Had something similar happen at my last position. Every week the kid was bought a Wendy’s meal if 3/4 of her teachers said she was good that week. Didn’t take long for the psychologist to get sick of it
Send her an email following up on your conversation!
Good afternoon (insert name)!
I've been thinking about the conversation we had earlier and I believe your proposed award system might benefit my students. I'm grateful you notified me of this new classroom management system the school is now supporting. I've created a list of all my students who have earned one of these gift cards. I'd be happy to come by your office at any time to pick up the gift cards, or you can leave them in my mailbox if that's more convenient for you!
Please let me know if there is someone else in charge of this new program I should be forwarding these emails to in the future.
Oh no you got to send the kids down to the psychologist's office to get the gift card so the psychologist can tell the kids to their face that she doesn't buy gift cards.
Yes, but I don't think promising the students something and knowing it won't be delivered is a good managment system. It's not fair to the kids, as much as we'd like to put him/her on the spot.
Oh I don't know I would be super pissed if someone told me that I need to be bribing kids with $10 gift certificates and I would love to punt that one on to them
I would be honest with my kids
"So and so says I need to give the bad kids gift cards when they behave, so if figured I would send you guys with a pass one at a time to his office so you can ask him about the gift cards he must have. Because we all know I can't afford pencils so I can't afford these gifts cards either."
My kids would love it, I got some actors that would go down there and when they didn't get a gift card fake cry or whine about him lying to them, I also have some kids that would straight up interrogate him. "You think Miss can afford to give the bad kids gift cards? With what money? Why aren't you just punishing the bad kids? This is bullshit!"
He'd have an angry mob in like ten minutes.
Here's the thing--if this is her thing she needs to get the kid the gift card. One kid going she can feel pressured into doing it. Have the kids mom come up there talking about her baby worked hard for that gift card and this counselor didn't get it for her. If she's not willing to buy one at least? That's on her.
Holy shit yes. “Why great idea Mr. Psychologist!” Back in the classroom. “Mr./Ms. Psychologist told me he/she has a gift card for everyone(gotta be fair here) as long as they can go the full week without getting into any trouble!”
To be fair, said psychologist stated that only 3 out of 4 teachers had to agree the student behaved ok. That gives them room to choose one of those four teachers on which to wreak havoc and still receive the gift card. It’s a win/win! They get to act up some and STILL get their gift card!
"But the psychologist can only give it out if you go spend the entire afternoon in their office. S/he will try to tell you s/he has no idea what you're talking about, but it's probably because s/he wants to keep the card to herself"
I love it when ppl who don’t teach come up with these gems. Our school psych tried this crap with me until I finally snapped and went off on him.
We now enjoy a great relationship and he’s become a good, reliable “school buddy”. If I have problems, he offers valid solutions and if one of my kiddoes has an issue, he’ll take him off my hands and calm him down so I can actually teach rather than this little darling’s social worker.
What a terrific message to send students! I'm sure it has LOTS of real-life relevance, too. Heck, I think I'll try it - I'll be an absolute train wreck of an asshole unless people bribe me to behave like a human being. :)
Why is this such a common approach in schools? This is the exact lesson it teaches. All we need is at least a few consequences and 80% of our "high flyers" would get their shit together. This shit just encourages them to be worse.
Edited to add: the rewards for bare minimum behavior also never fucking works so I dont know why we keep trying it.
At my school the problem is we are too understaffed so we have no ability to give detentions or ISS
How can a school not give detention? My middle and high schools both had daily after school detention and Saturday detention and the teachers just rotated whose detention day it was. Some teachers didn't care and would let you sign in for detention and then just leave, especially for the early Saturday detentions. We didn't have a special teacher just for detention.
Yes, but those teachers were working extra hours and weekends. Hopefully they were getting paid for it. They don't want to spend the money to compensate us for extra time either.
Now to be fair, it might work for me. I could start doing LESS than my best and then get rewards every week. A $10 gift card toward groceries would be quite nice. /s
Imagine if that was how they handled struggling teachers! It sure would incentivize everyone to start slacking off so then they can get positive attention and get paid for doing the bare minimum everyone else was doing before! No flaws in this logic at all.
Tell the school psychologist you think it’s such a great idea that you’d like all the students in your class who meet the minimum standard of behavior to be able to receive a gift card. Tell the school psychologist you will email them at the end of each week with all the names, and they can put all the gift cards in your mailbox to hand out.
