Student Contributor: E. Kruse
Tootling is the opposite of tattling and allows students to write down nice things about their classmates. This tool promotes positive thoughts and attitudes in the classroom instead of focusing on why negativity is bad.
Tell students throughout the day to be watching for positive things that their peers are doing. Some examples might be “Sarah helped me with my math problem” or “John let me sit by him at lunch”. Tootling is something that can be done all day, every day or you can choose a specific time during the day to do it. I would suggest for you to tell your students to write a tootle shortly after something happens and that way, they won’t forget about it. You can set this up bulletin board style so that all of the tootles are on display, or you can have students put them in a box or a jar to look at later. If they are on a bulletin board, I think students would look at it and be encouraged because they are doing very well, or if there are not many tootles, that might encourage them to do better.
I placed this tool in the Supportive phase because it is helping to grow the relationships between your students which is so important for classroom culture. The stronger the relationships between students, the more they will learn and have fun doing it! This can also fit under the Preventative phase because since it is growing positive behavior, it would decrease negativity and eliminate as much need for correction. Also, this tool falls under the student-directed part of the spectrum because kids are not having to be told by the teacher to do this, they will be watching for positive behaviors all on their own and making note of it without much teacher assistance.
More Information –
Tool Source: I found this idea on Pinterest.
With having a classroom of 15 second grade students where out of 15, only 4 of them are boys, tattling and drama is a HUGE deal in my classroom. Especially with it being towards the end of the school year, my students seem to simply just be done with each other. When I came a crossed this tool, I really liked how it was an activity that was very student-directed and was the complete opposite then tattling! After implementing this within my classroom, my classroom dynamic and attitudes changed drastically! I decided to stick three sticky notes on the corner of every students desk in the morning so that throughout the day, students could quickly jot down something they saw and wouldn’t forget about it. When they had free time during the day, they were able to go stick the sticky note on the whiteboard in the back of the classroom. I now do this every day I am there in the morning and the kids are looking all day for positive things happening in the classroom which really shifted them from their negative thoughts and tattling. I loved this tool and it was very successful!