Hope.

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world...

It is an orientation of the spirit,

an orientation of the heart;

it transcends the world that is immediately experienced,

and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons...

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense,

is not the same as joy that things are going well,

or willingness to invest in enterprises that are

obviously heading for ....success,

but rather, an ability to work for something

because it is good, not just because

it stands a chance to succeed.

--Vaclav Havel

Got this quote in my inbox this week as a part of my Ripply Anniversary email. Ripples is an amazing source of inspiration every Monday morning. This quote gave me inspiration for the first week back at school! Monday began the second half of the year and brought BIG changes to my room; I put into motion a new management system, complete with new rewards and consequences. The students responded really well and I found this week flying by without many obstacles popping up; on Friday, I raffled off lunch with me (part of the new reward system is a weekly raffle for lunch with me; therefore, the more raffle tickets you get during the week for following class expectations, the more likely you are to get picked on Friday. Of course, I can always "pick" a student who I think really could use the boost and they would never know...) and the students who ate lunch with me told me that this was the "funnest" week ever. They shared that they think they are doing "gooder" in class because of the new expectations and the tickets. That made me smile and say, "Well, I am very happy you feel you are doing better in class. I think you are, too!" 

I enforced a new rule about our Compliment Chain -- we get a link on our chain every time we get a compliment in the hallway/on the playground/in the cafeteria for how quiet and well-behaved our line is -- and the students had until Friday to hit the floor with the Chain or I would cut it down and we would start all over again. That means we needed more than 20 compliments this week on our line. We hit the floor Thursday before lunch. They were so excited and I gave them the ice cream party they deserved. (Thank heaven for the dollar store: ice cream for 18 for $4!) I am really proud of them. Plus, with all the excellent behavior, we actually got everything done that we needed to do this week! We got so much done. 

This week definitely reinforced for me the absolute necessity for a simple management system that I can still manipulate if I need to. Of course, I went through almost an entire roll of raffle tickets, but I figure that it was well worth the time spent tearing them apart and the money spent on them to have such a quiet, productive, well-run classroom. 

Now I am off to continue planning for next week, which I am determined will be even more successful! 

Much love. ♥