered
enormously, worked 60 hours a week at back breaking
labor ... and never complained. Mrs. Maestra knew that
her teaching job was a picnic compared to her
grandparents’ jobs. One of many things that Mrs. Maestra
admired about the American spirit of the past was that no
matter the difficulty, generations before her had rolled up
their sleeves and met whatever hardship the world threw
at them ... without self pitying whining.
Mrs. Maestra knew that our educational system had
many problems ... but she refused to add to them by
complaining about students, administrators, textbooks,
unsupportive families. This was a marvelous moment in
Mrs. Maestra’s life. She rolled up her sleeves, stopped

whining, and set about helping Joan and John and the rest
of her students become better citizens.
11 Teacher/Teacher Therapy
As an alternative to whining, Ms. Maestra and her

colleagues developed their own form of lunch time
therapy. They decided that, when necessary, they would
help each other with their most difficult students by
engaging in two activities (besides eating) at the lunch
table : one minute venting and next day planning.
Mrs. Maestra and her colleagues allowed each other
to vent about their challenging students for a minute.
They guaranteed they would listen sympathetically ... for
60 seconds ... and then another coworker would have a
turn. After everyone had vented, no more complaints
were allowed during the meeting. If a colleague began to
get in extra complaints, Mrs. Maestra and the other
teachers at the table, rubbed their eyes and mockingly
cried, “Wa! Wa! Wa!”
After one minute venting Mrs. Maestra and her

colleagues began next day planning. They exchanged
plans, advice, encouragement about what was to be done
the next day for each challenging student. Mrs. Maestra

and her friends found that teacher/teacher therapy was a
powerfully rewarding experience. They knew that one of
the great problems of teaching challenging students was
the feeling of isolated frustration. Mrs. Maestra and her
friends discovered that briefly venting to each other and
then moving on to planning could make the difference
between an aggravating and a rewarding day. Vent-
Sympathize-Plan: Mrs. Maestra and her colleagues never
forgot to plan; otherwise they would have had the feeling
of getting nowhere.
12 Self Evaluation
To track teaching improvements, Mrs. Maestra, used

two simple, but crucial measures, to make a weekly
evaluation of her own performance.
Mrs. Maestra deeply understood a Great Truth of
classroom management: You cannot manage student
behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.
Mrs. Maestra knew that the two crucial features of
managing her behavior were:
-- controlling her emotions by controlling her tone of
voice
-- consistently following through with her classroom
management plan.
Every week she gave herself a grade 1-10 (with 10
being highest) on her ability to control her emotions and
tone of voice.
It was also obvious to Mrs. Maestra that she could
not manage students if she could not consistently follow
her own classroom management plan. If her class was

unruly, Mrs. Maestra would never improve them by
shooting from the hip.
So, every week Mrs. Maestra gave herself a grade 1-
10, (with 10 being highest) on her ability to consistently
follow her classroom management plan.
At the end of each week, Mrs. Maestra added these
two grades (self control and classroom management
consistency) together. This was her teaching score. Mrs.
Maestra liked doing this ... it made the difficult job of
instruction a little more entertaining, like a challenging
solitaire game.
Mrs. Maestra didn’t focus on managing her students
as her primary classroom goal. Her primary classroom
goal was managing her own behavior ... especially in the
above two categories. When Mrs. Maestra had extremely
challenging students, she could still consider herself a
success, a noble success, any week that her combined
teaching score was 16.
13 Class Evaluation
Here are four measures (you can substitute others if

you wish) Mrs. Maestra used to evaluate each student’s
classroom behavior. Her model students:
-- followed directions quickly
-- raised their hands for permission to speak
-- stayed on task
-- turned in neat work
Using these measures to determine her initial average
score for the behavior of all her students, Mrs. Maestra
divided her class into four groups.
Alphas: These were Mrs. Maestra’s model students; they

raised their hands for permission to speak, followed
directions quickly, stayed on task, and turned in neat
work. Mrs. Maestra gave herself 4 points for each Alpha.
Go-Alongs: These students would usually “go along”

with Mrs. Maestra; however, they sometimes fell short of
being model students. Go-Alongs usually, but not
always, raised their hands for permission to speak,

frequently followed directions quickly, usually stayed on
task, and, in general, turned in neat work. Mrs. Maestra
gave herself 3 points for each Go-Along.
Fence Sitters: These students were ones that could go

either way. One day they were close to being model
students; the next day, Mrs. Maestra wondered what
went wrong. Her Fence Sitters inconsistently raised their
hands for permission to speak, often didn’t stay on task,
follow directions quickly or turn in neat work. Mrs.
Maestra gave herself 2 points for each Fence Sitter.
Challenging Students: Mrs. Maestra was fortunate in

having only two challenging students: John and Joan.
They tested her skill as a teacher. John and Joan rarely, if
ever, raised their hands for permission to speak, followed
directions (quickly or otherwise), stayed on task, or turned
in neat work. Mrs. Maestra gave herself 1 point for each
of her challenging student.
New Students: Mrs. Maestra put every new student into

the Fence-Sitter group.
Mrs. Maestra understood that it was very important

to keep a weekly record of how her challenging students
were performing. Joan and John were, in general “long
term projects.” Mrs. Maestra would never know if she
was getting anywhere with them, if she didn’t keep careful
track of where she’d been.
Every week, Mrs. Maestra totaled all the points for
her students and and then divided by the number of
students in her class. This was her average score for the
behavior of her class. Though Mrs. Maestra was very
busy, she enjoyed this part of her work. Before she had
used this method, Mrs. Maestra could never tell if she
was, or wasn’t, making progress with classroom
management.
Mrs. Maestra’s goal was to move her Go-Alongs to
Alphas, her Fence Sitters to Go-Alongs and her
Challenging Students to Fence Sitters. She realized that if
she could raise the average score for the behavior of all
her students by only .1 per month, then by the end of the
year every student in her class would have moved up, on

average, one level in classroom behavior. This was Mrs.
Maestra’s a high, but reachable, goal.
14 Class Rules
A central goal in Mrs. Maestra’s instruction of John

and Joan, and other challenging students, was to provide a
clear structure of appropriate and inappropriate classroom
behavior. As a Power Teacher, Mrs. Maestra used the
following rules (each rule was illustrated by a classroom
management sign ... see below.)
Rule 2: Raise your hand for permission to speak.
Rule 3: Raise your hand for permission to leave your
seat.
Rule 4: Make smart choices.
Rule 5: Keep your dear teacher happy.
Mrs. Maestra used a word processor to print each
rule on a single sheet of paper. To save you this small
trouble, each rule follows. (If you prefer graphics with
your rules, look at the Classroom Management Signs that
accompany the text, Power Teaching Challenging Elementary
Students.)
Rule Above
All Rules:
Respect
Everyone!
Rule 1
Follow
directions
Quickly!
Rule 2
Raise Your
Hand For
Permission
To Speak!
Rule 3
Raise Your
Hand For
Permission
to Leave
Your Seat!
Rule 4
Make
Smart
Choices!
Rule 5
Keep Your
Dear
Teacher
HAPPY!!!
Here was Mrs. Maestra’s rationale for each rule.

1. Follow directions quickly. Mrs. Maestra wanted
her students to follow directions quickly because she
didn’t want to waste a second of class time. If students
weren’t following directions quickly, they could be wasting
5-10 minutes every hour in non-educational activities.
Over a school year, this obviously added up to an
enormous amount of wasted time. In addition, the more
slowly students followed directions (handing in paper,
opening books, sharpening pencils, etc.) the more
possibility there was of disruptive behavior. Of course,
Mrs. Maestra always did everything she could to squelch
disruptive behavior.
2. Raise your hand for permission to speak. Mrs.
Maestra believed that any classroom in which students

could speak whenever they wish, bordered on chaos.
Mrs. Maestra NEVER (unless it was an emergency)
answered a student who violated rule 2. She believed that
this rule, especially early in the year, was the most
important rule to emphasize for a smoothly running
classroom. Students speaking out of turn were the single
most common disruptive activity. Therefore, Mrs. Maestra
taught her students that whenever she said, “Rule 2!”,

they were to respond quickly in chorus, “Raise your hand
for permission to speak!” Whenever a student tried to
speak without raising his or her hand, Mrs. Maestra
exclaimed, “Rule 2!” and her student loudly reminded the
the miscreant student, and themselves, of this important
rule. Occasionally Mrs. Maestra had a student who liked
this kind of negative attention; in this case, she simply
refused to answer his or her question (and knew that she
had numerous strategies, described in last third of this
manual, for extremely challenging students who resisted
peer pressure.)
3. Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat.
Mrs. Maestra’s rationale for this rule was the same as for
rule 2. She wanted an orderly teaching atmosphere and
this wasn’t possible with students wandering around the
classroom. However, Mrs. Maestra occasionally had
classroom exercises where she allowed students to move
around the room without asking for permission. In this
case, Mrs. Maestra put a yellow post-it note on rule 3
indicating that it is temporarily not in force.
4. Make smart choices. Mrs. Maestra understood

that this was a fundamental rule, perhaps the fundamental
rule, for all human activities. From childhood to
adulthood, we need to make smart choices. Mrs. Maestra
used this rule to cover every kind of disruptive behavior,
in class and out. In addition, she found that she could
introduce this rule as a topic this whenever her class
discussed the choices of a character in a story or in any
general analysis of human behavior.
5. Keep your dear teacher happy. Mrs. Maestra
understand that this rule, like 4, was a general purpose
rule that covered an enormous amount of student activity.
Many times, students would do something unexpected
and they would argue with Mrs. Maestra that it was “a
smart choice.” Her response was, “That might be true.
But it breaks an important rule ... it doesn’t make me
happy. Trust me. I’m the world’s leading authority on
what makes me happy.” Mrs. Maestra found that Rule 5
was especially useful in covering the countless remarks
that students made that were hurtful, rude, sarcastic,
disrespectful. (For more on this, see the Guff Counter in
chapter 20.)
When Mrs. Maestra explained Rule 5 to her class she

said, “this might seem like this rule is all about me, but it
isn’t. The only thing that makes me happy as a teacher is
to see my students intensely learning. So, you keep me
happy by working really hard. Rule 5, Keep Your Dear
Teacher Happy, is really all about you.”
15 Class Rules Rehearsal
Mrs. Maestra understood that merely posting

classroom rules on a board had little effect upon creating
an orderly classroom. She wanted her students to
understand that she was quite serious about her rules,
and the rules to be in the forefront of her students’ minds
all day. As a Power Teacher, Mrs. Maestra had her
students rehearse classroom rules early in the year at the
start of every class.
Here again are Mrs. Maestra’s rules:
Rule 2: Raise your hand for permission to speak.
Rule 3: Raise your hand for permission to leave your
seat.
Rule 4: Make smart choices.
Rule 5: Keep your dear teacher happy.
Typically during her rules’ rehearsal, Mrs. Maestra
gave an instruction like “Rule 1!’ and her students chanted
“Follow directions quickly!” making a memory gesture
assigned to the rule (wiggling their hand quickly in the air).
Then she would say, “Rule 2!” and her students chanted
“Raise your hand for permission to speak!” and made a

memory gesture (raising their hand and opening and
closing their fingers as if their hand was “talking”.)
Occasionally, Mrs. Maestra made the rehearsal even more
entertaining by saying, “Weird voices” or “Robot voices”
or “Zombie voices” and the students merrily used these
voices during rules rehearsals. Because she was teaching
teenagers, she knew someone might object to these
rehearsals as “silly.” Mrs. Maestra was always ready to
penalize the class with a negative point whenever a rebel
challenged her authority. Mrs. Maestra knew her
teenagers were not as adult as they wanted to seem; they
all loved silly behavior as a break from classroom routine.
When discussion the rules, Mrs. Maestra frequently
the following point, “Whenever I see someone breaking
one of our rules, I’ll name the rule they are breaking. You
will all, loudly and forcefully, recite the rule INSTANTLY
or the class will get a negative mark because they are
silently supporting the person breaking the rule.”
Then, she would rehearse this procedure, inviting
students to speak without raising their hands. She would
loudly say, as noted in the previous chapter, “Rule 2!” and
encourage her students to loudly respond with “Raise

your hand for permission to speak!”
Once again, Mrs. Maestra used occasions of rule
breaking by an individual to prompt rule supporting by
her class.
Please ponder this point:
When you look out at your class of teenagers, they
look united, as if they present a solid front against the
requests of any adult. In general this is true, but it is also
true that teenagers, even close friends, are competitive.
Teenage society is in constant turmoil; each struggles
against the other in a constant quest for more power, more
attention, more status. Leaders maintain their position by
criticizing, mocking those lower in the hierarchy.
Underlings are ready, eager for a chance to pay back their
superiors for the ragging they have to endure. Thus,
when you give your class an opportunity to vocally
criticize a student rebel ... when they can do this en masse,
and thus safely, they leap at the opportunity. The
teenagers who seemed like they were unified against
you, are now your followers, pouncing on anyone who

opposes your authority.
Yes, Power Teaching is wonderful.
16 Rules Buy In
(The following technique was developed by Jan

Vanderfin, a founder of Power Teaching.)
When she first introduced them, Mrs. Maestra
explained the reasoning for each of her classroom rules
that she had posted on the front board. She then asked
the class if anyone had objections to any item on the list.
Mrs. Maestra never found any objectors; she was very
good at explaining to the class how each rule would make
their learning experience more pleasant.
Finding no one who had a problem with her rules,
Mrs. Maestra said, “Great! ... let’s take a vote. All in favor
of using these rules in our classroom, please raise your
hand.” Almost invariably, all her students raised their
hands. (If some students didn’t raise their hands, Mrs.
Maestra would say, “I’m glad to see that the majority of
you believe these are good rules ... so, these are the ones
we’ll use. If anyone can think of better rules, I’ll be happy
to talk to them after class.”)
By using the vote, Mrs. Maestra had achieved “buy
in.” Occasionally during the semester, Mrs. Maestra

would have a class discussion and a new vote on the
rules. Frankly, she was happy to experiment with a rule
change if the majority of the class thought it would be a
good idea.
Mrs. Maestra found the rules and the “buy in” were
very helpful when she had to talk to John one on one.
Mrs. Maestra would discuss the rule that John was having
difficulty with and then ask, “Do you think we should
change this rule? ... do you remember this is what we
voted on?” By talking about the rule and the class
support, Mrs. Maestra was often able to deflect John’s
rebelliousness. The rule supported by the entire class became
the subject and not Mrs. Maestra’s authority as a teacher.
Mrs. Maestra’s strategy with John was superbly non-
confrontational. She was not enforcing her personal will;
Mrs. Maestra was simply asking John to go along with
what the students agreement about how the class should
be run.
17 Classroom Procedures
Classroom procedures are different than classroom

rules. A procedure is something you want your class to
do many times a day. Some of the most common
procedures are paying attention to the teacher, being
seated, handing in (and handing out) papers, opening
books, getting pencils sharpened, raising hands. The more
orderly your class performs procedures like these, the less
hair you'll lose.
Mrs. Maestra used many procedures in Power
Teaching. You can join her by using some or all of the
following. If you wish, print out the signs on the following
pages and post them as you introduce each new
procedure. Also, remember to review the procedures
whenever you review classroom rules. Some of the
following repeat material described in earlier chapters. (If
you prefer graphics with your procedures, look at the
Classroom Management Signs that accompany the text,
Power Teaching Challenging Elementary Students.)
Class!
Yes!
A. Getting Students’ Attention: Whenever you say

