The Trials and Tribulations of Tattle Turtle

I had mentioned in my previous post that sometimes motivating students to write can be tricky when fine motor skills are still a pretty tall order for some. Well let me tell you, nothing motivates first graders to write quite like the opportunity to make known each and every minor transgression of their fellow classmates.

Due to some poor seating arrangements on my part, the tattling had reached a level where teaching was becoming rather difficult.

It is hard to convey valuable information about a hexagon when there are constant interruptions, "Miss Mel, X was laughing about how you say that word. He says you say it like it Mexican." I explain, for the umpteenth time, that there are some words that I say differently, reminding them of my dismal failure of a rhyming poem from my childhood about Deborah the Zebra, where I was promptly informed that I would need to change it to "Deee-bra the Zeee-bra".

I was notified when someone made a fart noise, I was alerted when someone looked like he was about to make a fart noise but in fact didn't. You get the idea. I needed it to stop, and so thought that the easiest and best way to proceed would just be to explain calmly to my students about just how distracting the constant tattling was and how it impacted their learning. And then I remembered that having a logical discussion with 24 six-year olds is about as feasible as riding a unicorn to work.

My next strategy was to simply ignore any interruptions that were tattling in nature. Big mistake. Responses ranged from the completely confused to the wounded. Some students could not understand my sudden hearing loss, and so shouted louder and louder before leaving their seats and tapping me until I listened in full to the events that culminated in being called a “poopyhead”. Others felt that my not giving sufficient airtime to the story of how student X had chewed each and every pencil eraser at the green table was a personal attack on them, and began to sob and proclaim, “Miss Mel doesn’t care about us.” And so with the not-so-happy hum of children weeping and shouting, it was back to the drawing board.

Total amount learned about hexagons thus far: nada.

I was working with the most wonderful substitute teacher at the time (I was a student teacher, and my CT, or cooperating teacher, had just become a father and so was out on paternity leave), and she asked me whether I had heard of “tattle turtle”. Unsure if this was a band, a bar, or some other hip and happening thing that I probably should know about, and inevitably do not, I hesitated. She explained that instead of kids tattling to me, I simply needed to introduce a turtle they could tattle to instead. Skeptical, envisioning a trip to Zany Zoo, your friendly neighborhood exotic pet emporium (remember, I live in Eugene), and the impromptu acquisition of a class pet, I kept my big mouth shut and listened. In fact, all I needed was a cardboard box, some crayons, and some artistic talent. Making do with two out of three, I drew a large green turtlish creature, wrote the words “tattle turtle”, and affixed it to the box. Next, I ripped scratch paper into squares, and set them, along with some pencils, beside the box.

And so the next day, I introduced the turtle, and after clearly explaining the difference between telling a teacher and tattling, insisted that all tale-telling be addressed only to him. This is a selection from was what was waiting for me at the end of day:

"Somebody ate our erasers." Delightfully vague, and also doubtful.

"I have a big problem". Very informative.

"Well um, hello a bit" Here I was beginning to question the scheme just a tad.

But then I delved deeper into the box (there was substantial digging to do, since my students had generated 33 of these gems on day 1).

My class of reluctant writers had collectively written me a novel’s worth of tale-telling. I was torn between being immensely proud and equally appalled by this motley crew of informants. The catalogue of wrongdoing made for extremely amusing reading, and, even more pleasingly, there was a noticeable reduction in interruptions- we were able to cover hexagons, trapezoids, and even the rhombus!

This was most definitely one of those "Eureka moments", but that does not mean that it was without teething issues. Students were so mightily jazzed about the prospect of turning in their peers that they were queuing up to write to turtle throughout the day. I needed to set some guidelines for appropriate times to write. And so I explained that she would simply eat any notes mailed to her when I was giving directions, or during a test. Problem solved.

The second problem was that I had not anticipated such an overwhelming response, and so had not left enough scratch paper beside the box. By the afternoon, students were tearing out chunks from their writing journals to write their notes to turtle. One student even peeled a paper leaf off the wall display and wrote on that! Not ideal.

And so that is why my TpT product for this week is a "Tattle Turtle Kit" that will help any of you who want to try out the turtle in your classrooms! Included are printable "notes to tattle turtle" so that you can always have a stash on hand. There is also a sign for your box, in case, like me, you are artistically challenged. My turtle prototype looked more like an igloo with legs...

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teach-Run-Repeat

There were many strange submissions, but the most instructive was that of the one student who had felt it necessary to turn in his classmate for “helpin pipl”.

This inspired my addition of a second box, which I christened “Compliment Cat”.

Tattle Turtle was excellent in that my students were writing more than I could get them to write in a week in their journals. They were perfecting their spelling of key vocabulary such as "spit" "mocked" and "ate the erasers", and I was teaching without interruption, but I could not help but feel that this climate of silent squealing was a temporary fix. Enter Compliment Cat. This friendly feline only accepts notes that describe something nice that a classmate has done.

The goal was to transition students away from turning each other in for every “stupid” or “poop” that was uttered, and move towards what I called “catching one another being kind.” Students’ aim by the end of the week was to have collectively written more to the cat than to the turtle. This is a lovely and heart-warming idea that swiftly becomes less warm and fuzzy as students begin to bargain with one another, and the following can be heard,

“If you give me that pencil with the smiley faces on I’ll tell the condiment cat (sic) that you said nice things to me.” There was evidently some confusion about both the title and the principle of the scheme.. I imagined a menacing alley cat, wielding ketchup in one hand, mustard in the other, rewarding unconviningly staged good deeds.

Compliment Cat had a rather bumpier inception than her reptilian counterpart, and “catching someone being kind” was certainly a concept that took a while to sink in. For example, when one student saw me approaching her table, she reached across, pushed her partner’s pencil on to the floor, and promptly rushed to retrieve it, looking at me all the while and saying “don’t you catch me being kind now Miss Mel!” Ingenious, but thoroughly disingenuous.

If I were to re-introduce Compliment Cat, I think for the first week I would be the only one who could write to her. This would allow me to model only ‘catching’ those who were not trying desperately to be caught, and spotlight examples of the kinds of behaviors that deserved a compliment. Coming soon to my store will be a "Compliment Cat Kit", so that you can all add both to your classrooms! Please don't hesitate to let me know how it went for you!