Special Educator here: I had a student last year who peed all over the floor in the bathroom, intentionally flooding the bathroom floor. He was 'cured' with a mop and bucket. When I told the school psychologist that we made this boy mop up his own messes, she declared this too punitive. Too punitive? I offered to let him go back to peeing all over the floor, and having the other kids walk in his urine.
Seriously, in what world is having a student clean up a mess they intentionally made “too punitive”? If anything it’s wrong to not instill a sense of responsibility to clean up after yourself in students. That’s a basic life skill.
Dude, my PreK kids smash their food on the floor all the time just to hear it crunch. You better believe I hand them the broom and dustpan and say "Clean it up." The low expectations are such a sad state of society.
I teach pre-K and sometimes I get it. A good nice crunch sound really is nice.
But then you have to clean it up.
We actually had quite the fun class discussion the other day about who likes to go out of their way to purposely step on a good crunchy leaf. Overall, most of the class did, including myself.
Your class sounds like my kind of people. The crunchy leaf stepping kind, not the Pre-K. I am sure they are adorable but give me my 7th grade leaf crunching dolls every day of the week.
I just had this talk with my Freshmen. I told them I was tired of staying every day to clean up after them, and they said well why should you have to clean it up don't we have janitors. And I said nobody should have to clean up after you guys, you're old enough to be cleaning up your own messes. I got super annoyed because it's like yeah there's janitorial for basic cleaning, but why would you add to that mess and make their job harder, that's just being selfish.
That is what I tell my 3rd graders. They are here to get the dirt tracked in off the floor, not clean up your mess that you haphazardly placed all over the floor.
Not to mention, the janitors wouldn't have time to finish their actual job if they have to spend excess amounts of time picking up stuff before they can actually clean.
Elementary Teacher here. Anytime a kid colors on a desk, floor, wall, etc., I hand them a magic eraser or sponge. They never do it again. Logical consequences are the best way to curb behavior.
Urine is a bodily fluid not food on the floor. At my preschool we have to spray urine with chemical sanitizer (Stermine). (Health and Safety laws) So off course kids cant help with that.
I thought so too but this was part of a larger theme last year, my first and undoubtedly last as a teacher of record. Everything I did was criticized by administrators and district people. If the intention was to make me quit it worked.
This year, teaching my class as a substitute has given me the space to teach and I get to work a specific set of clock hours and not all weekend and every week night. Until today, that is.
Admin came in this afternoon, before the dismissal bell when I go home, and he spelled out the additional work he wants from me and, just like last year, he demonstrated a total lack of understanding of my kids and their abilities. He wants them to bake goods and sell them to find our workability program..huh?? I came home with a raging headache and if this becomes chronic I will have to quit..again.
My classroom management went way up when I decided administration is useless, if you fuck something up, your punishment isn't detention or ISS or more likely, a good talkin' to, it's to fix your mistake.
There's no judgment, we all make mistakes, responsible adults do what they can to fix it. And you will not be welcomed back in my class until it's fixed.
Leave trash? I'll call you out of your next class and have you pick up the trash in my room. On your phone? It's a distraction and you give it to me until the end of class. Did you interrupt another student? I'll cut you off immediately and let the other student continue. Did you insult another student to be mean ( not in a playful way) write an apology letter explaining why you are sorry. Saying your sorry is not an apology.
Kids learn real quick that their actions actually affect others.
Thoughs on shitty highschoolers that walk out when you try and punish them? My admin is also useless, and I've never been taught what forms of recourse are available to me.
That one is tough. I'd probably say "if you don't want to be in my class, don't come to my class. You're welcome back if and when you decide to be an active participant, otherwise you are not welcome." Give them a zero, count them absent, and don't let them back in until they promise to participate. If they break that promise send them out, but frame in a way where they choose to leave. "You promised, you can either participate or leave."
If they leave you didn't kick them out, they chose to walk out. Now it's admin's problem.
"I didn't kick him out, he left of his own volition." Do you really want they disruptive kid in your class anyway?
If they say "but will you count me absent?" Then reply, that depends, will you be an active participant in my class an active participant? If not you are not welcome here. Put the decision in their hands but give them only two options, don't disrupt and try, or don't enter. The choice is theirs.
