Wizard's Way In The Classroom: A Teacher's Perspective

Wizard's Way is a comprehensive classroom management system for students with emotional and behavioral disorders that includes four components: a contingency management system, insight-oriented daily lessons, crisis intervention, and individualized social skill training. The article describes the components of Wizard's Way and the outcomes of implementing the system in special day elementary classrooms for students with emotional or behavioral disorders. Positive outcomes for students included improved verbal expression of feelings, self management and generalization of skills to new environments. Teachers reported having a more supportive classroom environment, an avenue for addressing underlying emotional issues, and additional insights into student behavior which assisted them in developing individualized interventions.

These words vividly expressed the feelings of seven-year-old James. James is a gifted, yet troubled, youngster in a classroom for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The Volcano of Temper is a metaphor for feelings of anger, while the Ice Dunes of Iceclops expressed James' fear of acting out that anger in unsafe ways. He has been introduced to the childlike vocabulary of a classroom management system called Wizard's Way (Alters & Alters, 1996). James has learned to express his frustration verbally, rather than physically.

Wizard's Way was developed by Dennis Alters, M. D. for use in psychiatric treatment facilities for children (Interview with Dr. Alters). In 1996, the Wizard's Way game was introduced to public education elementary classrooms for students with learning disabilities and/or serious emotional disturbance. Two special education teachers, (Maryann Darcy-Collins and Debra Faris-Cole), collaborated with Alters to write lessons and modified the game to accommodate the structure of special education classrooms.

Wizard's Way is presented in a game format. The game board is bulletin board size, depicting a winding path of 85 spaces. Along the path, as in life, students encounter rewards, obstacles, and penalties. The philosophy and implementation of Wizard's Way is consistent with the literature on behavioral modification principles while integrating approaches from insight oriented counseling techniques (Jones, 1996; Meadows, Melloy, & Yell, 1996). The purpose of this article is to describe the components of the game and the resulting emotional and social development of the students in classrooms using Wizard's Way.

The students were introduced to the Wizard, a helpful and imaginary authority figure, and to Helpful Elphel who was always available to help students learn about their feelings and ways to resolve emotional and behavioral problems. Students selected one of three destinations as their objective: The Wizard's Castle, The Enchanted Tree, or The Invisible Garden. Students often choose different destinations each time they played the game. It was possible to complete the game three times in one school year, depending on the individual child's motivation.

Wizard's Way is comprised of four components intended to assist teachers throughout the school day: a) a contingency management system, b) insight-oriented daily lesson plans, c) a crisis intervention system through the use of The Seven Empires, and d) a system for individualized social skills training through the use of Scrolls of Enlightenment.

Contingency Management System
Most special day classrooms for students with emotional and behavioral disorders rely on contingency management systems, such as token economies. In Wizard's Way, students earn movement along the game path contingent upon daily behavior. As students move along the game board, they encounter positive reinforcers in the forms of Wizard's Wands, Wizard's Way Apprentice Cards, and Treasure Chests. Wands and cards may be exchanged for privileges or prizes purchased from the Magic Store. Treasure Chest spaces on the game board represent intermediate goals which reward students for continuing along the path and through the challenges presented on the game board. Students are motivated by these reinforcers to maintain and develop appropriate behaviors and coping responses to the emotions they feel.

Teachers easily incorporated the reinforcement systems they were accustomed to using into the Wizard's Way format by setting the criteria for movement on the game board. For example, one teacher using a daily point sheet, with points recorded after each activity, decided that students who earned 100% of their points were rewarded by moving two spaces at the end of that day, students who earned 96% or more of their points progressed one space, while those earning less maintained their positions on the game board that day. Students did not lose positions once they had earned them.

Insight-Oriented Lessons
As students progress along the game board, they encounter challenges. Challenges, in the form of daily lesson plans, are carefully designed exercises to develop children's emotional growth and independence through insight-oriented counseling techniques. Some challenges involve visiting different Empires from an observation deck to discuss where feelings come from and how to successfully manage them. The Empires are zones on the game board, each symbolic of an emotional area where a child may need assistance with selecting effective responses. For example, the Weeping Woebe' s River of Woe Empire addresses feelings of sadness, and the Swirhvinder Empire addresses feelings of confusion or anxiety.

