Hi Whole Brainers!
I'm looking for suggestions on how to bring hesitant and shy kids out of their shell with Whole Brain Teaching. These kids, out of fear of looking silly (or out of unwillingness or doubt) silently refuse to participate in call and response moments (Class-Yes, Gimme an "Ooo", Mighty Groan, Rules Review, e.g.) as well as Teach OK's, and the whole method doesn't seem to work as well when everyone's not bought in.

Aternatively, some kids reject the method by mocking it through kid humor (i.e., making silly, unrelated gestures, answering "no" when the response is "yes", saying the opposite of the rule during rules review: "Don't follow directions quickly; HAHA!".

How can we motivate the shy ones, correct the rejectors, and gather group cohesion from moment one?

Alot of these problems take care of themselves as you continue to have consistent expectations, and more and more of the class gets behind you. In order to make those two conditions progress, though, you want to point it out on the scoreboard, but you don't want to start off pointing out who's doing it (gives the obnoxious ones the attention and power they want, and makes the shy ones feel painfully embarrassed). Just by saying, "Almost, but I didn't hear everyone say "Yes!"..." etc... and then give yourself a point (sometimes, in order to keep the +-3 rule going, you may have to pretend you didn't notice...remember, you are in control of the scoreboard. Use it to send whatever message they need to hear). The shy-guys will sit and watch for awhile, until they feel comfortable enough that the majority of the group is doing it, and even then, you'll notice there are BIG personalities and not-so-big personalities, and that's ok. Biff always tells us to Praise, Prompt, and Leave. Meaning, as you're walking around the classroom, praise the ones who are giving you what you're looking for, prompt the ones who are not, and move on to somewhere else in the room. Don't dwell on it.

Eventually, you may need to move on to more 'industrial strength' methods, but at first, don't sweat it. Also--very important-- use Biff's class scoring method to sort out how many kids you have that are these 'outliers' or 'fence sitters'. As you 'let it be' for the first month or so, go through and re-do your scores for this every week or so, so you can see the numbers change and you can tell if there's real progress or not. It really helps you focus on the individuals in the class, as I think it's harder to judge the progress of 'the class' as a whole entity, versus the progress of individual numbers of kids.

Jackie-
Thanks for your wisdom. Your reply really reminds me of the power and importance of the scoreboard. I also have to constanly remind myself to be patient; I can't expect change in one day, but I can have calm tenacity and faith that the class will follow my strong lead and buy into this wonderful method. Often, also, we forget the self-eveluation portion of WBT and Industrial strength WBT. Thanks for reminding us of this. It is so important to maintain a positive outlook when teaching and managing. Let us not focus on the students that are NOT on board and let it cause us great anguish; rather, let us focus what IS working and press on!

Best,

Mike
Berkeley, CA

I had a couple of REALLY shy kids last year and I could tell that at first they were uncomfortable with all the talking, hand motions, singing and dancing that we did in class. As time went on, they began to participate in small ways at first. As long as they did what the whole class was doing, the activities were a positive experience for them. I made sure to never single them out and I quietly praised them one on one when they participated.

I am a little nervous because this year I have a student who responds very unfavorably to loud noise. Any ideas?

You can adjust your loudness for that kid until he gets more comfortable. There is a cool noise monitoring activity in which you use your hand in a slow up and down motion. As you go up, they can get louder. As you go down, they get quieter. Practice this a couple times and set the noise level low. Give them something silly to say like "yadayada" or whatever they want. May be sit this kid with another quieter kid so that no one is yelling in his face.

As Jackie said, you won't want to point them out in class. However, do not forget that you can still hold them accountable one on one after class and even serve them consequences privately. This way these kids will know that you will not embarrass them, but you will also not tolerate that behavior. Use whatever system your school already has in place- detentions, phone calls, etc. They will learn as the time passes that the other students will not support them either.

Having those "shy" kiddos come up with the gestures - even prior to class - will give them confidence and ownership in the process. I had one student who was very shy so I went to him before class and told him I was struggling with coming up with some gestures for a lesson on similes and metaphors. He gave me some awesome suggestions and when it came to class, he actually volunteered to come up and demonstrate!