“Class!”, your students should stop what they are doing,
look at you, and say “Yes!”. This should be one of the
first lessons you teach your class ... and, you’ll use it all
day long.
For variety, say “Class! Class!” and teach your
students to respond “Yes! Yes!”. Or try “Classity, Class!”
and teach your students to respond “Yesity! Yes!” Use
any other variations you can think of. Jay Vanderfin
suggests posing a question recently covered in class. For
example, to get his students’ attention he might say,
“Capital of California?!” His students look at him and
respond, “Sacramento!”
Hands
&
Eyes!
B. Hands and Eyes: To gain your students attention even

more completely, say “Hands and Eyes”; they respond by
looking at you, folding their hands on their desks and
saying quietly, “Hands and Eyes.”
Teach!
Okay!
C. Teach!-Okay!: To develop your students’

language skills, and to increase their mastery of subject
matter, say “Teach!”. Students respond “Okay!”, turn to
a neighbor and continuously repeat what you have said ...
until you regain their attention with “Class!”
Teach-Okay! is one of the fundamental Power
Teaching techniques. We use it countless times a day,
whenever we have communicated important information to
the class. We find Teach-Okay especially useful when
working with students who don’t speak English at home.
Practicing speaking with a partner, is a good, non-
embarrassing to way to develop their language skills.
As students are teaching each other, walk around
your room and listen to them ... you’ll be astonished at
how much difficulty students have in putting your
concepts into their own language. And, if they can’t
explain to each other what you have just taught them,
what sense does it make for you to introduce another
concept?
It’s
Cool!
D: Correcting errors: As a teacher, you will frequently

have to correct a student’s response to one of your
questions. The easiest, and most painless way to do this is
to have the class tell the student “It’s cool!” Then, you tell
everyone the correct answer.
In explaining “it’s cool” to your class, say something
like the following. “Everyone will make mistakes in this
class. That’s fine. We’ll be covering some difficult
material. If you make a mistake, don’t worry. The class
will merely tell you ‘it’s cool’, I’ll tell you the right answer
and we’ll go on with our lesson.”
Woo!
E. Rewarding students: Whenever a student needs a

reward for a right answer or good behavior, use a 10
finger woo. The class points their hands at the deserving
student, wiggles their fingers and says “woo!”
energetically. Students love giving and receiving woos.
For half correct answers, try the five finger woo. For
wonderfully correct answers, try the rolling 10 finger woo
(students roll their hands as they woo). Countless other
variations are possible. Use woos to add needed
recognition and merriment to your classroom.
If you love Power Teaching and want a bumper
sticker, try this one:
Power Teachers Do It
With A Ten Finger Woo!
Mighty
Oh Yeah!
Mighty
Groan!
F. Mighty Oh Yeah! Mighty Groan! When you mark

a point on the Scoreboard for less homework, you reward
your students with a “one second party” by telling them
to give you a Mighty Oh Yeah (they clap their hands once
and exclaim “Oh yeah!”). When you mark a point on the
Scoreboard for more homework, you can keep your
students united behind your leadership (and not bitter
that they received an extra page of homework) by telling
them to give you a Mighty Groan (they lift their shoulders
and groan.)
Papers!
I. Handing papers in and out: For an orderly classroom,

students should always hand in papers in the same way.
Determine what that procedure should be, then practice it
a few times a day with "imaginary papers". For example, if
your students sit at tables, point at one chair (perhaps the
one nearest the front of the classroom) at each table; tell
the students you want all papers at the table to go to
student in that chair. Then, select a student in one of the
chairs to go to each table, get all the papers, and stack
them neatly on your desk.
Then, practice the following:
Teacher: Papers! 1, 2, 3, 4 (continue counting)
Students: Papers! Papers! Papers! (students say
this in unison, three times, so that all students know what
the teacher is asking.) Students hold their hands in the air
and look at the teacher after they have handed in their
paper. When the teacher sees all students with their
hands in the air and the papers stacked neatly in the
proper place, he/she waves one hand in the air. All
students lower their hands, fold them in front of them, and
look at the teacher.)
A similar procedure is followed when the teacher is
handing out papers, except the teacher gives papers to

one person at each table or in each row. When all
students have the handout, and their hands are in the air,
the teacher waves one hand in the air. All students lower
their hands, fold them on the desk, and look at the
teacher. To add real hilarity to this routine, encourage
your students to cheer each other on as the papers are
handed in and out. Whenever they can distribute papers
before you count to 10, give them one page less
homework.
Open
Your
books!
J. Opening books: If you don't practice something

like the following procedure, your class can be chaotic
every time you ask them to open their books.
Teacher: Science book, 47! 1, 2, 3, 4 (continue
counting)
Students: Science book, 47! Science book, 47! Science
book, 47! (students say this in unison, three times, so that
all students know what the teacher is asking. They hold
their hands in the air and look at the teacher when they
have their books open to the correct page. When the
teacher sees all students with their hands in the air and
books open, he/she waves one hand in the air. All
students lower their hands, fold them in front of them,
and look at the teacher.)
Green-
Yes!
Red-
No!
K. Getting pencils sharpened: Pencil sharpening can

drive you bonkers.
Students leave their seats, create disturbances on the
way to sharpen their pencils, have problems operating the
pencil sharpener, then cause disturbances on the way back
to their seat. And this can happen all day long! Here is an
alternative to the pencil sharpening madness...
Buy a hundred pencils and invest in a good, electric
pencil sharpener. Sharpen pencils each morning and put
them in a coffee can near the front of the room. Put a red
piece of paper on the front of the can and a green piece of
paper on the back. When the red paper faces the
students they cannot, under any circumstances, get a
pencil. When the green paper faces the students they can,
quietly, trade their pencil for a sharpened one.
Questions?
L. Raising hands: Your classroom rules instruct your

students to raise their hands for permission to speak and
for permission to leave their seats. Great. But there are
still two problems. Many times, students’ minds go blank
when they raise their hands; in their urgency to get your
attention, they stop listening to what you're saying.
Secondly, you may be making an important point, and
can't stop to call on a student with a raised hand. To solve
both these problems, say the following to your students.
Teacher: We're going to practice raising hands in a

moment. I want a few of you to raise your hands and then
I'll reach out like this (make a gesture like you are closing
your fist around the raised hand). That means I've got
your question. Then, put your hand down in a fist on
your desk. When I've finished talking, I'll take questions
from students whose hands are down in a fist. (Then,
have a few students raise their hands; you "grab" the
question; they put their hands down in a fist on their
table.)
Loud
Normal
Whisper
M. Controlling classroom noise: When your

classroom becomes too noisy, point at the sign on the
previous page. It’s your Volume-O-Meter. Say: “Class,
when I move my hand up toward the top of the Volume-
O-Meter I want you to say ‘yada, yada, yada’ louder and
louder. When I move my hand down, I want you to say
‘yada, yada, yada’ more and more quietly.”
Move your hand up and let your students,
momentarily, be very loud. Then move your hand down
to a whisper level (or whatever level you wish.) Say,
“Good! That’s the level I want you to speak at.”
Gestures!
N. Focusing on the teacher’s explanation: Whenever

you need your students to be intensely focused on what
you’re explaining say, “Thumbs up! (hold your thumb up
like the sign above.) I want you to make the same
explanatory gestures I’m making ... but don’t say anything.
Just make my gestures.” Then, use large entertaining
gestures to make your point ... it’s delightful to watch
your class mirroring your every move. Then, when you
say “Teach” your students should say “Okay” and teach
their neighbors using your gestures. This turns passive
students into active, energetic teachers of course material.
Never
Say
“I Can’t”
O. No “I can’ts”: We never want our students to

say “I can’t” These are two of the most mind crippling
words in our language. “I can’t do division ... I can’t
understand grammar ... I can’t solve this problem ... “
Instead of “I can’t”, instruct students to say “I cant ... yet!”
Instruct them to say, instead, “I can’t ... yet!”
No
Guff!
P: No Guff: See chapter 19 for a description of the very
powerful No Guff rule.

18 Adapting The Scoreboard Game
For Challenging Students
After a month or so of using the Scoreboard Game,

Mrs. Maestra drew the following on the board.
THE SCOREBOARD GAME

More Homework Less Homework
the
class
the
independents
She said, “We’re going to play a more advanced

version of the Scoreboard Game. We’ll have two groups,
the class as a whole, and a smaller group, the
Independents. These are students who just won’t go
along with everyone else. Some of you may already have
an idea of who these kids are. Many times over the last
month or so their behavior has caused the entire class to
receive more homework. So, here is what we’re going to
do. If I come up to you and tell you that you’re in the
Independent group, then you’ll have your own score
separate from the rest of the class. There’s only one catch.
If someone else in the Independent group is misbehaving,
you get the negative mark along with them! You only
have to stay in the Independent group one day. All you
have to do to get out, is come to me and say, ‘I don’t want
to be in that Independent group!’”
Mrs. Maestra loved this modification of the
Scoreboard Game. Her “independent” students,
especially Joan and John, had always been able to hide in
the large group ... but that was no longer possible. Mrs.
Maestra set the game up so that she had several students
in the independent group at the same time; she tied some

of her challenging and fence sitting students together.
When one acted up, they all got an additional page of
homework. At the end of the period, she made a great
show of marking this in her grade book.
When students deliberately chose to leave the
Independent group, Mrs. Maestra knew she had helped
them make an important social and moral decision. They
had decided to separate from a group that got them into
trouble.
19 Making Disruptive Behavior
Self Extinguishing
Juanita was one of the angriest rebels Mrs. Maestra

had ever attempted to teach. Her parents were drug
addicts and her mother had overdosed on meth while she
was pregnant with Juanita. The poor infant came into the
world as a crack baby.
Juanita took out her frustrations with her parents on
everyone, but especially with her teachers. She prided
herself on fearless rebellion. Mrs. Maestra had many
powerful strategies to use with Juanita, strategies that
would last an entire year. Here is a shocking technique
that turns all rebel behavior into support of the teacher’s
classroom management goals!
Early in the Spring, Mrs. Maestra went into class and

drew a new version of the Scoreboard Game. Her

students were deeply puzzled and intrigued.
Teacher Students
Mrs. Maestra then explained the new diagram as follows:

Mrs. Maestra: Class!
Students: Yes!
Mrs. Maestra: You’ve been doing so well with our
Scoreboard Game, I think you’re ready for a much, much
tougher challenge. It’s going to be you against me. And
believe me my dear students, you’ve never faced an opponent as
difficult as your dear Mrs. Maestra. Teach!
Students: Okay! (Students teach their neighbors
what their teacher said.)
Mrs. Maestra: Class! Class! Class!
Students: Yes! Yes! Yes!
Mrs. Maestra: Now here is how the new game
works. When you are following rules and procedures,
working hard, teaching each other, then you score points
for your side. That means you’ll get one, maybe even two,
three, four, fewer pages of homework. You’re side is
winning and I’m losing! Teach!

Mrs. Maestra: Class! Class!
Students: Yes! Yes!
Mrs. Maestra: However, if you do something that is
not a Smart Choice, or that Makes Your Dear Teacher
Unhappy, or breaks any of our classroom rules, then I get
a point. And by the end of the day, if I’m winning then
you are headed for that dreaded destination,
ExtraHomeWork City! Teach!
After the game began, Mrs. Maestra singled out

several hardworking students for doing a good job and
had the class give them a 10 finger woo, as she marked a
point on the Students side of the Scoreboard. Then,

before long, several students acted inappropriately, but
Mrs. Maestra ignored their behavior. She was waiting for
Juanita to act up ... and Mrs. Maestra didn’t have to wait
long. As soon as the lesson became fractions, Juanita
exclaimed, “I hate this stupid stuff.”
Juanita and the class were stunned by Mrs. Maestra’s
reaction.
Mrs. Maestra: (Smiling broadly, and without a hint of
sarcasm in her voice) Juanita, thank you so much! You’ve
helped out my side. That’s a mark for your dear teacher!
(Mrs. Maestra puts a mark on the Teacher side of the
Scoreboard.)
Notice dear Mrs. Maestra’s cleverness. What is the

last thing on earth that Juanita wants? To be on the teacher’s
team!!!! Now, whenever Juanita acts up, and whenever
Mrs. Maestra chooses to notice it, Juanita is scoring one

for her instructor!!!
Using the Teacher vs. Student Scoreboard will have a
powerful effect on your challenging students, if you’ve
been using the traditional Scoreboard for months. They
will be accustomed to seeing the negative side as bad
news, but also feel safe in their misbehavior, because it
wasn’t “helping” the teacher. With the Teacher vs.
Student Scoreboard, all the rebels are suddenly on your
side. You don’t have to mark a point for your team every
time they act up ... that will drive them nuts. In fact, clever
Mrs. Maestra waited for the first opportunity of the
slightest good behavior on Juanita’s part to say, “Juanita.
Now, that is really aggravating me. You are paying
excellent attention, and I have to score a point for the
students’ side. Class!, give Juanita a 10 finger woo!”
Isn’t Mrs. Maestra wonderful beyond all speaking?!
Juanita sees the consequences of her misbehavior in an

entirely new light. Acting up is being on the teacher’s
team; behaving correctly is “aggravating” the teacher ... so
BEHAVING CORRECTLY IS THE NEW FORM OF
REBELLION!!!!
Go get a big hanky!!!
When you’re done crying for joy, pay close attention.
If you’re going to be as successful as Mrs. Maestra in
pulling off the Teacher vs. Students Scoreboard, then you
have to be an excellent actor. You have to know exactly
how to play your part, and make a keen judgment on how
you should deliver your lines. For example, the first time
you use a rebel student’s misbehavior to score points for
your side, you have to intuitively feel whether you should
have a big, boisterous reaction or something very quiet.
“Thank you so much, Juanita! I really appreciate your
help!! The Students Team was getting too far in the
lead!!!!” Or, play it much cooler, smaller ... “Ah, Juanita

scored one for me. Thanks.”
If you decide to use a small amount of your rebel
student’s good behavior to score a point for the Students
side, you must be very convincing in your reaction. Either
play it up big, small, or somewhere in between ... but keep
a straight face, your class has to completely buy into your
reaction. Playing it big “Oh, no! That is so aggravating
when someone is on your team and then they turn against
you. Juanita is paying close attention, and has scored one
for the Students.” Play it small. “Heck. Now, Juanita is
on the Students’ side.”
In Power Teaching, we take very seriously the view
that teaching is a dramatic art that requires teachers to
play roles that deeply engage their students.

