038: Clip Chart Alternatives
Sep 29, 2022
Written by Guest Blogger and Educator, Kristin Nori
For 14 years, I taught elementary school and used a clip chart for behavior management. It was what was being used at the time in all classrooms, in most schools. Charts typically had four colors; students started on green, and for each infraction, their color would morph from green to yellow, then to orange….and then the dreaded red card! A red card meant a parent conference. A red card meant a trip to the principal’s office, often leading to detention or suspension. Over time, charts evolved to lean towards “positive” cards, adding to blue and purple so students can continue to “clip up.”
As a teacher, I never liked the charts, mainly because of their public nature. Even if you assigned students numbers to help with anonymity, kids would still figure out who was who and those who typically had tougher days. (Notice I say tougher days instead of “bad behavior” intentionally, and I will explain that later.) Typically, kids became their color. What do I mean?
Picture this: Annie is telling her mom and dad about her school day at dinner. Her mom asks, “Did anything different happen at school today?” Annie’s response? “Yeah, Logan, he’s an orange kid, got moved to RED! But Sam, who is always on yellow, actually moved ALL the way to blue!”
Let’s break down what is wrong with this.
First and foremost, Annie identifies her classmates by colors representing behavior. We have now called more attention to Logan and Sam in Annie’s eyes, which is not a good thing. Behavior is a form of communication and needs to be addressed at the root, not just giving “infractions” or “clipping down” because we will never see the behaviors improve. With Logan “clipped down” to orange, since this was his “normal” color, it is apparent he was not learning anything by these clip infractions. In fact, as his teacher, I can remember he grew to expect it. He owned the reason for the infraction daily (usually an incomplete assignment or homework), but he never changed the behavior. So, one day when he moved to red, it did not have the intended impact, but it did crush his self-esteem publicly. And as his teacher, I felt horrible.
When we assign colors to these infractions, we are unintentionally shaming students and sometimes creating more peer rejection issues for kids with difficulties. I know now that Annie’s mother told me she put so much pressure on herself to be perfect that if she didn’t have a blue or purple day, she had complete meltdowns on the car ride home. I know now that Logan has severe ADHD and learning disabilities, so many of his “infractions” were for behaviors he could not control. And I learned that Sam became complacent with being a “yellow kid” because, as he said to me, “It could be worse; I could be orange or red!”
As a teacher, I knew I didn’t like the clip charts, but I always worked for principals who wanted the entire school to use the same system consistently, so I followed suit. If that is your situation, here are some creative ways to use clip charts:
- I hardly EVER moved anyone down. If I did it with several warnings and usually even a 1:1 with the student, I didn’t do this publicly. I found every small positive I could to “clip up” students whenever possible, so clipping down became less of an issue.
- I also built a class incentive that if everyone was on green or above, they could choose a fun activity for the last 15 minutes of the day.
- I also moved the chart into my “conference area” (behind my desk but, more importantly, out of the direct eyesight of the students).
These strategies helped me comply with school expectations and feel better about how I was using the clip charts.
If you can “ditch the clip,” I would advise looking at a more holistic approach to behavior. Here are my top five recommendations for managing behavior in your classrooms.
(1) Teach social emotional learning and behavior. Most likely, teachers are already doing a lot of this! When a child can’t read, we teach them. It is the same with behavior. How can we hold a child accountable if we didn’t teach them how to handle a problem?
(2) Instead of rules, call them “expectations” AND have the students participate in developing them. If they co-create the expectations, they own the consequences when they don’t follow the agreed-upon expectations. In my classroom, we would brainstorm all of their ideas (yes, even the child who says something off the wall like, “We will walk like army soldiers in the halls!”) After all their ideas are recorded, I would have them work in small groups to see how many of the expectations could be combined. (This works well for upper elementary; you may have to do the whole activity together in K-2.) Usually, you can funnel all the expectations into 3-5 overarching expectations.
(3) Create a daily reflection sheet for each student. I showed the students how to complete these, and I would add a comment or two if needed. Admittedly, It was more work for me, but it made it more meaningful (and, more importantly, respected each child’s privacy).
(4) Determine the function of the behavior. All behaviors are a form of communication. The more we can listen and observe, the easier it becomes to figure out the function. Maybe the student is trying to escape math groups daily by acting out. This helps me as a teacher realize that if I provide him more math support, the behaviors may dissipate. Hint: Reflection sheets will make this recommendation easier.
(5) Establish regular restorative class meetings. As a class, problem solve issues that arise (immediately when possible). You might be surprised at how well a group of 8-year-olds can break down a problem and develop age-appropriate, logical consequences. This takes a lot of the “bad guy role” off the teacher and empowers the students to work collectively in creating their desired classroom environment.
Kristin Nori is a Compliance Officer, Behavior Specialist, SEL Coordinator, and teacher with over 23 years of experience in special education, trauma-informed practices, program development, and identifying opportunity gaps. She has extensive experience designing differentiated learning curricula, developing presentations, monitoring outcomes, and evaluating social emotional learning tactics.