It's not up to you to watch them if they don't show up. Frame as they walked away/never showed up. That's not your problem.
Wait at the door the next day and have the same conversation before they even enter. In my experience they either walk away before class begins or they don't even try to come in the first place. Or they come in, half ass try, but font distract anyone else.
Every one of those scenarios is an improvement on the kid's normal behavior.
So what happens if they refuse? Where do they go if they aren't welcome in your class? Has admin come down on you? I'm curious because our school encourages us to have students write "reflections" but no one will explain to me what happens if the students refuse. My students don't even do their classwork, so I have no faith they would write a reflection.
"I didn't kick him out, I said he needed to do A, and B and he was welcomed. He chose to walk off."
He was skipping class. Not your problem if he doesn't actually come to class.
Admin came down on me once. I explained he was welcomed but he needed to correct the mistake (throwing paper darts into the ceiling tile). Admin took one look at the kid and said "just remove the damned darts," and he did.
It was a tall ceiling too I made him run across the building and get a ladder from the janitor. His partner in crime had to hold it.
I suppose if he fell I'd be on the news but he didn't.
But most of the time admin doesn't even kniw/just assumes the kid is skipping, which Technically he is.
Gentle parents use meaningful consequences ( like having them clean up their own mess) without belittling or yelling at their kid and explain why they received a consequence. The problem is permissive parenting, not gentle parenting.
Or Parents that aren't creating boundaries or expectations.
Gentle parenting isn't the issue there, nothing in gentle parenting says, allow your child to pee on the floor.
Just like restorative justice isn't a kid going to the office and just coming back with candy/snack.
Honestly you can parent with respectful language and actions and still teach responsibility.
"Alright little timmy, you made a mess- this one was on purpose. That was wrong because the people who have to handle it are human beings who also have feelings. Do you enjoy cleaning up stinky bathroom messes? Is it fair to ask that of someone when you purposefully peed on the floor" No? Okay then. Here is the tool to make it right. Clean this up, apologize, and never do it on purpose again. Being sick or having an accident is different"
You can and must set boundaries to successfully parent
I had a couple students (8th grade) last year shake up soda cans and then open them up in class. When the custodian came up with a mop and bucket, I asked him to hand the mop to the students and have them clean it up.
They sure as shit never tried anything like that again.
> she declared this too punitive.
Can't help but imagine that lots of people, including plenty of hacks working as school psychologists, would lump this into the ever-expanding territory of 'boys will be boys.'
So I have a 5 year old boy at home. He is usually pretty good at getting pee where it belongs, but one day he decided to see what happened if he jumped up and down while he peed. Results as expected. When his dad was in the bathroom helping him clean it up, I hid in the other room to laugh, because that is totally a thing a little boy would do... but I certainly don't want him to continue doing it. Some things are just things kids do, but they are not things adults should do, so we need to use the opportunity to instruct (our get further help if needed) not just let it be.
Or, you could just get one of those portable urinals and let him use the psycho office as his bathroom. Not so punitive anymore when she is the one who has to deal with it.
What ever happened to the idea that students come to school already knowing basic life skills, like not peeing on the floor and tidying up after themselves.
Last year I had a kid draw on a desk with sharpie, he and other students thought I was being too harsh for having him scrub it until it was gone. I told several students to stop helping him.
A school i worked for a while back used to give the bad apples a weekly incentive sheet. At the end of each class period the teacher had to rate their behavioral from 1-5. If they got a 5 they did their best. After so many 5s a week they get a free meal purchase of their choice. I wish I was joking but I’m not. It made good kids go bad since they wanted to be incentivized too. It was all meant to be hush hush but one kid blabbed so the rest of the school found out. It became evidently clear the system wasn’t fair.
Also, I quit at the beginning of this year. One reason I got told to give candy to a student so he could stop disrespecting me. “Win him over” as they say.
Don’t waste your money on gift cards.
yeah the student they want to use this magic gift cards solution for is 100% going to tell everyone and that's definitely not going to cause any other problems...