20 The Guff Counter
It is astonishing how often teachers have to endure

disrespectful remarks. Students are very skilled in making
comments, sometimes only partly heard, that almost, but
don’t quite cross the line into completely rude behavior.
Taken individually, these remarks aren’t terribly hurtful,
but they add up ... until you’re ready to scream. Right?
Okay. Here’s what Mrs. Maestra did.
One day Mrs. Maestra drew a box on the board, put
a zero inside it, and labeled the box “Guff Counter.”
She said, “Guff is any remark that makes a teacher
unhappy. For example, if I say to John, ‘please work
harder’ and he says ‘I am working harder’ ... that’s guff.
I’m asking him to do something that will help him be a
better student, and he’s refusing. Amazing guff! Students
in most classes make these kinds of statements all day
long! But not in Mrs. Maestra’s class. If a student gives me
guff, and the class doesn’t say anything, then that means
everyone silently supports that remark! I’ll add 1 to the
Guff Counter. This means that everyone has one
additional page of homework! However, if someone says

something that is guff, and everyone firmly, not loudly,
says ‘Please, stop!’ that means the class doesn’t silently
support the guff ... and the homework doesn’t go up a
page. Let’s practice.”
Mrs. Maestra gave Julie, an amenable student, various
directions, and encouraged her to respond with guff.
Mrs. Maestra instructed the other students in how firmly,
and loudly, she wanted them to say “Please, stop!”
Finally Mrs. Maestra said, “I know you’re going to
forget to stop the guff at first ... but that’s all right. If you
get a page of extra homework, I’ll allow the person who
gave me guff to work extra hard for the rest of period at
speaking more politely. If they do a very good job all
period, I’ll erase the mark in the Guff Counter.”
At the first opportunity, no matter how quickly her
students said “Please, stop!” to guff, Mrs. Maestra added
1 to the Guff counter. Then she encouraged the guffing
student to work harder all period at being respectful. On
the first violation, no matter how hard her challenging
student worked, Mrs. Maestra never lowered the Guff
Counter.
At the end of the period, she said something like

“John did much better today, but not quite well enough to
lower the Guff counter. Tell your neighbors how
important it is to keep your dear teacher happy.” On
other occasions, Mrs. Maestra would let the disruptive
student lower the Guff Counter by working harder ... but
not the first time. This showed that Mrs. Maestra meant
business.
It’s fine to want your students to work hard to keep
you happy. The happier they make you, the better you
teach.
Important note: to eliminate students capping on each
other, and other kinds of verbal harassment, use the
procedure described above but have two students act out
typical kinds of (non-profane) name calling, dissing,
capping. Point out that if you hear students talking
disrespectfully to each other, the same rules apply as if
they were speaking disrespectfully to you. Silent support
of verbal harassment must be met by everyone within
listening distance saying “Please, stop!” ... or the whole
class gets a Frowny. Students frequently treat each other
horribly. School is often heaven for bullies. Rehearse the

capping routine daily to cut down on the amount of abuse
students suffer from each other.
Final important note: in actual practice, you may
never have to make a mark in the Guff Counter box after
the first few times. When a student guffs you, say,
“Goodness, that sounded like guff ... where is my
marker?” Your class will instantly tell the guffing student,
“please stop!”
In other words, once more you have used rebellious
behavior, in this case guff, as a cue to prompt the class to
unite behind you in quashing the rebellion!
21 Breaking Up Rowdy Cliques
Paul was the obvious leader of John’s rowdy clique.

He was larger than the other boys, quick witted and good
at sports. Where Paul led, John and his friends followed.
For several weeks, whenever possible, Mrs. Maestra
worked on establishing a relationship with Paul. She gave
him small compliments, asked about his goals and dreams,
talked to him about his passion for basketball.
When Mrs. Maestra felt that she had Paul’s
confidence, she took him aside and explained a new game,
Power Chip Perfection. She said, “Paul, I’m going to be
honest with you. You’re one of the strongest leaders in
this class and I want you to use your leadership to guide
students in a positive direction. I’m going to announce a
new game to the class tomorrow, it’s called Power Chip
Perfection and I want you to be the scorekeeper.”
Mrs. Maestra explained that she would give Paul a
stack of Power Chips (poker chips) and she would write a
rule on the board that she wanted the class to focus on,
“Raise your hand for permission to speak.” Whenever a

student raised his or her hand for permission to speak,
Paul would silently add a Power Chip to the “Perfection
Stack”; whenever a student forgot to raise his or her hand
for permission to speak, Paul would silently take a Power
Chip away from the “Perfection Stack.” When the class
had 10 chips in the “Perfection Stack,” Mrs. Maestra
would add a mark to the Scoreboard reducing the
homework by one page. Mrs. Maestra emphasized that it
was important for Paul to silently add and subtract Power
Chips; she did not want anything he did to cause a
disruption in the class.
Mrs. Maestra then said, “Now, Paul, here is where I
want you to really use your remarkable leadership. Before
class, take John and his friends aside and tell them about
the game. Tell them that you want to see them win. Tell
them the obvious truth ... the Power Chip Perfection game
is a good way to force me to give less homework to the
class.” Paul, because he loved to lead, and because he
loved the idea of forcing Mrs. Maestra to give the class
less homework, agreed to be the scorekeeper.
The game proved to be very successful, as Mrs.

Maestra knew it would. On the first day, the class, under
Paul’s leadership, “forced” Mrs. Maestra to give them two
fewer pages of homework than they had ever received.
She stopped the game at that point, and acted as if she
was upset, complaining that the class was “too clever.”
Though the students, and Paul, begged her, Mrs.
Maestra wouldn’t agree to play the Power Chip Perfection
for several more days. Finally, she said, “All right, we’ll
try one more time. But I’m going to make it harder this
time, and you’re not going to be able to force me to give
you less homework.” Mrs. Maestra added two rules to
the board, “Raise your hand for permission to speak” and
“Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat.” The
class, with Paul as scorekeeper won again; Mrs. Maestra
stopped the game when the class had earned as many
positive marks as she secretly planned in advance that
they would earn.
For the next few days, Mrs. Maestra used the
possibility of playing the game as an inducement for good
behavior! Students worked hard at following Mrs.

Maestra’s rules, just to earn the chance to follow her rules
perfectly while playing Power Chip Perfection!!!
Mrs. Maestra felt like Tom Sawyer, with a crowd of
volunteers begging to whitewash her fence.
Mrs. Maestra was quite happy. She had a game that
she knew she could play again, for a long time or a short
time, whenever she wanted, could add other rules, and
had found an excellent way for Paul to exercise his
leadership for the benefit of the class.
Eventually, Mrs. Maestra took Paul aside and said,
“You’ve done a great job! Now, here is what we’re going
to do next ... if you think it will work. I’m going to write
‘Keep your dear teacher happy!’ on the board as our rule
for Power Chip Perfection. This rule is more vague, not as
concrete as asking students to raise their hands for
permission to speak or leave their seats ... but it’s also
very important for a successful class. What I want you to
do is not award the Power Chips as quickly in this version
of the game. Make the class really sweat to earn 10 chips
... let’s see how hard they’ll work to win.”
Paul readily agreed.

He loved the idea of being in cahoots with Mrs.
Maestra. Paul also loved the idea of being in charge, of
making anyone do anything. In essence, the whole class
was working hard to keep Paul happy.
What had Mrs. Maestra done? She had turned
troublesome, fiesty Paul into her colleague.
22 Breaking Up Talkative Pairs
Mrs. Maestra knew that one of the best ways to

break up talkative pairs of students was simply to
separate them, but Joan was such a gregarious spirit that
she talked to anyone she was next to. Mrs. Maestra had
students like Joan before; Mrs. Maestra knew just what to
do.
Obviously, the easiest time to detect inappropriate
talking was when Mrs. Maestra’s students were doing
silent work, reading or writing. Mrs. Maestra said,
“Today were going to play a new game. It’s called ‘talk to
my hand.’ If a student tries to talk to you during the
game, just hold up your hand, palm toward the student.
This means ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re saying.
You’re just talking to my hand, so please stop.’” Mrs.
Maestra knew that even good friends liked to have an
“attitude” with each other, hold up a hand to make the
other person stop talking.
Mrs. Maestra sat down between Joan and Janey and
said, “Okay, let’s practice. Now, Joan and Janey, let’s
pretend we’re reading. Whenever I try to talk to you,

hold up your hand; don’t look at me; keep your hand up
until I stop trying to bother you.” First Mrs. Maestra tried
to talk to Joan and then she tried to talk to Janey. The
class laughed as Joan and Janey put up their hands and
Mrs. Maestra pretended like she was frustrated.
Mrs. Maestra then had the class count off in 2’s. She
said, “Okay, 1’s pretend like you’re reading. 2’s try to talk
to the ones. When I say ‘Switch’, 2’s pretend like you’re
reading and 1’s try to talk to them.” Her students loved
this practice and so did Mrs. Maestra. It only took 30
seconds or so, but she had developed a routine that
would, whenever she wished, cut down on the
conversation between talkative pairs.
23 Keep the DeeJay Happy!
Stage One
Mrs. Maestra knew that students at every level loved
listening to music. In fact, it often seemed to her that her
most challenging students were some of the ones who
loved music the most. And so, one day, Mrs. Maestra
drew a new diagram on the board.
Mrs. Maestra said, “Hold up your hand if you really

like music.” All her students held up their hands.
Mrs. Maestra continued, “Me too. I love music.
Now, hold up your hand if you love to party.” All her
students laughed, held up their hands.
“Great! Believe it or not. I love partyin’ too. We’re
going to play a game called ‘Keep The DeeJay Happy’.
I’m the DeeJay. It’s kind of a guessing game. I’m not
going to tell you in advance everything that keeps me
happy. But the quicker you figure it out, the more music
you get to listen to. I’ll use the Frownie and Smilie note
faces to keep score of how you’re doing. When I put a
mark under the Frownie Note Face, that means one or
more people are making me unhappy. When I put a mark
under the Smilie Note Face that means one or more people
are making me happy. Tell your neighbors what I just
said.”
The students, hesitantly, explained what Mrs.
Maestra said.
Mrs. Maestra exclaimed, “Oh! That was too slow,

and some people didn’t even talk to their neighbors. I’m
unhappy!” She put a mark under the Frownie Note Face
and said, “Give me a Mighty Groan!”
Her students groaned.
Mrs. Maestra continued, “Now, here’s the deal. At
the end of half an hour, I’ll play the radio one minute for
every Smilie Note Face mark you have more than Frownie
Note Face marks. You can choose the station ... however,
if music comes on that contains offensive language, the
radio goes off! Explain all that to your neighbors.”
The students hesitantly explain what Mrs. Maestra
said.
She made another Frownie mark and explained, “Too
slow again! Here’s another Frownie! Mighty Groan!”
(As noted earlier, Mrs. Maestra always believed that
this groan was important. Her students laughed as they
groan ... and thus they’re were back on her side, instead
of being resentful that they got a Frownie face.)
“Now, you see it’s really important for you to
psyche out what makes me, your Deejay, happy and
unhappy. Let’s practice. Do some things that you think

might make me unhappy. Go ahead. It’s practice; I won’t
give you any Frownies.”
A few students did, or said, goofy things.
Mrs. Maestra laughed, “Great! Excellent misbehavior!
Now, do or say some things that you think would make
me happy.”
A few students did or said things that made Mrs.
Maestra happy.
Mrs. Maestra continued, “Right! Okay. Now, we’re
playing for real. Open your books to page 67.”
Mrs. Maestra taught as she normally would but

awarded Frownie and Smilie Note Face points, making
sure that by the end of the half hour the Smilies almost
caught the Frownies ... the Frownies were only 3 ahead of
the Smilies.
Mrs. Maestra erased the score and announced that
she’d let the class play again until the end of the hour. At
the end of the hour, the game came out even closer (just
as Mrs. Maestra wanted.) The Frownies were only one
ahead of the Smilies! Darn!
Mrs. Maestra said, “Much better. I’ll tell you what.

We’ll play again tomorrow ... but I’ll allow a few of you to
bring the music.” She selected the four most popular
students in her class as ‘assistant deejays’ and allowed
them to bring one CD each. She added, “However,
remember my rule about offensive language ... the instant
I hear anything that is inappropriate, the boom box is
turned off!”
On the second day the game was played, Mrs.
Maestra let the class almost win at the end of the first half
hour, and then they won one minute before the end of the
period. She played Ti’Juan’s music, her most popular
student, but only for one minute ... not a second longer.
This drove the kids crazy ... the music stopped just when
the song was getting going!
As the game continued over the next week, Mrs.
Maestra chose the CD of a different popular person each
time. (She had the students bring the CD’s in advance,
and screened them at home for inappropriate language.)
Everyone was clamoring for her to let them bring CD’s.
Mrs. Maestra loved this ... it meant her whole class was
hooked, intensely hooked, on Keep the DeeJay Happy.
Mrs. Maestra rarely let her students win 2 minutes of

music ... and never let her students win three minutes of
music. She knew it was a long year; she wanted to start
by keeping the rewards as small as possible. Toward the
end of the year, her students would need a 5-10 minute
music party once a week (see below) to stay involved.
Mrs. Maestra remained in Stage One for as long as
she could. She kept playing the music of her popular
students ... which also worked wonders for her
relationship to these powerful class leaders.
When Mrs. Maestra’s students objected, she said “I’ll
let other students bring CD’s when I see that everyone
truly understands how to keep the DeeJay happy. We’re
not there yet. It’s too much of a hassle to have to choose
among 30 CD’s. But, if you keep bugging me about
bringing CD’s, that just might earn you a Frownie. I’m a
very moody, easy to upset Deejay!”
Stage Two
When the class was clamoring to have the CD
bringing group enlarged, Mrs. Maestra finally said, “All
right. I think you are all doing fairly well. The row that
does the best today, can bring CD’s tomorrow. I’m not
guaranteeing we’ll play anyone’s CD ... you’ll have to earn
Smilie Note Faces for that. We’re also going to change the
game a bit; instead of playing in half hour periods, we’ll
just play for the entire hour.” In Stage One, as an extra
motivator, she gave students two chances during an hour
to win music. In Stage Two Mrs. Maestra found it more
convenient, and it broke up her period less, if the class
focused on winning one music party by the end the hour.
The important change in Stage Two was that anyone
could bring a CD; they just had to be in a row that was
generating lots of Smilie Note Faces.
Mrs. Maestra usually stayed in this stage for a
considerable amount of time ... often a month or two.
Stage Three
Mrs. Maestra eventually introduced a new twist in
Keep the DeeJay Happy. One day she said, “Okay,
you’re all doing very good. Everyone who wants to can
bring a CD tomorrow. We’re going to have a row versus
row competition.”
On the next day, Mrs. Maestra made the following

diagram on the board. (Of course, if she would have had
more than 5 rows, she would have extended her drawing.)
Row 1
Row 2
Row 3
Row 4
Row 5
She said, “Well, let’s make this a little more fair. I’ll be
assigning Smilie and Frownie Note Faces by rows. I’ll
select a CD from the row that has more Smilies than
Frownies at the end of the period ... of course, if no row
has more Smilies than Frownies ... no party. Groan!”
To make things more interesting, Mrs. Maestra soon
found an opportunity early in the class and exclaimed
“everyone is following directions too slowly!” She gave
each row a Frownie Note Face. Then, a little later, Mrs.
Maestra sighed and said, “There are some people in each
row who are not paying attention!” She gave each row
another Frownie Note Face. She knew her students
always worked harder when they were trying to make up
lost points.
If students in one row were talking to students in
another row, Mrs. Maestra gave both rows one Frownie
Note Face.
On the first day Mrs. Maestra made sure that no row
won, but several got very close.
On the second day, Mrs. Maestra was quite satisfied

and so arranged things so her best row won. She
applauded them and said, “Good job. You won a minute
of music for the whole class. I’m going to pick a number
from one to 100 ... each person in this row who has a CD
should tell me their guess ... the person who is closest gets
to have their music played tomorrow ... if I find no
offensive language in it when I play it at home tonight.”
Mrs. Maestra stayed in this stage as long as she
could. She knew that the longer she remained in a stage,
the more likely that she’d be able to keep the game going
over the whole year.
Stage Four
When her students were ready for something new,
Mrs. Maestra started class by saying “You know. I’m
really liking this game. But I think you need a little help.
Maybe you could give yourselves some hints. What are
the kinds of things you’ve noticed that make me
unhappy?”
Her students mentioned speaking without raising
their hand, leaving their seat, being rude to a classmate.
She wrote these on the board.