Other challenges address issues typically faced by elementary age students. The Smugwamp Encounter describes days when the Smugwamp, a creature that makes one feel yucky, descends. The lessons explore what children might do to make the Smugwamp and his negative baggage go away. The Fuzzy Dwaff Challenge teaches friendship making skills, while the Crystal Falls Challenge helps students develop trust in their peers.

Crisis Intervention
If emotional or behavioral difficulties arise, a student's game piece is removed from the path and placed into an Empire descriptive of his or her behavior. Either the teacher or student can move the game piece to an Empire. James, at the beginning of this article, was attempting to place his game piece. In doing so, he was describing his emotional state and asking for help in a specific area. He needed assistance controlling his anger, The Volcano of Temper. He was also letting his teacher know that he was trying not to lose control, damage property or hurt himself or others, The Ice Dunes of Iceclops. Placement in an Empire assists the student in identifying his or her feelings and begins to address the underlying cause or trigger for the feelings. This helps both the teacher and the child begin a problem solving process which results in individualized interventions and the development of strategies for use in the future. The Empires are used by the teacher and child as recognition that the child needs assistance. In a classroom, assistance cannot always be immediate, but children know his or her problem will be addressed soon if his or her game piece is placed in an Empire.

Individualized Intervention
Individual or group meetings are facilitated when appropriate to address the issues of students whose game pieces have been placed in Empires. The teacher or counselor encourages the student to express his or her needs and guides him or her to a resolution. In order to exit an Empire, the student receives and must complete a task on The Scroll of Enlightenment that addresses the student's behavior in one of five ways:

• a cognitive strategy to avoid the problem in the future
• a task involving restitution
• a strategy to replace inappropriate behaviors with appropriate behaviors
• a problem solving task
• a relaxation strategy to reduce stress and tension

Wizard's Way has been implemented in six special day classrooms over the past two school years (1996-1998). Anecdotal reports from teachers, counselors and parents indicate the following positive results.

Verbal Expression of Feelings
Wizard's Way gives students a way to express their emotions in childlike descriptive words that help adults understand their needs. Teachers reported gaining new insight into their students' worlds. Children appeared to feel safer expressing their feelings indirectly through activities and metaphors. Expressions of feelings increased dramatically when children were given the whimsical vocabulary of Wizard's Way. The students became more articulate about their feelings, needs, and wants which resulted in less acting out behavior and more problem solving. When students feelings were expressed more naturally, teachers and students reported having more fun at school.

Generates a Supportive Environment
The students learned through the daily lessons and a poem that "Trust is a Must". Students began to share incidents in their lives that made them feel certain ways. For example, when talking about things that make children feel like they are in the "Weeping Woebe's of Woe," several students discussed feelings of not having friends. Other students described how parents divorcing made them feel like a "Weeping Woebe." The dynamics in the classroom changed as the students began to express empathy for one another and discussed their common problems. After discussing how private issues must be kept confidential, the students became more of a community and somewhat protective of each other. Students were more understanding if one among them was having a Smugwamp Day.

Provides an Avenue for Addressing Underlying Emotional Issues
Teachers who used Wizard's Way soon reported that students' behaviors did not escalate as quickly as before. Students began to see the classroom as a place where they received help with their problems, realized the visits to the Empire were not punishments, but rather places where they would learn a new strategy or social skill to assist them in dealing with their concerns or in controlling their behaviors. Consider these two scenarios before and after Wizard's Way.

Scenario #1 (Before Wizard's Way):
Mike disrupts class for much of the day. It starts with pencil tapping, which is ignored. Later, Mike starts talking out in class and making rude comments under his breath. The teacher redirects Mike to an activity that generally calms him down. This helps for awhile. Finally, Mike calls another student a name which culminates in a fight. The teacher sends Mike to the principal. His parents are called. Everyone is frustrated and upset because this happens all too often.

Scenario #2 (The Wizard's Way):
Mike begins his day by tapping his pencil while the teacher reads the class a novel. The teacher asks Mike to please stop because the noise is distracting other students. Mike makes a rude comment to the teacher. The teacher says, "Mike, something is wrong. I am going to give you a Helpful Elphel card and you are now in the Trollhouse Caves of Tournadetta. Sit quietly while I finish this story and then we will talk." Mike consents. After the lesson, the teacher privately asks Mike if he needs to solve a problem or has a concern. Mike says that he forgot his homework and is upset because he will have to stay in at recess and do it. The teacher restates the rule about staying in at recess to complete homework, but points out to Mike he has created another problem by being rude and disruptive in class. The teacher offers to help Mike redo his homework assignment and the Wizard's Way task during the first recess and encourages Mike to regain his self-control, so that he can enjoy the second recess and P.E. time. Mike agrees and accepts the teacher's help.

