A Breakdown of Class Dojo
When I first heard of Class Dojo, I have to admit: I did not instinctively love the idea. I’m always skeptical of jumping on the bandwagon of a new trend, and many of my colleagues were doing just that. It seemed gimmicky and manipulative, and I was right. It is. But then reality hit. I was an inexperienced teacher. I had a difficult class, and it was April in a year round school. I still had five months left with this group. My personal life was not going well, and I was low on patience and love to give. I was not taking care of myself, which is a completely different story. I did feel like I had anyone to go to for help. So I downloaded the app, and signed myself up. The beautiful thing about this app is that it pleases the parts of our brains that crave instant gratification. Hearing the ding of a point being given or taken away got an instant positive reaction. It made my life a thousand times easier. They were robots. This was also a thing that parents got into. They easil...