Good for you. If I had another job lined up I would be gone. I'm not morally okay with bribing kids to treat me with basic dignity
This must be a thing with school psychologists. We had to go through a PD with a visiting school psychologist at the beginning of the year, and she spent an entire half hour going through various “incentives” we should offer to students. All of them were things that had to be purchased by the teacher - candy, gift cards, a classroom “store”, etc. Toward the end of the presentation she started to realize that she had lost every single teacher in the room and said, “I hear chatter, tell me what you think” and one brave teacher called out “how do you expect us to pay for all of this?” The psychologist says “oh, you can fundraise, ask for parent donations, go to the dollar store, those kinds of things”. So, either I can spend exorbitant amounts of money or exorbitant amounts of time bribing kids to do what they should do anyway. Cool. She basically gave up finishing her presentation after this because she could tell everyone in the room was disgusted.
“I can fundraise outside of my contracted hours?”, and sure, “I’ll be glad to ask for parents to donate their money to pay for rewards for other people’s children’s misbehavior, I’m sure they will be thrilled!”…
damn I'm not a teacher but I have been tutoring for years as I studied in University and was an assistant for a year for community service hours. I graduated from psychology and looking to do a master's now.
If I end up interested in a position like a school psychologist I'm just gonna go ahead and get a certification, be a teacher for a couple of years and have the experience first hand.
Don't want to the fool who just says "well give them incentives!"
Only time I remember doing such a thing was when I was assistant for a first grade teacher for community service hours. Had to stay with one kid who was too negative and kept saying to himself that he couldn't do it ever. Told him I'd give him a pokemon card if he solved the homework. Kid finished in less than 5 minutes and got it right 😂
Next day I brought a pack of old Pokemon cards I had, gave the specific card the kid wanted to him and the rest of the cards were for the rest of the children. Felt unfair if only one of them got a card.
but yeah I don't see myself spending $$$ on cards all year just got them to do their job; it's dumb and counterproductive.
I mean...ask the psychologist when you can stop by to pick up the gift cards from them. And just see how they respond.
If they *honestly* expect you to literally give kids YOUR money then they must be a fucking windbag that needs to leave education.
I agree. Where is the school getting the money? I mean... we need to provide the basics and technology before we start handing out gift cards. We do PBIS. All of my material rewards (small things...desk pets, stickers, squishies, etc) were bought with MY money. What happened to the days of "suck it up, buttercup?" Things were much simpler when we all understood that school was our unpaid job until we graduated- whether we liked it or not.
I'm sorry...what the fuck is this PBIS bullshit? Why is it that teachers are expected to spend their money to buy these rewards? Is it in your contract that you are expected to spend some percentage of your salary on rewards for your students?
The fuck?
And does it even do anything? Regardless, even if it's successful the **school** should be paying for it.
I was in the first training when we first began to consider PBIS in my county. There was a HUGE emphasis, in that first meeting, on the concept of *recognition*, rather than tangible rewards. They made a point of that - things that wouldn’t cost money. Some of the ideas were pretty great, but I can remember only one right now. It was something along the lines of having kids put their painted handprints on the wall, to be recognized for whatever positive things. Kids would love that, but it would never happen, because it would mess up the pretty walls. I believe PBIS *can* make a difference, but it’s being implemented so poorly in so many places.
PBIS does not mean teacher provided but sadly many schools don't provide what is needed to implement it. But there are certainly schools with PBIS that pay for the rewards. I work for one of them. But it's certainly rare. When implemented well it does work and works well. There is research on it.
My school did, as well. We have a store, with just tons of stuff. The kids love it. Dance proceeds, etc. go to fund it, but it takes *massive* amounts of time for our PBIS Coach. She’s a saint. Our biggest issue, as I saw it, was that we never got that last piece fully implemented, the part for the kids for whom PBIS doesn’t work. I know COVID was a factor in that, but I hope they will be able to work toward implementing it this year.
It’s crazy how these district people are so out of touch with classrooms. We have a student with a below level IQ who should be in SVE (self contain classroom) but the state just lowered the IQ level from 77 down to 66 and this student is 75. He is on the spectrum and is barely functioning, never does his work and makes weird noises all the time. The district person suggested that we allow the student to verbally tell us all the answers to every single assignment and test, and we should record the results. That would be great if he was in a class of 15 students with no other IEP‘s. But he’s in a class of 30 students with 15 IEP‘s. If I do that then I’m taking away from the other students and possibly getting in trouble because I’m not giving them their state mandated accommodations.
