from all staff members.
The complete code is available at
http://tupper-online.vsb.bc.ca
/ index.php?option=com_content
&view=article&id= 82.
For the first week of that first year,
teachers were required to discuss the
code every day in homeroom, until
students and staff were nearly sick of
it. Now, students learn about ROARS
through games, skits, and discussions
each year at grade 8 camp, a three-day
never used the language but didn’t dis-
parage it. Staff members wanted this to
work, but they needed the unstinting
support of the administration. I decided
that I would use the language whenever
I worked with students. That first year,
it was a bit of an uphill battle with older
students (“ROARS is BS, Ms. Whishaw;
no one believes in this #$%^!”).
The notion that people learn from
their mistakes makes students feel
safe to take responsibility.
acculturation activity at the beginning of
the school year. And they get some cool
T-shirts to remind them of what they
learned.
Keeping It Going
By the time I arrived at Tupper, two
years after ROARS was implemented,
the code was well established in grades
8 and 9, but there were signs of trouble.
The code was ignored by most older
students, except for a small group of
leaders who were commissioned to
promote ROARS. The relentless scorn of
some of the older students was poised
to infect the younger grades, and some
staff members seemed ready to lose
their will to use ROARS. In addition, as
people retired and new teachers came,
the code was in danger of becoming
watered down unless all new teachers
were seized with the importance
of ROARS the minute they stepped
through the doors.
The staff was roughly divided into
three groups in its reception of ROARS:
those who provided continuing lead-
ership, those who used the language
when they remembered, and a few who
new teachers. She began to produce
a ROARS newsletter with language
staff could use: “ROARS emergency!”
when students are misbehaving or
“ROARSalicious!” when students are
caught being good. She wrote a school
song about ROARS that is popular with
the students, and she established a
ROARS club to conduct events, give out
prizes, and help train new students.
Enjoying the Benefits
Now that every grade has had ROARS
from grade 8 on, Tupper has gone from
a school where parents would not send
their students if they could avoid it to
one that parents are willing to go on a
waiting list for. There are no longer any
grade 12 holdouts. Indeed, the seniors
have become powerful role models for
the younger students.
The code of conduct hasn’t just
improved behavior. At the end of the
fifth year of intensive ROARS education,
the number of classes students failed
plummeted by 50 percent in every
grade and in every curricular area. The
numbers have continued to go down
