These two jobs make our total available jobs at 57. I don’t think any of us could have predicted the impact on classroom management of letting these jobs emerge organically into the classroom setting. I find it much more powerful than even jGR in that respect. Here are the two new ones:
1. Place Poster Holder – this is a kid who sits near a shelf or something where all the place posters are kept (see posters page of this site by clicking on TPRS Resources). She works with you whenever you ask the question “Where?” by lifting the card up so that the class can see it and so you can laser point to it. Good for teaching location vocabulary. Remember, if you download and make these posters for your classroom, localize them as explained (we personalize places to the neighborhood our school is in).
2. Welcome Reminder Person – this one is based on Bob Patrick’s idea about welcoming guests/observers into the room. I think that a student should do that because if I did it (said “Welcome!” to an observer) they would not want that since they are told to be unnoticed when they observe (i.e. they ask teachers not to “notice” them and to keep teaching, as if that is possible). So a kid could do it, which would be the reminder to the rest of the kids and the teacher to simply say a brief word of welcome to the observer to make them feel comfortable, the whole thing taking maybe five seconds, and then the class could go on with minimal interruption and yet the person could be welcomed into the room in a genuine way by the class. I think this is a classy idea.