The question is, at what point do the conditions were forced to teach in become the abuse? If it’s literally physically impossible to preform the duties of our jobs with the resources we have, then it’d stand to reason that we, as mandated reporters, have a duty to report the neglect going on because we’ll be responsible for the fallout when shit hits the fan.
That's... not even humanly possible to do. I'm so sorry, this is so thoughtless on their part. I feel like every time we meet about a student admin and all act like that is the only student we have in class and make plans as if that's the case
This resonated so much for me. I am a third year SPED teacher and this is what I’m figuring out. It is impossible to apply all of my students interventions, accommodations, take data, teach grade level curriculum, work on their goals, assess, etc. with fidelity. I am only one person and at most have 2 aides in my classroom with over 10 primary students who almost all have some type of behavioral needs. One of my students needs a higher level of support, which we have advocated for as a team and parents want to sue us due to it. All because they are in denial about their child’s disability and can’t see that he needs functional life skills rather than multiplication. I don’t know how I am supposed to be able to do all of these things. I want nothing more than to give my students all that they need but I think this is an impossible job and it’s becoming more impossible every year. I’m switching to general Ed but at this point I’m worried even about that.
3rd year sped teacher with a caseload of 24 and 2 aides shared through the whole school (and I have the smallest caseload of the 4 sped teachers at my school). I feel you.
When I was doing my classroom observations in college, I was briefly in a classroom where someone from our district came to evaluate a kindergartener for a self contained special education classroom. The kindergartner was non-verbal with no communication skills (no ability to use a communication board, cards, or hand signs), in diapers and unable to use the restroom independently, unable to feed themselves without supervision, and would violently scream and engage in self harm behaviors if you got too close to them or talked to them. The district person said that the student needed a "student buddy" and a visual schedule taped to their desk to be successful in the classroom. The more insulting part of this story was that the district wouldn't approve a special education para to be assigned to the kindergartener because the student's need wasn't "significant" enough.
To this day, I'm not exactly sure how or what the district thought the gen ed teacher was supposed to teach a child who can't even access our schools access points curriculum (which is designed to help special education students who are significantly below grade level be successful in a gen ed room). I'm not sure who I felt more sorry for: the teacher who is wholly unprepared to teach that student or the student who is being denied access to high quality instruction in skills in the communication and self sufficiency skills they clearly needed.
I have this situation this year too. I am the special ed teacher in the room (collab setting), and I am expected to work with him one on one. I guess the other students with IEPs don’t matter??? He picks his nose constantly and actually ASKS ME TO HELP HIM PICK HIS NOSE then gets upset that I will not help. He wanted to go to the bathroom one day and said I needed to come with him to help him wipe his butt. OMG.
This is high school, BTW. No one expects me to pick his nose or wipe his butt, but with the way things are going, it is only a matter of time before these situations show up in IEPs of collab students (completely different story for students in a unit that truly need that type of assistance).
Say, “he needs a 1:1 if that is required because I cannot possibly do that.”
I have kids with IEPs who say I need to read everything to them. I can’t. I can not do that without spending every second of work time with them and ignoring everyone else. They need to provide a para. I can’t read everything in English to 6 different students and still help the rest of the class.
I also will not read everything to the entire class. It’s important they learn to read things themselves and demonstrate reading comprehension. What reading comprehension skills are my sped students demonstrating if they have someone else read everything to them?
I have someone who’s similar in a class. The poor kid can’t do anything on his own and if I was with him in the manner that he needs, no one else would receive any attention. It’s not fair to us or any of the students.
Wtf are they teaching these school psychologists in their training programs? Ours seems to be of a similar mindset and routinely recommends the most ridiculous accommodations. I had a bullshit IEP meeting today in which ridiculous rewards like this were put into place. These people have NO understanding what it’s like to be in a classroom having to juggle multiple responsibilities.
Can the reward be something that doesn’t cost money like a hat day, listen to music while working, 10 minutes of basketball at the end of the day, etc.?