Mike's Wizard Way task is to outline a system to keep track of his homework so he won't forget it. He discovers his problem was not putting his completed homework in his backpack as soon as he was finished. Mike knows his teacher is there to help him gain control over problems he encounters.

Mike promises to ask for help when he needs it, rather than make rude comments.

Provides Positive Closure
Several teachers reported that the Scrolls of Enlightenment provided closure and restored positive relations between the teacher and students after serious incidents. After completing Wizard's Way tasks, each person understood what they could have done differently and came away with a specific strategy to try the next time. The interventions gave students choices, control over their actions and encouraged self management. One student was suspended for several days by the principal. When he returned, he found his game piece in the Ice Dunes of Iceclops because he had engaged in unsafe behavior. His assigned task helped him restore positive relations with his teacher and classmates, and brought closure to the incident.

Provides Insight for Creative Interventions
As students received individualized help with their social and emotional needs, teachers gained insights into underlying issues. During a Volcano of Temper lesson, Adam wrote that what helped him calm down was reading a book. The teacher used this information to design a cool down strategy for Adam. When upset, Adam was allowed to get his book, go to a special couch and read until calm. After he was calm, Adam problem solved with his teacher to identify what made him so angry. Knowing student behavior trigger points helped teachers to become more proactive, pre-teach strategies and be more insightful in designing creative and varied interventions to elicit appropriate alternative behaviors. (Interview with Dr. Alters)

Promotes Self Management and Generalization
Joey was a ten-year-old student with attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. His parents became very interested in what the school was doing to improve Joey's behavior and communication skills at school because his daily behavior grades improved dramatically. The teachers introduced Joey's parents to the vocabulary and interventions used in the classroom. The parents asked for a written description of the Empires and began talking with Joey about his behavior using the Wizard's language. Joey invented some of his own creative vocabulary to refer to impulsive verbal outbursts. Now he says, "Sorry, I didn't mean that. It was a blurt."

Collaboration Between Teacher and Counselor
Wizard's Way activities and language provided an avenue for teachers and counselors to collaborate on addressing students' social, emotional, and behavioral needs. Wizard's Way lessons provided a Challenge (topic), asked students to list situations that generated certain emotions, and to think about strategies for managing their emotions and behaviors. Students were often asked to draw pictures to express how they felt. In one school, after the students completed their Wizard's Way challenges, they shared their writing and drawings with the school counselor. The school counselor led a classroom discussion each week which facilitated conversation and expression of feelings in appropriate ways. During individual counseling times, the students had many thoughts to share with a caring adult.

Teachers who used Wizard's Way described the system as adding to their already existing repertoire of management skills. Affective activities and counseling techniques added to the behavioral approaches the teachers were using. Wizard's Way integrated these eclectic approaches into one comprehensive system. Teachers often expressed that Wizard's Way provided a vehicle to address behavior problems in a systematic way, and emotional problems in an individualized way. Therefore, students received not more or less intervention than was needed to keep them successfully performing in school, while moving them toward independently managing their own behavior. Teachers enjoyed using the whimsical language as much as the children. A sense of humor and fun was added to the classrooms, which tended to reduce the stress level of the adults and students. Most Importantly, Wizard's Way provided an avenue for teachers to gain insights into the motivations and causes of student behavior. Insights gleaned from these into student behavior and motivation provided new strategies for working with this unique group of students.

Alters, D. & Alters, B. (1996). Wizard's Way Volume II, School Version, Second Edition. San Diego: Wizard's Way Publications

Jones, V. F. (1996). In the face of predictable crisis: Developing a comprehensive treatment plan for students with emotional or behavioral disorders. Teaching Exceptional Children, 29, (2) 54-59.

Meadows, N. B., Melloy, K. J., & Yell, M. L. (1996). Behavior management as a curriculum for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Preventing School Failure, 40, 124-130.

From Wizard's Way Volume II, School Version, Second Edition, by D. Alters and B. Alters, 1996. Copyright by Dennis B. Alters, M. D., Inc. All materials reprinted with permission of the author.

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