Classroom management is probably the most difficult part of teaching middle schoolers. Having 28-35 pre-teens in one room, all at different academic levels with hormones coursing through their veins leads to a lot of behavioural challenges. I’ve tried many different incentive programs to help my kids to focus and follow expectations, including awarding points, good behaviour tickets, and offering prizes for good behaviour. What I found was that each new management technique worked for a short time, but them fizzled out. After reflecting on my classroom management rewards strategies, these are some realizations I came to: I’ve never liked the idea of pointing out undesirable behaviours (by putting student names on the board, for example). To me, it equates to a public shaming, and I’ve never seen it actually help anyone to change course in their behaviour. It seems, more than anything, to reinforce a belief in students that they are “bad” and have no chance to do better. Th...