A Jury of His Peers

Our school is holding a fundraiser right now, one of those fundraisers where the kids are selling gift wrap and the like...But as an incentive to sell, sell, sell, for every item a kid sells, he or she cuts out this snowflake, writes their name and teacher's name on it, and turns it in to the teacher. The teacher then gives that child a "silly band" for every snowflake they turn it. This is on the honor system. The teacher also then turns in all snowflakes received in a given day to the office. A PTA rep counts up the snowflakes per class, and the winning class gets to have Blizzard, a huge stuffed polar bear, in their room for the next day. My class has had Blizzard once as a guest.

So last Wednesday morning, Zeke hands me 20 snowflakes, all filled out with his name and mine on them. I didn't really think much, but figured he just had let them pile up until he finally brought them in. I gave him 20 silly bands. Another student handed me two snowflakes, and I gave him two silly bands. No one else had any snowflakes, so I sent all snowflakes in to the offic. But we weren't the winners of Blizzard for that day, anyway.

The next day, Thursday, about 10 minutes before school was to start, my classroom door opened, and in walked Zeke, followed by his older brother. Zeke handed me a baggie filled with silly bands, along with a handwritten note that said, "I am sorry about the silly bands. Do you agree? Yes or no."

"Zeke," I said. "I don't understand what this note is about."

His brother said, "Zeke stole the silly bands."

Oh, I get it. So I played along..."What do you mean you stole silly bands? You didn't steal them. I gave them to you for the 20 snowflakes you gave me." Zeke looked down at the ground.

"I didn't sell 20 things," he said.

"You mean, you lied to me?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Wow. I can't believe that. This is serious," I said. "I think you need to talk to Mr. Principal, because you have broken several of our school's traits." So I walked out of the room and headed toward the office, with Zeke behind me. When I got to the office, Mr. Principal was not there. He was out of the building for the morning. So I told Zeke that I'd have to fill out a white slip and give it to Mr. Principal.

I went back to my room and filled out a white slip. I headed back to the office with the white slip. When I got to the office, one of our administrators was there, and she often deals with discipline issues. So I gave her the slip, and briefly told her of the situation. "I think we need to shake him up," I concluded. She agreed.

Later, she came to my room and pulled Zeke out into the hall. After a bit, she poked her head back into my room. "Mrs. Teacher, can you come here?" she asked. I stepped into the hall. She basically had Zeke apologize to me. I pointed out that what concerned me was that note he had originally written in that it didn't really say exactly what he had done wrong: lied to me and stole silly bands. She agreed. I stepped back into the room, and she talked to him some more. Eventually he came back in to the room.

At lunch time, I went to the office to my mailbox. Inside was Zeke's white slip, minus the copy that the office keeps. But written on the slip under consequences was an additonal note from our principal that Zeke had to apologize to the whole class. So as the kids came in from recess, I pulled Zeke into the hallway.

"Mr.Principal says that you have to also apologize to the whole class," I told him.

"What do I say?" he asked.

"You'r a fifth grader. I'm sure you can figure it out," I said, and went back into class.

At 3:00, with only a half hour left in the day, I called the class together. "Zeke, come up here," I said. Zeke came up and stood in front of the class. "Zeke has something to tell you," I added.

Zeke stood there in front of his peers, staring down at the floor. Then he looked up. "Yesterday, I turned in 20 snowflakes and got 20 silly bands, but I lied. I didn't really sell anything."

Well, you could have heard a pin drop. I told the kids that if they had any questions for Zeke, they should ask them, and Zeke would answer truthfully. And the questions began, fast and furious. No holds barred. They were like the Spanish Inquistion, and they asked tough questions: Why did you do it? How did you feel when you lied? Why did you do this just to make yourself feel better? Would you have told the truth if you hadn't been caught? The questions went on for about 15 minutes. I had to stop them finally because we had to get ready to go home.

It was the best punishment ever.