Then Mrs. Maestra said, “Excellent. You’re right.
That stuff really gives me a Frownie Face. Now what
kinds of things have you noticed that gets Smilie Faces?”
Her students mentioned several things including the
opposite of the Frownies. Mrs. Maestra added the
students comments on the board, and a few more
examples of student behavior that were her personal
favorites for winning Smiles and avoiding Frownies.
She said, “All right. Let’s leave those there. These
will be your hints for winning our music game, Keep the
DeeJay Happy!”
Mrs. Maestra asked her students to rehearse the
Frownie and Smilie behavior. Then she let them play the
game, using rows as in Stage Three, for rest of the period.
Occasionally, Mrs. Maestra let students in the rows
have a “row huddle” when they talk about how to use the
hints on the board to gain Smilies for their group. She
encourage her students to think up new ways to win
Smilies, new ways to keep the deejay happy. Mrs.
Maestra felt like she was in teaching Heaven.
Stage Five
Eventually, at the end of a period, Mrs. Maestra
handed out a piece of paper with everyone’s name on it.
She said, “Well, I’m liking our parties. But I wish we could
party a little longer! So, we’ll divide the class up into
teams. Put a check mark beside six names on the list who
you think would be good team captains. These should be
people who will be very good at getting their team to
avoid Frownies and add Smilies. We’ll need a team captain
for each of our six rows row.
After class, Mrs. Maestra totaled the votes. She
ended up, of course, with the names of the six most
popular students in class. She noted John was one of the
six, but she decided not to include him in her plan; he
wasn't quite reliable enough. Mrs. Maestra substituted
Noreen, a popular, reliable student. Mrs. Maestra looked
at her list ... these were precisely the students she wanted
helping her with classroom management!
The next day, Mrs. Maestra read the names of the
student leaders. Then she said, “Okay. The class has
selected you as their leaders. I want each of you to pick
someone else who is going to be your co-leader ... this will

be the person you can trust to help you guide your team
toward the wonderful goal of longer music parties in our
class.” The leaders picked the co-leaders. At this point, in
a class with six row leaders, Mrs. Maestra now had 12
students on her side ... 12 of the most popular kids her
class!
Mrs. Maestra then said, “Tonight I’ll work out the
teams.”
She put most challenging students on teams with a
leader and co-leader that she believed the challenging
student wanted to please. (See Chapter 28, The Birthday
Game.)
The next day Mrs. Maestra said, “These assignments
are temporary ... we’ll change them as we need to. Move
to a row with your team captain and co-captain.” Mrs.
Maestra then announced the teams and had students
move accordingly. Over the following week, Mrs. Maestra
experimented with where to put the team captains and co-
captains in the rows; she decided that having one in the
front of the row and the other in the back worked best.
(Of course, Mrs. Maestra knew that other teachers might
design other arrangements in their classroom.)

Each day when Mrs. Maestra was ready to play the
game she gave the teams a few minutes for a “row
huddle” when they planed their strategy beating the other
rows by getting m Smilie Note Faces than Frownies.
Before long, Mrs. Maestra let a row win the first 3
minute music party! Gosh, her students were thrilled by
winning 3 measly minutes!!
Mrs. Maestra continued to play the game for weeks,
allowing row huddles as frequently as she thought
necessary.
Whenever a row won, Mrs. Maestra used the “pick a
number from 1-100” method to select the music that was
played.
If kids on teams were rude to their teammates ... or
other teams ... that certainly made the Deejay, Mrs.
Maestra, unhappy. She threw a few Frownies on the
board and watched polite behavior increase.
Occasionally, a row, would try to pressure Mrs.
Maestra into giving them a Smilie, which meant they got an
instant Frownie.
Stage Six
Late in the year, Mrs. Maestra announced a radical

new rule. All Smilie minutes earned by the winning rows
would be put in a Music Bank and cashed in each Friday.
Mrs. Maestra pointed out that this could mean a 5-10
minute music party once a week! She believed this was a
very fair trade for a well managed, hard working class.
Students in the three highest scoring rows could bring
CD’s and pick a number from 1-100. (This meant that Mrs.
Maestra had a day to day running record of the row totals
... a hassle, but it was worth it. In exchange, Mrs. Maestra
got all her students working hard all week to keep her
happy.)
What did Mrs. Maestra do if a student wanted to

leave a group?
She took the student aside and said something like the
following, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can join any other
group, if you can convince the captain and co-captain to
let you join. But if no one wants you ... then you’re on my
personal team. And believe me, you really won’t enjoy
that.”
What did Mrs. Maestra do if students wanted to kick
someone off the team, but the individual didn’t want to
leave?
She took the team captain and co-captain aside and
said, “Look. You have a real leadership problem. But,
your teammate wants to stay on the team. If the two of
you will take this person aside, explain politely, but
exactly, how you want them to act, then I’ll cut you a little
slack. I won’t be so quick with the Frownie.”
If the leader and co-leader were unsuccessful, and
Mrs. Maestra could convince no one else in class to take
the student ... then put she would put him or her on Mrs.
Maestra’s team.
She announced that players on her team would go to
the office every Friday during the music party! She also
said that all any student ever had to do to get off her
team, was to convince her that they saw the error of their
ways and convince a captain and co-captain to let them
join their team.
24 The Please/Okay Game
Mrs. Maestra would have been very happy with John

if whenever she asked him to do something, sit up, pay
attention, stop talking to his neighbor, whatever ... John
simply said “Okay.” In fact, Mrs. Maestra believed that
teachers all over the planet would have been delighted if
they could simply hear “Okay” from students when they
were given a direction.
Here’s what Mrs. Maestra did about this worldwide
education problem.
One day, a few weeks after she introduced the Guff
counter, Mrs. Maestra came into class with a large sign
with two words on it: Please? Okay! She put the sign in
a prominent place in the room.
Mrs. Maestra said, “I’m going to teach you a new
game. It’s called the Please/Okay game. If I ask you to do
something, please don’t give me guff ... just say ‘okay.’
That’s all I want ... I ask you to do something, and you say
‘okay’.” She asked several students to rehearse the
procedure with her.
Mrs. Maestra: Alex, pretend I say to you, please

keep your hands to yourself. What do you say?
Alex: Okay.
Mrs. Maestra: Excellent! Maria, what if I ask you to
do your work more neatly, what do you say?
Maria: Okay.
Mrs. Maestra: Excellent! Polly, what if I ask you to
stop talking to your neighbor.
Polly: Okay!
Mrs. Maestra: Fantastic! Now, here’s how we play
the Please/Okay game. If I don’t say please, you don’t
have to say okay! In fact, you can just stare into space
and say “la, la, la” until I remember to use good manners.
Now, let’s practice. Jack, please sit up.
Jack: Okay!
Mrs. Maestra: Tisha, please fold your hands on your
desk.
Tisha: Okay.
Mrs. Maestra: John, look at me.
John: (staring into space) La, la, la, la.
Mrs. Maestra: Fantastic! John, please look at me.
John: Okay.
Mrs. Maestra then said, “Very good! Now, if you

hear me ask a student to please do something and they
don’t say okay ... that’s Guff! Politely, but firmly, tell that
student to ‘Please, stop’ or I’ll have to assume that you all
support impoliteness and so I’ll have to add one point to
the Guff Counter.”
Mrs. Maestra’s students enjoyed the Please/Okay
game. To make it even more amusing, Mrs. Maestra
would sometimes forget, on purpose, to say “Please”
especially with John. John always responded, “La, la, la.”
John thought he was really getting away with
something. In fact, having John say “la, la, la” made him
part of Mrs. Maestra’s system! He was rebelling himself into
perfect cooperation! John was such a troublesome student
that Mrs. Maestra would have far rather had him say “la,
la, la” and know she had his attention, than his usual,
often irritating behavior.
One crucial feature of the game for Mrs. Maestra was
that it reminded her to consistently say “please” when she
wanted her students to follow a direction.
The “Please/Okay” game was so important to Mrs.
Maestra that she rehearsed the procedure (as she had
with Alex, Maria and Polly) for a week, for only about a
minute a day. Mrs. Maestra often included John in the
rehearsal, and he almost always went along, especially if
he got the “la, la, la” part.
Then one day Mrs. Maestra said, “You’ve all been
doing very well with Please-Okay. Here’s what we’re
going to do. At the end of each day, if you’ll remind me,
I’ll think about how we’ve been doing with Please/Okay
and Please stop! If it seems like we’ve been doing very
well then I’ll give the entire class a star here on the front
board. When we have 10 stars, we’ll have a 5 minute
music party at the end of the week! Tell each other how
much you’d love to have a 5 minute music party!!!” (The
extra music time could be added to any time they had
gained in the game described in the previous chapter.)
Mrs. Maestra’s students told each other about how
wonderful it would be to have a 5 minute music party.
Late in the year, when her class needed additional
motivation, Mrs. Maestra increased the party from 5 to 10
minutes. Gosh, that was exciting.
Note Mrs. Maestra’s overall strategy. She used the
Scoreboard Game for short term rewards or penalties at
the end of the day. She picked something that was very
important to her, Please/Okay, for a long term reward,
about once a week. When the class had mastered
Please/Okay, Mrs. Maestra picked another star task and
let the class vote on what they wanted to do during their
5 minute party, listen to music, dance, play a game. Of
course, Mrs. Maestra worked things out so that her class
usually, but not always, ended up with 10 stars by the end
of Friday afternoon.
Mrs. Maestra was a little bit old fashioned.
One day she said, “You know, if you wanted to make
me quite happy, it would be wonderful if you said ‘Yes,
Mam’ when I asked you to please follow one of my
directions. You might not feel comfortable with this and if
so, that’s fine. But once in awhile I would just love to hear
someone say something very polite, like ‘Yes, Mam.”
Mrs. Maestra never forgot the one day, it was a
lovely day early in the spring, when she asked John to
stop fiddling with a key chain, he said, “Yes, Mam.”
25 Student Leaders
Before training student leaders, Mrs. Maestra often

spent several weeks, even months using the Scoreboard
Game and other Power Teaching classroom management
techniques so that all her students understand her rules
and procedures. In addition, Mrs. Maestra’s class needed
to have ample experience of the pleasure of earning less or
more homework and avoiding more homework.
To move toward a self managing class, Mrs. Maestra
trained student leaders to take over the classroom
management tasks that she had been overseeing.
She said the following to her students, “I’m sure there
have been many days when you had more homework than
you wanted ... and I’m sure you would enjoy finding a
way to play the Scoreboard game more successfully. So,
here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll divide into teams,
each team will have a leader. The leader’s job will be to
help his or her team members focus on getting less
homework and avoiding more homework. It will be much
easier for your team leaders to guide a few team members,
than for one person, me, to guide an entire class toward

wining the Scoreboard game. So, write down the names of
the 8 people in this class that you think would be good
classroom leaders.”
Mrs. Maestra planned to have one leader for every
four students ...lots of leaders equaled more organization.
When she received the names of the leaders from her
students , Mrs. Maestra often saw that she had a list of
many of the most popular students in class. She always
picked the students she thought would be the best leaders
(Mrs. Maestra felt no compulsion to pick the top eight
students that her class selected, if she believed these
students would not be best for classroom management.)
Next, Mrs. Maestra found an opportunity to take her
special students aside and said the following, “I and the
class have selected you as some of our best leaders. I
think we’ve made a very good choice. I’m going to let
each of you pick one person to join your team who you
think would really back you up and keep your team
members headed in the right direction. I’ll select the rest of
your team for you. We’ll try this system for two weeks,
and then I’ll ask the class to pick 8 leaders again. I’ll look
over their choices; If you’ve been doing a good job, then

you’ll get to be leaders again. The important advantage to
you of being a team leader is not only that it is fun, but
also that you get to have one of your friends on your
team. The two of you can, if you don’t talk to each other
during work time, sit together.”
Now, think about the structure Mrs. Maestra had
created. She had half the class, the leaders and co-leaders,
as part of her system. Precisely the kids that most
students want to follow, were Mrs. Maestra’s leaders. In
addition, she had used the very powerful reward of
allowing friends to sit together as a motivator. Students
will do almost anything to sit with a friend. Finally, the
whole system was performance based. If the leaders did a
good job of leading students toward less homework,
they’ll get reelected (and Mrs. Maestra will support their
reelection) ... if not, someone else will get their plum job.
Mrs. Maestra found that the system worked even
better if she gave the leaders and co-leaders tasks to
perform every period. She handed them the following list.
Leaders’ Responsibilities
1. Whenever I ask you to, stand up and lead your
team in a review of the rules and procedures. Don’t
review the rules in order ... that is too easy. Pick numbers
from 1-5 and have your team quickly say the rule and
make the gesture. Point at the procedures and have your
team quickly explain each sign.
2. When I give directions, be the first on your team to
follow them.
3. Energetically give “woos” and “it’s cool!”
4. Never allow a team member to guff anyone. Be
firm, say “Please, stop!” but don’t answer guff with guff.
5. Meet individually with students who are having a
hard time following classroom rules or procedures. Find
out if there is anything I can do to help them.
6. When I say “teach!,” energetically, using large
gestures, teach your neighbor. Be an example to your
entire team.
If you give your leaders tasks like the above, they will
lead. The students that the class selected, enjoy being in
charge ... leading maintains and solidifies their position in
the social hierarchy. Instead of working against the

