Wise Woolies: A Program for Developing a Cooperative and Responsible Classroom

|Grades 2-4| A student misbehaves in the classroom. The teacher becomes frustrated, and other students intensify the problem by laughing at and encouraging his/her antics. Wise Woollies is a classroom program that involves students in correcting other student's behavior. Misbehavior becomes pointless when other students refuse to support it and the teacher declines to be manipulated by it. By giving children the responsibility and power to work with the teacher, they can be involved in changing the blocking behaviors of students who:

• Bully
• Whine and Complain
• Act Up
• Wiggle and Jiggle
• Hit, Push, and Shove
• Have Difficulty Making Decisions
• Exhibit Shyness
• Wander Around the Classroom
• Are Wasteful
• Are Too Tired to Function Properly
  
  

The professional school counselor begins the program by consulting with the teacher and asking the students about disruptive behaviors they have observed in their classroom. Then using the teacher's and students' observations, the counselor decides which of the five interventions to use and focuses on the blocking behavior by presenting a Wise Woollies lesson. Each lesson has students examine the disruptive behavior and determine how it is cheating them out of learning time, then asks the students to decide how they can help the teacher deal with situation.

Includes stick puppet patterns for each lesson.