It’s been two days since I started teaching, and I am exhausted but also totally exhilarated. It seems as though all I’ve thought about for the past 48 hours are my kids. This is so different from anything I’ve ever done, and it’s incredibly challenging and requires pretty much every thought, every ounce of attention and drop of energy I have. But above all else, it’s completely awesome.

My students totally amaze me. Aside from being beyond adorable and so much fun to be around, I’m blown away by their energy, assertiveness and overall interest in everything that’s going on around them. Of course, those attributes sometimes interfere with the lesson I’ve planned but that’s my issue. I just have to work harder to come up with activities that keep them interested and wanting to be part of my class. They speak much less English than I was expecting, but I’m staying flexible and determined to find a system that works for us to communicate with each other.

I’ve loved every second I’ve spent with the kids, but I’ve also learned a lot about typical teaching strategies and there is a lot I disagree with. I spoke with a few other teachers about the issues I was having with being ineffective at motivating the class or communicating with them.

There were a lot of suggestions to be strict, or to stick to the star chart reward system. Basically, everyone starts the day with three stars and if they follow the class rules all day, he or she gets a sticker when it’s time to go home. Once they’ve collected 20 stickers, they get a prize. A star can be taken away each time they’re “caught” misbehaving, and if they lose all three, they don’t receive a sticker. If they misbehave several times throughout the day and lose all their stars, they don’t get a sticker, and are probably reprimanded multiple times throughout their classes.

This does not sit well with me at all. All the teachers have star charts, but the more I thought about it, the less I was inclined to use mine. This great post from Chinarchy, a blog written by two English teachers in China, explains some of the negatives of using a reward system.

They make several good points, but the idea that the wrong person gets punished when rewards systems are used really stayed with me this week. Because really, why should the students be punished if they’ve lost interest in what I’m saying? That’s their way of saying, “Miss Jaime, get your act together. This is boring and we’re not into it.”

Someone told me that once one student is seen losing or being denied a star or sticker, the rest would catch on quickly and start behaving. So I’m supposed to embarrass some poor kid just to maintain order and gain some kind of respect based on fear? I don’t think so.

While I do think it’s necessary to give them a sense of structure and routine, I’m not really that concerned about whether they can form a straight line. The biggest issues I’ve seen are some hitting and fighting, which have obviously led to some tears and hurt feelings.

But I don’t think those are problems that are going to be solved by taking a star away every time one kid pinches another. That doesn’t really teach them why it’s bad to hit or pinch or be aggressive. In the end, all they will learn that way is that it’s bad to get caught.

Yes, it is more time consuming to stop what I’m doing every time something like that happens, to try and get a few words in English from them about how they’re feeling and what exactly occurred, but I really believe they will learn more that way than by simply behaving in front of their teachers to earn a sticker or a star. And if we can make progress on the hitting and aggression front, I will be much prouder of them for that than for any amount of reading and writing they are able to do by the end of the year.