natural clique structure of your students, you have the
cliques working for you.
What do you do if a student wants to leave a group?
Take the student aside and say something like the
following, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can join any other
group, if you can convince the team leader and co-leader
to let you join. But if no one wants you ... then you’re on
my personal team. And believe me, you really won’t enjoy
that.”
What should you do if students want to kick someone
off the team, but the individual doesn’t want to leave?
Take the team leader and co-leader aside and say,
“Look. You have a real leadership problem. But, your
teammate wants to stay on the team. If the two of you will
take this person aside, explain politely, but exactly, how
you want them to act, then I’ll cut you a little slack. I
won’t be so quick with more homework.”
If the leader and co-leader are unsuccessful, and you
can convince no one else in class to take the student ...
then put him/her on your personal team.
Students on your team automatically go into the
Independent group and get more homework with

stunning swiftness. Make being on your team the worst
news a student can get. But also point this out: all
students ever have to do to get off your team, is convince
you that they see the error of their ways and convince a
leader and co-leader to let them join their team.
Creating Learning Teams
There is a large amount of educational research which

shows that students are more successful when they
participate in student learning teams than when they study
alone. Not only do weak students benefit by being taught
by other students, but strong students gain increased
subject mastery when they have the opportunity to
instruct their peers.
To make learning teams work in the structure we
have described above, you may have to juggle the
membership of the teams. About a third of the way into
the year, you will have begun to identify your
academically stronger and weaker students.
Say something like the following to your class, “I’m
very happy with how the student leaders and their teams
have been doing. Now, we’re ready to make significant
improvements in your grades. I’m going to keep the same
leaders, for now, and reorganize the teams so that each
group is about academically equal. Every team will have
students who have been doing very well so far, and every
team will have students who can do better.”
Sort the teams by the grades they have earned in your
class. Put the very strongest students on a team with the
weakest students. Be sure every team has at least one
strong student.
When you hand out the rosters of the new teams,
explain to your class that you may need to occasionally
reorganize the teams. Your goal, you explain, is for
everyone to academically improve.
Here are some suggestions for team oriented
academic activities:
1. Hand out lists of material that the class can turn
into flash cards. These lists can contain words and
definitions, dates and events, multiplication questions and
answers, any set of information that has a “front” and a
“back”. Students put the word, date, problem on the
front of the card and the definition, event, answer on the

back. Students can master hundreds of flash cards in a
year. Give biweekly flash card tests and give teams in-
class time to study. The team’s goal should be setting a
new record for the team’s average score on the tests.
2. During quiet study periods, use a digital clock to
time how long each team can stay quietly on task.
Challenge teams to break their previous team records for
silent, on task activity.
3. Give students lists of spelling words or math facts
to master. Give teams in-class time to quiz each other. The
team goal should be to set new records for the team’s
average score on weekly spelling tests.
As these team activities proceed, take your student

leaders and strongest academic students aside for periodic
conferences. Praise them for their service to the class.
Discuss ways that classroom organization and team
academic abilities can be improved. Ask them if they
would be willing to volunteer to help weaker students
outside of class ... at lunch, before or after school. You’ll
be pleasantly surprised at how many of your kids, given

the opportunity, will aid their classmates.
26 You Bet Your Detention
After she had used the Scoreboard and the

Scoreboard with Independents for awhile, Mrs. Maestra
moved on to another classroom management device:
Detention Cards. (Mrs. Maestra found Detention Cards
was a good supplement to the classroom leadership
system she was developing.)
Mrs. Maestra believed that the main problem with
detention was that it was not a sufficiently unpleasant
experience to change student behavior. Toward the
middle of the year, she brought in a boom box one day
and a stack of red cards. She said, “These are detention
cards. I’ve made out five for each person and they’re in
alphabetical order. If you break a classroom rule, I’ll give
you a detention card. This means you have to serve 10
minutes of detention after school. If you make a fuss, or
say anything unpleasant, or even groan, I’ll give you
another card, and so on. Teach your neighbors what I just
said.”
The students explained the 10 minute detention cards

to each other.
Mrs. Maestra continued, “You will get detention
because you are having a hard time following instructions.
Here is the way you will practice following instructions in
detention.” Mrs. Maestra handed copies of the following
around her class.
1. Stand up quietly.
2. Push your chair in quietly. Wait 10 seconds.
3. Pull your chair out quietly.
4. Sit down.
5. Raise your hand.
6. Hold your hand up for 10 seconds.
7. Lower your hand.
8. Quietly get out your science book.
9. Look at your science book for 10 seconds.
10. Put your science book away quietly.
11. Begin again at number 1
She then told her students, “This is what you will do

for 10 minutes if you get one card. If you follow the
directions well, you might get an early release. If you

refuse to follow directions you’ll stay the entire 10
minutes. Now, some of you might think that is no big
deal, but during detention, you will listen to some of my
favorite music. Think of it as cultural enrichment.”
Mrs. Maestra then played selections of her “favorite”
music, selections from the Japanese Opera, the Red Army
Chorus singing patriotic songs, hillbilly yodeling, and so
forth. Students groaned with misery as they listened.
Mrs. Maestra knew that her students would almost
rather stand in hot coals than listen to music they
considered uncool.
And so, she finished her explanation, “Tell your
neighbor the following. ‘If someone is going to get 10
minutes of detention that involves following mindless rules
and listening to that music, I sincerely hope it is you, not
me!’”
Note Mrs. Maestra’s strategy. Having five cards for
each person, and having the cards in alphabetical order,
vastly simplified her record keeping. She could quickly
hand a card to a rebel without stopping to write down
his/her name. She also set the rest of the student’s cards
aside. At the end of the day, she simply looked at the

cards she had set aside and knew who was due in
detention and how many minutes they had earned.
Detention was no longer a simple, relatively painless
experience. Not only was following the list of detention
rules quite unpleasant, listening to uncool music was
deeply painful, embarrassing to her teenagers. In addition,
she knew friends of her challenging students would mock
them unmercifully for having to go to Power Detention ...
Mrs. Maestra that that was just fine.
27 Praise Therapy
Mrs. Maestra noted that Joan was the kind of student

who wanted a lot of attention, and beamed when she got
praise. Whenever Mrs. Maestra had the opportunity, she
praised Joan for even the smallest positive behavior.
“Joan, I really liked how quietly you slid in your chair.”
“Joan thank you for raising your hand.” “Joan you are
doing an excellent job of waiting in line.” Mrs. Maestra
found that praise therapy, a very simple technique, often
had remarkably positive results with her challenging
students.
28 The Birthday Game
Mrs. Maestra knew that her students would do

almost anything to sit with a favorite friend. She did not
want to give this reward away without getting excellent
behavior in return. Mrs. Maestra believed that the
Birthday Game was a way to identify groups of favorite
friends, and then use this information to improve the
behavior of challenging students (and others.)
Here are the four steps Mrs. Maestra used in setting
up the Birthday Game.
1. She used a special technique to discover groups of
favorite friends
2. Next Mrs. Maestra rearranged the seating so
favorite friends (especially of challenging students) sat far
apart
3. In exchange for good behavior, Mrs. Maestra
handed out “1 minute buddy passes” so that friends could
sit next to each other (so long as they behave perfectly) for
1 minute
4. Later in the year, Mrs. Maestra extend the buddy

passes to 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.
Stage One: discover groups of favorite friends

Mrs. Maestra started by giving her students a list of
every student in class. She said, “Let’s play the Birthday
Game. Put a check mark beside the names of three
students in this class that you would invite to your
birthday party.” Then, she collected the lists.
To tabulate the results, Mrs. Maestra wrote every
student’s name on a sheet of paper and then drew three
arrows from each student to the students they would
invite to their parties. The students with the most arrows
attached to them were the most popular students in class.
This was powerful information for Mrs. Maestra, and
often revealed surprising patterns.
Mrs. Maestra was especially interested in learning
who her challenging students wanted to be connected to
... and who wanted to connect with them.
Stage Two: rearrange the seating so favorite friends

(especially of challenging students) sit far apart
Several days after she had collected and collated the

birthday lists, Mrs. Maestra rearranged the seating. Mrs.
Maestra waited several days, so that her students didn’t
know she was using the lists as her “rearrangement”
information. Mrs. Maestra sat everyone away from their
special buddy.
Mrs. Maestra paid special attention to challenging
students who connected to each other. If each one
wanted the other at his/her party, the she sat them as far
apart as possible.
Stage Three: Reward with buddy passes

Whenever Mrs. Maestra wanted her class to perform
extremely well, she put an oven timer on the front board
and said something like the following, “Everyone who
does excellent work for the next 15 minutes will be given a
1 minute buddy pass to sit with their favorite friend ... if
their favorite friend has also done excellent work.” After
15 minutes were up, Mrs. Maestra allowed a few students
to trade seats. She then reset the timer and when it went
off after a minute, the students should returned to their
original seats. To make this whole procedure go more
smoothly, Mrs. Maestra rehearsed getting up and
changing seats, rewarding the class with Smilies when they
rehearsed well (and penalizing them with Frownies when
they rehearsed poorly.)
Initially, by only giving out 1 minute buddy passes,
Mrs. Maestra made sitting with a friend an extremely
valuable commodity. She knew that gold is a precious
metal partly because of its rarity. As the year progressed,
Mrs. Maestra could turn up student enthusiasm by
gradually extending the amount of time buddies could sit
together; she also increased the amount of time students
had to work excellently to earn their buddy pass. Mrs.
Maestra knew from long experience that late in the year,
she needed extra classroom management tricks to keep
students motivated. The fewer buddy minutes she started
with, the more golden the extra minutes would be in May
and June.
Mrs. Maestra only let buddies sit together if their

behavior, while sitting together, is perfect. Otherwise,
buddies simply bred a new classroom management
problem.
29 Positive Tattling
After the Birthday Game, Mrs. Maestra noticed that

Joan wanted to invite LeAnn, one of the most popular
students in class, to her birthday party.
Among other positive qualities, LeAnn was the kind
of student who delighted in doing favors for Mrs.
Maestra. After checking with LeAnn, Mrs. Maestra said
the following to Joan, “I know we’ve had some challenges
this semester in following our classroom rules and
procedures. Should we ask LeAnn to help you?”
Joan smiled enormously ... more enormously than
enormously, “Yes! Let’s ask LeAnn to help me!”
Mrs. Maestra showed Joan a set of behaviors:
1. Opening books
2. Handing out papers
3. Handing in papers
4. Getting pencils sharpened
5. Raising your hand for permission to ask a question
6. Raising your hand for permission to leave your
seat
7. Responding “Yes” when Mrs. Maestra says

“Class!”
8. Responding “hands and eyes” when Mrs. Maestra
says “hands and eyes”
9. Saying “it’s cool!” when someone makes a mistake
10. Saying “Please, stop!” when a student guffs Mrs.
Maestra or another student
11. Not speaking guff to anyone
12. Giving a student a woo
13. Lowering your voice when Mrs. Maestra uses the
volume-O-meter
Mrs. Maestra asked Joan to select two behaviors that
she would like LeAnn to help her with. Joan selected
handing in papers, and giving a student a woo.
Mrs. Maestra said, “That’s an excellent start. I’ll give
LeAnn a list of those three items and tell her to make a
mark on the list every time you do well on that item. At
the start of each period, LeAnn will show you how you’ve
been doing. At the end of the period, the two of you can
share your score sheet with me. I only want to point out
one thing: this isn’t an excuse for you to talk to LeAnn in
class, or point out to her what she should be writing down
on your list. She is your personal Scorekeeper; if you

don’t let her do her job, we’ll try something else.”
Joan loved the new system.
30 The Magic Stopwatch Game
John often forgot to raise his hand when he had a

question or comment. One day Mrs. Maestra took him
aside and showed him a new, red stopwatch. She showed
John how the stopwatch worked and let him click the
buttons. Mrs. Maestra had never known a student who
wasn’t fascinated by stopwatches. John was no exception.
Mrs. Maestra said, “John, I’m going to let you try
something very special. After lunch, we will use the
stopwatch to help you remember to raise your hand to ask
a question. I’ll have Paul, one of your row leaders, start
the watch and time how long you can go before you forget
to raise your hand. When you forget, Paul will stop the
watch and write down your personal record. Tomorrow,
we’ll try the same thing. Every day you’ll get a new
chance to break your record. When you’ve broken your
record 5 times, I’ll let you start and stop the watch
yourself for one session. Then, depending on how you’re
doing, you can keep using the watch, Paul will take the
watch back, or we’ll try something else. But please
remember this, Paul is your Personal Timekeeper; if you

disturb him while he is doing his job, we’ll save the
stopwatch for later in the year.”
Mrs. Maestra understood the power of her
Stopwatch Game.
First, she was employing a fascinating piece of
technology, a stopwatch.
Second, the idea of setting personal records, even for
something so simple as obeying a class rule, powerfully
appealed to her class.
Third, challenging students like John often deeply
wanted an audience, someone to pay attention to them.
Having someone else time their good behavior was the
kind of audience for challenging students that Mrs.
Maestra loved.
31 The Bull’s Eye Game
Mrs. Maestra decided to invent a game, she called it

the Bull’s Eye Game, that would help John continue to
improve his behavior. A key feature of the game was that
it would involve no punishment. Mrs. Maestra had
learned that John, one of the most challenging students in
her career, was almost immune to any form of penalty, and
so she made the Bull’s Eye Game 100% reward.
Mrs. Maestra collected the following game materials:
A large, 5 circle, bull’s eye that she posted
prominently in class.
A “Sticker Bank” of 25+ stickers ranging from simple
to elaborate designs displayed on a board.
Sheets of paper divided into 5 boxes. These would be
John’s “weekly Bull’s Eye calendar” for pasting stickers
and recording behavior scores.
Then Mrs. Maestra taught John how to play.
Selecting a behavior goal

In a one-on-one session Mrs. Maestra showed John
the bull’s eye diagram with five circles. The circles, from
inside to outside, were labeled 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Mrs. Maestra
explained that when John scored a “bull’s eye day” he had
perfectly achieved the behavior goal that he chose (and
Mrs. Maestra agreed to). Examples of Mrs. Maestra’s
behavior goals were:
-- raising your hand for permission to speak
-- raising your hand for permission to leave your seat
-- not speaking or making noise during “silent work”
periods
-- following the teacher’s directions
-- looking at the teacher, when she speaks
-- not touching others
Note that Mrs. Maestra’s goals were very specific.
Challenging students need easy to understand standards.
Goals like “behaving yourself”, “speaking respectfully”,
“being good” are, for many challenging students,
nebulous.
Mrs. Maestra found that encouraging John to choose

his behavior goal significantly deepened his involvement in

the game.
Rehearsing the behavior goal

John and Mrs. Maestra took turns rehearsing the
behavior goal, “following the teacher’s directions” that
John chose. To rehearse “following the teacher’s
directions” Mrs. Maestra gave normal classroom directions
and John followed them. Then, to make the rehearsal
entertaining, John gave normal classroom directions and
Mrs. Maestra followed them.
Mrs. Maestra then asked John to model inappropriate
behavior. Mrs. Maestra gave directions and John stared
around the classroom, or laughed, groaned, banged on the
desk.
Then John and Mrs. Maestra changed roles; she
became the challenging student who did not follow
directions. Much to John’s delight, Mrs. Maestra modeled
John’s most typical avoidance behavior. Role switching
rehearsal of appropriate and inappropriate behavior
continued until John clearly understood the behavior goal.
Mrs. Maestra believed that the rehearsal stage was
very important. Not only did it begin to imprint John with

the difference between appropriate and inappropriate
behavior, but also, and more importantly, rehearsal
created an entertaining bond between teacher and
student.
Explaining the Bull’s Eye Game

Mrs. Maestra explained that John’s task was to try to
score Bull’s Eye days by perfectly hitting the behavior
goal. She and John would meet at the end of the period
to evaluate John’s performance (or, if Mrs. Maestra didn’t
have time, she would meet with John after school.)
Mrs. Maestra said, “When we meet I will write down
what I think your score is ... 5 is a perfect bull’s eye ... but
I won’t show you what I’ve written. You then tell me
what me think your score is and explain your reasoning.
Next, I’ll show you my score. If you are only 1 point away
from my score, you’ll receive one point. If your score
matches mine, you’ll receive 2 points. If you finish the day
with what we both agree is a Bull’s Eye day, you’ll receive
5 points. You can use your points to buy stickers from my
special Sticker Bank.”
(Mrs. Maestra’s one point stickers were small and

single color. Two point stickers were larger and had two
colors ... and so on up to Mrs. Maestra’s gaudy,
wonderful 10 point stickers. Mrs. Maestra had learned
that John’s passion was hot rods, so all the stickers had a
hot rod theme.)
Playing the game

Mrs. Maestra met John at the end of each period he
was in her class to compare scores, and add up points. It
was very important that Mrs. Maestra honestly evaluated
John’s behavior. For example, John would learn nothing if
Mrs. Maestra was “nice’ and gave a 3, when John only
earned a 1. Mrs. Maestra believed that honest evaluation
was an excellent way for challenging students to learn a
teacher’s standards.
When John, from Mrs. Maestra’s point of view,
scored a 1 or 2 on the bull’s eye, she and John rehearsed
the behavior goal several times, often switching roles, with
Mrs. Maestra taking the John’s part.
Mrs. Maestra kept a daily record on the calendar of

John’s and her scores and what behavior goals were
targeted. Stickers that John had purchased from the
Sticker Bank were put on the calendar. Each Friday, Mrs.
Maestra made a copy of John’s weekly calendar page and
gave the original to John.
When John had difficulty meeting a behavior goal,
Mrs. Maestra encouraged him to choose a new goal. As
he became more successful in meeting his targets, other
goals were added.
After a week or two, Mrs. Maestra offered to help
John, saying “If you want, you and I will have a secret
sign. When you see me point at my head, that mean’s that
you have to think more carefully; you’re missing the bull’s
eye. When you see me pointing at my eye, that means
you’re really hitting the bull’s eye. Then you should nod,
so that I know you’ve gotten my secret message.”
Advantages of playing Bull’s Eye

Mrs. Maestra realized that the Bulls Eye game had
many obvious advantages.
-- By allowing students to choose their behavior
goals, student involvement in the classroom management

system is greatly increased
-- By focusing on only one behavior goal at a time, the
Bull’s Eye game vastly simplifies classroom management ...
for both the challenging student and the teacher
-- During brief counseling sessions, teachers can
refocus the student on the behavior goal
-- During rehearsals, which are powerful alternatives
to scolding, the student is imprinted with the difference
between appropriate and inappropriate behavior and,
because of role switching, an entertaining, positive bond
develops between teacher and student
-- The weekly calendar provides a simple way to
evaluate a student's progress; this is especially important
when behavior changes may only appear over monthly
periods
-- A challenging student can be successful even on the
worst days, simply by matching the teacher’s score
-- Challenging students are trained in the high level
intellectual skill of objective, self-critical evaluation of their
own behavior.
32 Short Form Complaints
One of the difficulties Mrs. Maestra had with Joan,

was handling her complaints, and complaints about her, by
other students. Ninety percent of the complaints were
about trivial issues that students should have been able to
resolve themselves.
Mrs. Maestra solved her problem, and created a
unique learning opportunity with the following form.
**********************************************************
Short Form Complaint
THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE VERY CLEARLY
WRITTEN WITH NO MISSPELLINGS
Your name:
____________________________________________
Date: ____________________
Your Complaint:
____________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
**********************************************************
As soon as Joan, or another student complained to
her, Mrs. Maestra could tell immediately if it was a trivial
issue. (If it was not a trivial issue, she either used the
Long Form Complaint, see below, or looked into the
matter immediately.) For trivial issues, Mrs. Maestra
would say, “If you believe this is important, please file a
Short Form Complaint with me by tomorrow afternoon. If
it is very clearly written and has no misspellings I will look
into it.” Joan rarely followed through by filling out the
Short Form Complaint.
When Joan did fill out the form, Mrs. Maestra kept
her promise. If the complaint was very legible and
contained no misspellings she investigated the issue. Of
course, since at least 24 hours had elapsed since the trivial
incident, and tempers had cooled, it was usually easy to
solve.
Initially, Joan would try to continue to complain to
Mrs. Maestra and wouldn’t fill out a form. Mrs. Maestra
refused to respond, and simply handed Joan the complaint

form (in her younger days, Mrs. Maestra had, very
usefully, worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles.)
33 Long Form Complaints
One of John’s largest problems was that he was

frequently involved in arguments with other students.
(Of course, when these arguments became physical or
verbally vicious, Mrs. Maestra followed her school policy
for dealing with serious altercations.)
John was very pugnacious verbally. In addition, he
never believed that he was in the wrong. John was also
the kind of student who had a genius for bringing out the
worst in others.
Whenever possible, Mrs. Maestra used the Long
Form Complaint to address quarrels between students.
She found simply having students fill out the Long Form
was a useful way for them to begin to calm down ... (and
to develop important writing skills!)
******************************************************************
Long Form Complaint
The following should be very clearly written with no
misspellings.
Your name:
_________________________________________________
Date: _______________________
Your Complaint:
___________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
(attach extra sheets of paper if necessary)
What positive actions did you engage in?:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Did you touch the other person?
Yes No
Did you use any profanity?
Yes No
Did you call the other person names?
Yes No
Did you make negative comments about the person's
appearance or clothing?
Yes No
Did you speak louder than your normal voice?
Yes No
Did you offer a solution to the problem?
Yes No
If Yes: What solution did you offer?
_________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Were you the first person to walk away from this
incident?
Yes No
Very important: if there were witnesses to this incident,
would they all agree with your statements above?
Yes No No Witnesses
What solution are you offering now?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
When Mrs. Maestra presented a copy of this form to

each of her students, she had a very useful discussion
about conflict resolution, the first that many of her
students had ever been in. As part of her discussion, Mrs.
Maestra explained that disagreements were inevitable in
human society but that the most common behaviors in
disagreements almost always made the conflicts more,
rather than less, painful ... for both parties. Mrs. Maestra
patiently explained why each of the following behaviors
could enflame a disagreement and cause harm to the
person employing them:
-- having physical contact
-- using profanity
-- calling names
-- making negative comments about the other person's
appearance or clothing
-- speaking in a loud voice
-- not offering a solution
-- not being the first to walk away
Mrs. Maestra pointed out that she had high standards
for her students. She knew that she was asking them to
behave in ways that were beyond the ability of most

adults. Mrs. Maestra said she had no choice. “I’ve
dedicated myself to helping you be an amazing person that
everyone admires.”
When the Long Form Complaint was filled out, Mrs.
Maestra had an array of useful options.
-- After she had a written record, Mrs. Maestra often
would let tempers calm down and deal with the issue the
next day.
-- No matter how students filled out the form, Mrs.
Maestra could use it to counsel them about the best way
to handle quarrels: don’t touch the other person, don’t
use profanity, don’t make comments about the other
person’s appearance or clothing, be the first person to
walk away (etc.)
-- Mrs. Maestra could talk to each party individually
or separately. She could then use the “self incriminating”
sections of the form to encourage the students to be
honestly self critical ... Mrs. Maestra always praised John
when he was even minimally self critical because she knew
this was an important new skill for him.
-- Mrs. Maestra could read all the paper work and
then instruct both parties to propose a solution. If the

solution was acceptable to the students, and also to Mrs.
Maestra, then the problem was solved. If not, Mrs.
Maestra enforced her own solution.
-- Mrs. Maestra could request another Long Form be
filed if the original was not perfectly legible or contained
misspellings. Mrs. Maestra, a kind and judicious
instructor, chose this option if she thought the wisest
action on her part was to bury one, or both, complainers in
paper work.
-- Mrs. Maestra could instruct both parties to find a
mediator in class that they agreed to. (This would force
them to agree to something!) The mediator would then
hear both sides and then propose a solution to Mrs.
Maestra.
-- If no resolution seemed possible, and on going
conflict appeared inevitable, Mrs. Maestra might have both
parties sign a “Separation Agreement.” (see below)
34 Separation Agreements
John, like all humans, occasionally found himself in

irresolvable conflicts. When Mrs. Maestra judged it was
best, she had two quarreling students sign a Separation
Agreement.
******************************************************************
Separation Agreement
I, ______________________________________, agree to not

speak to, or have any other kind of contact with
_________________________________________________
_____________________________ until __________ (fill in a
date and time).
I understand that I am in violation of this agreement
on any occasion that I speak to, or have contact with this
person, even if the person above speaks to, or has any
contact with me, first. I further understand that my
violation of this agreement will have serious consequences.
Signed
_____________________________________________
Mrs. Maestra used the separation agreement in

several ways.
First, she had the option of having the students agree
to the number of days they should have no contact, or she
could fill in the days herself.
Second, the agreement itself was often the best
solution for classmates who didn't’ get along. Neither
wanted to talk to the other, and the agreement formalized
the separation.
Third, Mrs. Maestra had the option of filling in a
serious consequence when the agreement was signed, or
deciding on a consequence after it was broken.
Fourth, when Mrs. Maestra had students who had
signed several Separation Agreements (and who thus had
frequent problems with classmates), she could turn up the
pressure by becoming a bit Machiavellian. Mrs. Maestra
would list all the negative consequences possible and then
have the student rank the consequences, from most, to
least , personally desirable. Here are some consequences

for violating the agreement that students might rank:
-- 5 pages extra homework
-- a meeting with Mrs. Brutte, the vice principal
-- a note home to parents
-- 1 hour of Power Detention
-- sitting for a week in the desk next to Mrs. Maestra
And so forth. In other words, by having students
rank their penalties, Mrs. Maestra would have important
clues about which punishment would have the strongest
effect.
Fifth: If Mrs. Maestra wanted to turn up the pressure
still further, and she rarely needed to, she would have
each student rank the penalties for the other student .
The last thing a student like John wanted was to have one
of his class enemies decided how he should be punished.
Sixth, Mrs. Maestra could post the agreement,
making it “public” and thus involving the entire class as
watchdogs. Or, Mrs. Maestra could select a few students,
allies of each party, to oversee the agreement’s
enforcement.
Seventh, by having a specific time filled in down to the
minute, the contract became something like a game. As the

time approached for the contract to be terminated, Mrs.
Maestra asked her most popular students to encourage
the quarreling classmates to, at minimum, exchange a
greeting at the exact time specified on the contract,
“Hello, John.”
“Hello, Juan.”
Mrs. Maestra told her class to cheer when the
quarreling students exchanged their greeting ... this, of
course, would cause the quarreling students to laugh. A
good end to their quarrel.
35 Item Contracts/Notes Home
Mrs. Maestra eventually had to schedule a

parent/teacher conference with John’s parents. When she
met Jodie and Jack, she understood, fairly soon, why John
was such a handful.
Mrs. Maestra was glad that she had tried a number of
different strategies to help John become a less challenging.
She described to Jodie and Jack each of the Power
Teaching strategies in this booklet that she had tried. Mrs.
Maestra presented herself as she truly was, a caring and
resourceful teacher. She told Jodie and Jack that she was
now going to send a note home with John each day that
they should initial and return. She would give John a
grade on three items she wanted him to work on:
-- Talking energetically to his neighbor when the
teacher said “teach!”
-- raising his hand for permission to leave his seat
-- raising his hand for permission to speak
Mrs. Maestra carefully selected these items. Talking
energetically to his neighbor was relatively easily for high
energy John; raising his hand for permission to leave his

seat or speak would be much more difficult. Mrs.
Maestra’s strategy was to give John a note home that
would have good, as well as not so good, news.
Mrs. Maestra discussed with Jodie and Jack what
kinds of discipline were appropriate for John at home. She
hoped John’s parents took her advice.
Mrs. Maestra, frankly, had mixed results with sending
notes home. Sometimes, parent involvement proved
remarkably effective. Sometimes, it seemed a waste of
time. Nonetheless, Mrs. Maestra was happy to have
parent conferences as one of many ways to help her
students become less challenging. As much as anything
else, Mrs. Maestra never wanted to go back to her early
days of teaching when she felt at her wit’s end and didn’t
know what to try with her difficult students.
As an experienced Power Teacher, Mrs. Maestra
knew that if worse came to worse, she had an ultimate,
never fail, strategy: the Top Secret Brown Bag.
36 The Top Secret Brown Bag
One day Mrs. Maestra came into class with a hefty

brown bag labeled “Top Secret.” She placed it in the front
of the room on her desk. Of course, all her students were
eager to know what was in the bag. Mrs. Maestra knew.
In the bag was a wonder that would reach John, the one
boy she had least success with during the year.
Mrs. Maestra understood that with John and Joan she
had to play a dual role: Nice Cop and Tough Cop. Her
problem was that she had never been able to really reach
John ... never had living human contact with the energetic,
rebellious boy.
Mrs. Maestra wanted to do something for John that
required nothing on John’s part. And so, she packed a
lunch for the two of them in her brown bag. John was
stunned, incredibly stunned, when Mrs. Maestra told
everyone what was in the Top Secret Brown Bag ... and
who it was for.
Mrs. Maestra did not want John to have to “earn” a
lunch; she simply wanted to bring a pleasant surprise into
the boy’s life and have some time together when the two
of them weren’t struggling with opposite agendas.
She only brought the Top Secret Bag into school a few
times. After their first lunch together, she occasionally
drew John aside for another lunch.
Other students wanted to have lunch with Mrs.
Maestra. Occasionally, she would pack lunches for several
students. At the end of the year, Mrs. Maestra bought
pizzas for the class.
Mrs. Maestra, incidentally, is very old now. She
counts her lunches with John among the most rewarding
experiences in her life. So does John.
a Afterword
If you’d like to schedule a Power Teaching seminar at

your school or be put on the Power Teaching e-mail list to
receive free announcements of our seminars and materials
from Power Teachers Press, send an e-mail to me, Chris
Biffle
CBiffle@AOL.com
I look forward to hearing from you!
Click To See Power Teaching YouTube Videos!
Click To See Power Teaching Website!

Three Case Studies

1. First Year Teacher/ Power Teaching In
Middle School
2. Power Teaching And The High School
French Teacher
3. Middle School Rebel: A Bull’s Eye Success
Story
Case Study #1:
First Year Teacher/
Power Teaching In Middle School
When I got my first full time teaching job, I was brand new to
the profession. I was hired as an intern and I had not even begun
my student teaching yet. My only experience in the classroom
was as a substitute and an observer. Knowing that I could never
afford to finish the credential program without working, I applied in
several districts. I was called back and hired two weeks before
school started. I did not even have the opportunity to go to the
new teacher orientation! Despite all of my education courses, I
was extremely ill-prepared for what lay ahead.
The school I work at is designated low-income and we are
now fifth year in program improvement (this means that we have
been identified by the California as a school that must improve, or
be taken over by the officials from the state education
department.)
My students live in very low poverty areas. Many of them do
not have paper and pencils when they come to school. However,
the problem is not what they are lacking; it is the independence
and social maturity that they have already gained due to their
environment. The average student at my school walks home or
rides the bus everyday and is left to entertain themselves for 2-3
hours, and sometimes longer, until their parents get home. It is not
uncommon to see several of my students wandering the
downtown streets of Riverside with nothing to do until after dark.
This is not a stab at parenting skills! Most of the parents of my
students genuinely do want them to do well in school and finish
their homework. However, they do not have the means to help
their child in the ways that they would like.
My students take care of themselves for most of their day.
They live in a loud, busy area and quite often no one is paying
attention to them. When children are conditioned to this in every
other aspect of their life, it is difficult to imagine that sitting in a
classroom all day and following directions comes natural.

I assumed that my students would come to the 7th or 8th
grade with a previous knowledge of at least classroom behavior
and procedures, but I was wrong. I had seen plenty of middle
school students who had attitudes, but I had never seen one
willing to directly tell a teacher “I am not going to do that because
it’s stupid!”
My past experience with middle school students had lead me
to believe that most would at least pretend to do their work or
pretend to pay attention if it seemed that some consequence was
headed their way. It was the first month into school and my
students made no such effort. On the contrary they seemed
almost eager to see what kind of consequence I could come up
with next.
Almost all the students at our school struggle academically.
The majority of our pupils come into the seventh grade with a
fourth or fifth grade reading level. This story is not isolated. I
have spoken to countless teachers who struggle with these
issues. Academics and behavior are more closely related than

many teachers like to admit. Power Teaching is the only set of
strategies that I have seen that effectively addresses both
academics and behavior at the same time.
Throughout the beginning of the year, I tried many of the
techniques that I learned in my teaching credential courses. Some
of them worked, but few of them actually helped me get my
students’ attention and keep it. I was barely getting by each day
as I tried to put on my toughest demeanors in order to keep my
students focused. I learned quickly that not only was the “tough
teacher” not in my character, but that my students could not care
less if I was tough. Threats meant nothing. Detentions were
ignored. Phone calls home were not returned. My students’ lives
were totally unstructured and it seemed they resisted everything I
tried to teach and their behavior reflected that. With such
behavior problems, academics will inevitably suffer.
When I heard about Power Teaching, I jumped at the chance
to learn something new. I had always been confident in my skills
to create a good lesson plan, but classroom management was not

so easy. At first I was very skeptical because I thought that
middle school students, being the toughest age to tame, would
never go for these activities. However, they adapted to the
basics of Power Teaching over a period of one week.
The first day I went back to work after the Power Teaching
seminar that I attended, I incorporated the Smiley and Frowny
scoreboard. My seventh graders loved it and were trying to get
Smilies even without any consequence or reward, just for the
sport of it. They enjoyed trying to beat the other periods at
getting Smilies. The younger students are more driven by
competition.
My eighth graders, on the other hand, were much harder to
convince. Being half as mature as they think they are, they said
things like “Are we in kindergarten or something?” and “This is
dumb! I don’t care about this!” until I told them that Smiley points
would get them free time at the end of the week and Frowny
points got them extra homework that same day. (The extra
homework was never overwhelming and usually consisted of

whatever we did not finish because of their behavior.)
Occasionally I would erase the homework from the board
before certain periods of the day. I knew that these classes were
going to present a problem. When they came in I threatened them
with homework as a consequence for having more Frowny points
than Smiley points. Throughout class I was careful to point out
negative behavior and follow it with Frowny points. In their minds
they earned the homework by misbehaving even though I had
planned for them to do it ahead of time. I was also careful not to
overwhelm them with the Frowny points so that they wouldn’t
think it was impossible to succeed.
It worked well to have a penalty assessed immediately (that
day) and a reward awarded later on (at the end of the week). This
gave my students something to shoot for as a goal as well as
taught them a valuable lesson in real life. Adults must work hard
all week (or in a teacher’s case, all month) before getting paid,
but if you do something wrong at work you will get in trouble right
away. Although it took practice, my kids were understanding this
concept better and better with each passing week.
The weekly rewards were awarded every Friday and were
different all the time depending on what we were doing; some
rewards were minutes of free time, some were snacks, some were
10 minutes of movie time.
Often the weekly rewards were even something that I was
going to do anyway with my classes. For example, we were
reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and for a reward I offered my
class ten to fifteen minutes of watching of the movie every Friday.
We were going to watch the movie anyway, but offering it to them
a little at a time provided three advantages for me:
1) They were getting something that they felt was a reward
for accomplishment.
2) We were not spending two or three days of classroom
time in a coma-like state in front of our T.V.
3) My students had the opportunity to read a section of the
book and then see a visual/audio aid immediately after.

The plan to present rewards at the end of the week worked
well with my students who rode the fence and tended to change
their behavior from day to day. However, there were always
groups of students who needed immediate feedback and
incentives — especially after three day weekends or spring break.
After our spring break I supplemented the Friday rewards
with immediate rewards. The daily rewards became extra credit.
My students received one extra credit point for every extra
Smiley point they got. This means that they had to have more
Smiley points than Frowny points to get the extra credit applied to
their lowest assignment score. To them there was a potential to
raise their grade on something that they had not scored well on.
To me it was only a few minutes of time adjusting scores in the
grade book and meant very little in the grand scheme of grading.
For example, the average class might get three Frowny points and
five Smiley points in one class period. This means that they were
awarded two points extra credit that day. I also added their
points to a tally on the board so that they could see their

advancement toward a weekly goal.
After the Smiley and Frowny point system was incorporated, I
taught my classes that all requests I gave to them as an individual
would be followed with a “please”. It was important that I pointed
out that this only applied to requests made to an individual.
Otherwise I would be saying “Get out your text book, please. Turn
to page 700, please. Could we please read the first paragraph
aloud?” This is not a useful option for teaching an entire class.
However, as an individual, they would be given a please, and if not
they could ignore me and say “la, la, la.” This was golden! My
students were astonished that a teacher would show them this
kind of courtesy. Even better, when my students said “la, la, la,”,
they thought they were rebelling. In fact, they were inside my
system!!!
In order to teach the “please” tactic, I rehearsed with my
students and allowed a young man named Gabe to demonstrate
what he could do if I asked him to go to his seat without a
“Please.” This young man had a bad case of hyperactivity and was
constantly out of his seat. This issue had already been a struggle
with him. Gabe relished the chance to ignore me and walk around
the room or lie on the floor. When the time came, I asked him with
a “please”, he said “okay” and did it with no argument. This unruly
child felt that he had some kind of control over me and the
situation. He was willing to go along with this procedure after that.
Occasionally I would “forget” (on purpose) to say “please,”
and Gabe would happily do the “la, la, la” routine. Then, I would
shake my head as if he had really put one over on me, and ask him
to “please” follow my directions.
“Okay,” he always replied, and grinned like he was the
winner!
There are two kinds of students who benefit most from the
few Power Teaching techniques that I incorporated into my
classroom throughout my first year; the “rebel” and the “imitator.”
I have given them these names to fit their classroom behavior. The
“rebel” student refers to those individuals who tend to be loud
and obnoxious as long as they have an audience. Their presence

intimidates quiet students and they are often leaders in the group.
The other kind of student that benefits most from Power
Teaching are ones I like to call the “imitators” because he or she
imitates the actions of a good student. For example, Patrick
comes into my classroom everyday and takes out his student
planner. He fills in his assignments and homework. He looks at me
when I ask for attention. He never interrupts. He is so quiet that
one could easily forget he is there. This is exactly what he is
counting on because Patrick turns in no assignments without
having an adult actually walk him through them. He is not involved
or participating at all. However, he blends into the crowd because
unlike Gabe (a rebel), he is passively rebelling because it is a
struggle for him to understand and muster up enough motivation
to follow through with an assignment.
These two students are examples of the kinds of students
that I have struggled with most. I can handle academic deficiency
or even attitudes. These two students, and many others like them,
are far beyond that. Throughout my day, about half of my students

could fit into one of these categories — “rebel” or “imitator.”
Both types of students refuse to raise their hands, refuse to
complete work, and refuse to participate. As the days went on,
and I used Power Teaching techniques like the Scoreboard, the
Guff Counter and Please-Okay, students began to see that they
could get points for all kinds of behavior, they began to police
each other.
Let me tell you about my worst rebel. Jenny is a teacher’s
worst nightmare. She is fifteen in the eighth grade. She was
retained the previous year and had since become a ringleader for
all the rebel students at our school. She was a bully who
intimidated all the good students. She was loud and vulgar. Her
temper was out of control and often taken out on others. Before
I used Power Teaching methods in my classroom, this student
was constantly being sent out because this was the only way that
I could teach the others. When this happened, I had so many
students that were loyal to her that I still had a hard time keeping
them under control.

I found that I had to start small with this kid. I began following
her to her after school program and chatting with her about her
homework. Although I got little support from her parents when I
called them, I still did it because she knew that I would follow
through and I cared. I would watch her take dance classes after
school or watch her at basketball practice. I talked to her about
these activities the next day so that she knew that I cared about
all aspects of her life and not just the 50 minutes of Language
Arts that I taught each day.
After Jenny felt comfortable with me, I was able to pull her
out of class and at least have a decent discussion with her about
her behavior. I used the methods that I learned in the Power
Teaching seminar. I told her she had a choice as to what would
follow — a short talk, long talk,or worse. At first, she challenged
me and said, “Go ahead and give me worse!” I suspended her from
my class for two days. I found it important to maintain the same
casual relationship with her outside of class, even if I had to
reprimand her behavior in class. She was a little confused by this

at first, but it did work. When she returned I treated her as usual.
While Jenny was out, I cracked down on the rest of my class
using higher amounts of participation and shorter intervals of
timed exercises to accomplish our lesson. They got lots of Smiley
points for participating and Frowny points for any attitude or lack
of participation. When Jenny came back from her suspension, the
class was a much better prepared to face her. I called out “CLASS,
CLASS, CLASS” and as everyone else answered with “YES, YES,
YES”, Jenny snapped with a “WHAT, WHAT, WHAT” that was full of
attitude. I did not name any names, but instead I said to my
students, “Well, I am hearing some attitude and this is getting you
Frowny points.” For the first time ever throughout two whole
trimesters, I saw Jenny’s classmates actually stand up to her
behavior and say “STOP! You are getting us Frowny points.” She
was silent the rest of the period.
The next day Jenny did her assignment and was actually
showing off how well she had done and how much she
accomplished. This was contrary to the usual “I’m not going to do

it, I will just flunk.”
This does not mean that I did not have problems with Jenny
after that, but it seemed that I had the support of most of the
other students. The other students had made a mature decision
not to support negative behavior. When I could get them to the
point where they were weighing out their decisions and reflecting
on consequences, the battle was mostly over.
A second example of a student that made a major change is
Brian. He is an imitator. He is just like Patrick when it comes to
work habits because he has none. He sits quietly and often begins
his work, but never turns anything in or participates. I have used
Power Teaching methods to get him more involved in the
lessons.
I used to avoid calling on students like Brian because they
would just sit there and shrug their shoulders or say “I don’t
know.” I did not want to embarrass the students who were
struggling. However, I also noticed that they realized they were
not being called on if they acted like they did not know. I made a
point to talk to these students throughout the assignment to
keep them focused. I would go to Brian’s group and discuss what
they had accomplished. Then I would ask Brian a specific question
in a one-on-one situation. If he did not know I would give him clues
and let him find the answer. After group work or discussion was
over, I would ask that exact question to the whole class which I
had discussed with Brian previously. I knew that Brian already had
the answer. If he raised his hand, I would call on him to respond. If
he did not raise his hand, I called on him anyway. Students like
Brian need more pushing.
After Brian answered, he seemed more confident. I continued
this over and over. Using, “Teach-Okay” an effective technique I
had learned in a Power Teaching seminar, I gave students a few
minutes to explain a concept to their neighbors and then
supervised Brian’s group. I forced participation on him and he
began actually turning in his work. Obviously a student like Brian
still struggles with his assignments, but he was gaining confidence
and attempting to participate more and more all the time. Many of
my students who are English language learners fall into this
category of an “imitator” and need to be thrown into the
mainstream group of performing students.
Power Teaching has improved not only class participation,
but also given me a better hold on classroom management. It was
the exact kind of structure that my students needed to be
successful. The interaction requires their participation and makes
them accountable. My students are the ones who are in charge of
every aspect of their life and now they have more responsibility
and ownership of each lesson and activity in my class.
My second year at this middle school has just begun and
these strategies have made me a much stronger and more
confident teacher. My students know what Power Teaching is
and love it.
Angela Watkins
University Heights Middle School
Riverside, California
Case Study #2:
Power Teaching And The High School French Teacher
Part One
My name is Emily Evans and I have been teaching for 15
years. The first two years of teaching were very difficult. They
were all consuming. If I was awake I was planning how to teach a
particular concept of grammar or think of a game that would
enhance a lesson. I graded every paper that came across my
desk. I didn't get very much sleep. I didn't have a life, either. My
main problem, however, has always been classroom management. I
have done it all. I have yelled, intimidated, given detentions, given
essays to copy, offered rewards for better behavior, called
parents, written referrals, sent students to other teachers for a
time out. Nothing has ever been very effective until now. This
school year I have been using Power
Teaching to manage the classroom. It works!
About 11 years ago I attended a curriculum conference and

heard Harry Wong speak on classroom management. I believed
that this was the answer to my problems. I bought his book and
read it several times. Each year I would have nightmares before
school would start. After reading "The First Days of School" I no
longer had the nightmares. I felt like I had the tools I needed to
manage my classroom.
I had been living in another state where classroom size was
no larger than 25 students. Then I moved to San Luis Obispo, CA
and had to adjust to classes with 37 students. The problems in
the classroom increased proportionately with the larger number of
students. San Luis Obispo's ethnicity make-up is 70% white, 24 %
Hispanic, 6% other (Black, Asian, Filipino, etc.).
Classroom management does not come naturally to me. I am
not consistent either. This sends mixed messages. I would start
off the year with my rules for student behavior. Students were
expected to raise their hands to be called upon before blurting
out whatever they wanted to say. After a few days I would fall
into the routine of allowing them to blurt out comments or

questions. I would allow myself to argue with them. I would even
allow myself to become angry on occasion. When they knew what
pushed my buttons then they were the ones with the power.
When I accused someone of doing something, several would come
to the defense of the one I was accusing.
One year I had two students who were best friends. They
had grown up together and had actually formed a language that
only the two of them could understand.
Those two would twist my words around and then defend
each other when I said anything to the other one. I became so
frustrated with them that I wrote referrals on them when they
refused to follow directions on an assignment for making a poster.
They accused me of banging my fist on a table and yelling at them.
I actually wrote a total of 11 referrals in a two week period during
this same tim. (The referrals were not just for those two, there
were others). Then I was called in to the principal and put on a
"Plan" so that I could figure out how to better manage my classes.
3 years ago I had so much trouble with a particular student

that I asked his dad to sit in on the class and observe his son's
behavior. The gentleman came and sat in the back of the room.
After the class he told me that he had observed many off task
students. Some were eating. Others were throwing things or
passing notes. I was shocked at the things he had seen.
I asked him to come back the next day and I gave him a copy
of the seating chart so that he could accurately note who was
doing what. Of course, his own son was a little angel while his dad
was in the room. The dad took very good notes. I made calls to
parents of other students who had been observed in off task
behaviors. One dad was angry that I had another parent in the
room taking notes on his son.
That year 4 of my 5 classes were similar to this one which
the dad had observed.
I had some students tell me that they could not learn very
much in my class because of the disruptive students. I made more
effort to send disruptive students to a time out room for the class
period. I did everything I could to get them to behave. I had

some real loud mouth jerks who constantly tried to control the
class. I would send them out and it would waste a lot of class time
because they had this whole audience to watch them get their
things together and listen to them as they got in their last few
insults or dramatic gestures out (like slamming a book on the table
or knocking a chair over.) Most of the class would shout out their
farewells as the student was leaving. It didn't matter that I
forbade the others to become involved by saying anything to
them, they still did it. Some would argue and say "He didn't do
anything. Why did you make him leave? He's not even the one
who did such and such." If I asked who it was then, they would
just say that they weren't going to rat on anybody. No offense to
Harry Wong, but I just didn't seem to be able to make his
strategies work for me anymore.
Last year was one of the worst years I have had as far as
disruptive students.
I keep a record of every phone call I make to parents. I
counted 180 calls I made to parents last year. 90% of those calls
dealt with disruptive behavior of some sort. Many of the incidents
appeared to be one or more students who did anything they could
to make use of the captive audience which was their classmates. I
was in a dilemma. If I sent too many students to time out, I was
probably going to get put on the "Plan" again.
Some parents I called would apologize for their kid's behavior
and promise me that it would not continue. The kid would behave
for a week or two and then fall right back into his/her disruptive
self.
I had 5 rules. When a student broke a rule I would write
his/her name on the board and write the number of the violated
rule next to the name. If I didn't spell a name perfectly an
argument would ensue. Sometimes they would make a game out
of getting as many names on the board as possible. They would
just laugh and laugh and cause a disturbance. There would be so
many participating that I couldn't catch them all. It was them
against me.
One day I became so upset with them that I had to walk

out. I had been interrupted so many times that I could not even
get the class started to teach the lesson I had planned for them.
There was only 15 minutes of class left and I was determined
to teach the lesson. I said that nobody was allowed to interrupt
me for anything. One girl kept raising her hand and blurting out
her question anyway. When she wouldn't stop it, I yelled at her
and I nearly started to cry. I walked out and asked the teacher
next door to take my class for a couple of minutes until I could
compose myself. She went in and yelled at them for me. When I
came back in they were quiet.
Last year I was observed several times by my principal. It
was not my regular year to be observed, but due to questionable
classroom management problems observed the previous year, I
was being observed again. My principal was not impressed. He
suggested that I start back on a "Plan" to improve my classroom
management skills. I observed other classes, read books,
watched videos, attended conferences and buyback classes.
Near the end of the year I met a woman who had attended a
Power Teaching seminar.
She said that it had really helped her. She was a first year
teacher and had really been struggling with her students. When
she learned about classroom management with Power Teaching
and employed the methods, she immediately had more control of
her classes.
I attended the last Power Teaching Seminar of the school
year. I thought that it would work for me. It was really too late to
salvage the classes I had, but I determined to use Power
Teaching from day one of the coming school year.
Part Two
As I said, after the very first Power Teaching Seminar I
knew that it would work for me. There were only about 6 weeks
left of school so I only implemented a couple of Power Teaching
Techniques. I tried the smiley/frownie faces. It actually worked.
They hated to get marks under the frownie face. Then they
started asking what their rewards were. I suggested letting them
watch a video on Friday if they were good all week. I was the one
who was not consistent. I would forget to give them marks (smiley
or frownie). School ended and I was soooo glad. It was an awful
year in many ways. I am a positive person, so I thought a lot about
the upcoming year and how I would start the first day teaching my
students to respond to Power Teaching cues.
Over the summer,I made notes and imagined how well I would
teach and control my classes with this new found method. I re
read all of the Power Teaching handouts and my notes. When the
new year arrived, I was ready. I taught them the Class/Yes,
Teach/OK, 10 finger woo, and That's ok for wrong answers. My
students responded really well. They liked responding to me in
chorus. Then I taught them to assert their power as a group when
we needed to stop someone who was off task or disruptive. We
did a few role-play situations just to practice. They were amazing.
When the occasion called for their intervention,the student who
was being reprimanded by his classmates was really shocked, but

he immediately stopped his misbehavior. I was delighted to see
how effective the whole group (in chorus) could be to stop one
student. I thought about how ineffective I had been in the past
when it was just ME confronting one student and the class as a
whole sticking up for their classmate. This was fantastic. What a
terrific method this was! I wasn't the bad guy anymore. It was peer
discipline and I was the observer.
After a few weeks I started the smiley/frownie face check
mark system. If they had more smiley points than frownie points,
they could watch a music video or get less homework. At first, I
struggled with the homework issue, but I have come to realize
that Mr. Biffle is right about using extra homework to motivate
them to better behavior. If they are off task, then they have
surely wasted class time that could have been spent learning. I
agreed that an extra page of homework was only fair when
frownie face marks exceeded the smiley ones.
I continue to improve my classroom management with these
methods. I have attended several Power Teaching Seminars and

have come away from each with more self assurance and
determination to be a great Power Teacher. The school year is
nearly over. I am so thankful for Power Teaching because using
these techniques has allowed me to teach with more dignity. I
don't have to nag the students or yell at them. I treat them with
respect and I feel that they respect me.
I have used Power Teaching since August, 2006. Since this
school year began, I have made 10 phone calls home (instead of
180!). Only 3 were concerning behavior.
That is incredible, but it is true and it is because Power
Teaching works.
When you get the class behind you and get them to address
the class clown and other disruptions, the potential disrupter is
stopped in his tracks. He does not have an audience to perform
to. It is beautiful to behold. The look on the face of this
disruptive student is priceless. It is like watching a balloon
deflate.
If you are about to give up on teaching because you have
had similar experiences to mine, please try one more method;
Power Teaching. It works!!
Emily Evans,
French Teacher
San Luis Obispo

Case Study #3:
The Middle School Rebel: A Bull's Eye Success Story

My first year as a teacher was full of entanglements with
challenging students. However, there were none that were so
frustrating for me as learning to deal with one particular student,
who I prefer to call Theodore. Helping Theo to learn to manage
his behavior – a thing that not even the most experienced
teachers at my school were able to do – was possible in my class,
with the help of Biffle's ingenious Bull's Eye behavior game.
I began my first teaching assignment as a sixth grade teacher
at Susan B. Coombs Intermediate School in Banning, California.
Banning lies about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, and during recent
years has experienced notable growth due to families relocating
from the inner city. No one is rich in Banning, one of the largest
buildings in town is the Social Services Office, and most of the
houses are run down and depressed-looking on their dusty lots.
Coombs School serves the fifth and sixth graders of Banning,

and has a student population of around 800. During the time I
worked there, about 70 percent of the students received free
and reduced lunch and even breakfast. In addition to the
economic obstacles facing students at Coombs, the school itself
was classified as Program Improvement, indicating their need to
raise student achievement on standardized testing or else receive
forthcoming State sanctions.
During my first few days in the classroom, I began to get a
clearer picture of where my students were coming from. About
75 percent of my class was comprised of English Language
Learners. I taught in a dual language program, providing 50% of
instruction in Spanish and 50% in English. The dual language
program in Banning was a fairly recent development. In fact, my
class was the first generation, and as such had passed through a
series of first year teachers from kindergarten to fifth grade.
Without breaking with tradition, Banning hired me, a first year
teacher as well, for this class' sixth grade year.
While with the help of other Power Teaching techniques I

was able to gain control of the class and teach, Theodore proved
impervious to any kind of correction. He refused to do any
academic work, or to remain seated for that matter. He spent
most of class at the beginning of the year wandering between the
rows, and making odd noises. He waited until the class was
quietly working and used the occasion to yell out profanities. He
struck the back fellow students' heads, and kept his cheeks
bulging with chewed up paper to use for spit wads. One day I
even remember that he intentionally chewed on his bottom lip so
hard that it bled. He wagged it back and forth as a bloody
spectacle while I called the office. I sat him in the back of the
room and watched him pace listlessly as I micro-lectured and the
class taught their neighbors.
Theodore was endangering other students and himself. I
had to do something to control his behavior. The basic whole
class techniques such as the score board and the teaching
routines had failed to reach him. Even the peer pressure
strategies such as the guff counter proved useless to Theo who

would cheer loudly for himself even when the whole class yelled in
disapproval at him. I was at my wits end, my teaching was
beginning to suffer, and other students lost valuable time
deafened by the din of this acrimonious orchestra, this cacophony
of one.
Chris Biffle told me about Bull's Eye, and I figured that it was
worth a try. I bought a small package of super hero stickers and
made my half sheets of paper with two bull's eyes. Reluctantly I
tried the game. On the first day, Theo was puzzled and gave me
a look that seemed to say, "You mean, you're going to give me a
sticker just for playing?" Within the week, his out of seat
behavior had stopped, he ceased to yell in class, and all other
dangerous or inappropriate behaviors disappeared. I was
astonished.
Theodore and the rest of the class were able to reap the
benefits of peace and quiet for almost one month. Although I
never managed to get him to write anything more than his name on
the paper, I had taught him to consider how his behavior affected
others. Unfortunately, this story did not end ideally for Theo.
His parents requested that he be put with one of the most
experienced teachers in the school, who was also the strictest.
This instructor referred Theo straight to the office so many times
that he was soon expelled. Nonetheless, it is incredible to me
that what no other adult at the school was able to do, this
behavior game helped me to accomplish in less than one week! I
am certainly grateful for Power Teaching. Talk about a Bull's
Eye!
Ezekial Steer
Sixth Grade
Coombs Intermediate School
Banning, California

Power Teaching Teaching - Teenagers

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Power Teaching Teaching - Teenagers

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copyright 2007, Christopher Biffle 2

Power Teaching Challenging Teens

Many teachers contributed their ideas, insights and

21 Breaking Up Rowdy Cliques 112

All across the country, in fact all around the world,

are challenging. Every unhappy family is a unique, misery

students to learn, improve the learning of the entire class.

(Note: In the following, we’ll call our challenging

1 The First Minutes Of The First Day

Mrs. Maestra taught teenagers. She knew, right from

More Homework Less Homework

Today’s Homework = 10 pages

RULE 1: KEEP THE SCOREKEEPER HAPPY

With a firm Voice of Command (see chapter 5) Mrs.

their shoulders! I said, ‘Mighty Groan!’”

unite as many students as possible behind her leadership. In

Maestra knew about teaching teenagers was that they

Maestra’s students that she was serious about increasing

Now, let’s think about the advantages of the Power

What if you want to be just like Mrs. Maestra but

point in the term, even the last month. Simply pretend as if

Mrs. Maestra knew that teaching began with getting

students’ faces and body language, rewarding and

pretend angry voice, a spooky voice.

as too babyish, she used a stern Voice of Command

You’ve already learned a great deal about our

had a multiplicity of fall back plans, plans A-Z; she

3 Evaluating A Student’s Understanding

Mrs. Maestra often needed to gauge the degree to

remember, we were studying those numbers ... you

what Mrs. Maestra was teaching. To get him re-involved

Joan, especially, loved to talk to her neighbor. No

could easily determine if she could go on to a new point,

clarified abstract concepts; non-English speaking students

Mrs. Maestra rarely lost her cool. Under even the

Mrs. Maestra noted that she tended to speak more

6 Talking One On One

Mrs. Maestra often needed to have a one on one talk

kinds encounters were unplanned, they frequently went

and not give her student the opportunity to resist her

7 No Eye Contact Eye Contact

Mrs. Maestra frequently had to correct John’s

Even though she was a wonderful, self controlled

9 Don’t Spit In Your Soup

Mrs. Maestra is from the country where they have

expensive copper trellis she had bought especially for

10 The No Whining Vow

When Mrs. Maestra realized that complaining about

Mrs. Maestra’s life. She rolled up her sleeves, stopped

As an alternative to whining, Ms. Maestra and her

After one minute venting Mrs. Maestra and her

the next day for each challenging student. Mrs. Maestra

To track teaching improvements, Mrs. Maestra, used

her own classroom management plan. If her class was

Here are four measures (you can substitute others if

Alphas: These were Mrs. Maestra’s model students; they

Go-Alongs: These students would usually “go along”

always, raised their hands for permission to speak,

Fence Sitters: These students were ones that could go

Challenging Students: Mrs. Maestra was fortunate in

New Students: Mrs. Maestra put every new student into

Mrs. Maestra understood that it was very important