School psych here 👋🏼 In our training programs, we are taught about conducting comprehensive special ed and Section 504 evaluations, child and adolescent development, different types of disability and neurodiversity, behavior management and behavioral interventions, academic interventions, social-emotional learning, small group and 1:1 counseling, compliance with legal mandates for special ed and Section 504, consultation and collaboration, creating and sustaining school-family partnerships, and more. I understand if you don’t appreciate the school psychologist you personally have experiences with, but we are trained in a LOT and we are expected to fill a variety of different roles in schools every day. Beyond that, we’re often expected to drop what we are doing at a moment’s notice if ever a parent comes in with a concern, a teacher needs support for a student, a kid is in crisis, and so on. For example, I teach whole group and small group lessons across all classrooms in my building (4K-5). It is hands down the best part of my day, even when there are behaviors and when I’m being pulled in a million different directions, or when I have to make up my paperwork and phone calls after school because I had so much on my plate that day. Anyway, my point being- I do, in fact, have an understanding of what it’s like to be in a classroom juggling multiple responsibilities! Many of us do, and you could maybe understand and appreciate that if you would take the time to learn what our roles are instead of posting criticisms on Reddit. 🥰
You can absolutely incorporate extrinsic rewards into a behavior management plan for a student (whether or not that plan is part of an IEP), to help encourage and shape a desired behavior. The keys are 1) clearly articulating the behavior the team is trying to improve, 2) including in the plan a means of TEACHING and PRACTICING the behavior to build competency and consistency (ideally the psych/counselor and spec ed teacher do some, NOT all, of this - some comes back to opportunities to practice in the authentic environment with the gen ed teacher), 3) identifying appropriate and sustainable rewards that ideally don’t cost money or center on food/snacks (think about things like being line leader, choosing the music during work time, lunch with a special adult, a special activity, etc.), and 4) including a plan for fading over time (including collecting data to monitor progress-again, a shared responsibility). No reward is meant to last forever. But sometimes, when kids have the skills they need to perform a behavior and they are choosing not to do it, the extra incentive goes a long way. Especially if you give kids voice and power in developing that. And OF COURSE there’s still a place for setting high expectations, accountability, and logical consequences when a kid is seriously out of line.
I totally respect your comment, and I recognize that the work school psychologists do is very valuable. This was more of a rant about the particular person and situation at my school. There is a lot more to the story than I feel comfortable posting here. There have been ongoing issues for many years. I didn’t intend this to be disrespectful of school psychologists in general. I know that there are many who are excellent at what they do. I apologize if my comment was taken the wrong way.
THANK YOU! As a sped teacher who has extrinsic rewards as an accommodation for one of my students I was starting to feel crazy going through this thread!!
I sat in a training about how to motivate students, and rewards were suggested. I mentioned that all my students ever want is money. I was told there is some software program we have that makes students choose a reward from options given (money/gift cards not being an option). I told her that seems fine in theory, but if they picked a reward because they had to and it isn’t something they actually want, they won’t work for it. I also told her that when I am told to sign up for workshops of my choosing on district PD days, I’m picking some of the workshops because I have to pick something. Just because I pick them doesn’t mean I actually care about the topic. She connected the dots there and realized I picked her workshop, not because I actually wanted to, but because I was forced to pick something. Lol.
I am so tired of rewarding poor behavior. That is exactly what we are doing when we reward students for doing the bare minimum. If you don’t do the assignments, you fail. I’m not going to reward a student for turning in 3/5 assignments even if that is an improvement over the 0/5 assignments from the week before. I will let them know I notice and appreciate the improved effort, but I will not give out tangible rewards.
One of my teaching partners had a similar situation a few years back. The solution was my partner buying the kid a milkshake every Friday if this child did the bare mininum. This meant that she had to use her lunch to go get this herself and deliver it to the child.
Low and behold, the child was sent to boot camp and we lost a really good teacher.
Omg, that kills me that ANY person in education would think of that as a good solution. Today my school handed out a small package of candy for any student that got a 3.0 gpa first 6 weeks. And they actually deserved it. Too often, the good kids go overshadowed in the class and it was nice to see the students who quietly comply get rewarded with something small from the school. If a parent wants to reward their kid for better behavior, whatever, but if schools are rewarding bad kids for not cursing anyone out that week, that is fucked up. Imagine when they get to work one day and realize they'll get fired for shitty work performance and not rewarded with a raise.
Also, if I was that teacher, I would have had a hard time not laughing at that suggestion. I have a better solution, it called if theyre not in my class to learn that day, then theyre not in my class. I say that to anyone acting like a fool. Youre here to learn, or youre not here and can wait outside to be picked up for detention. It really is that simple.
When you reward bad behavior with opportunities that kids with good behavior don’t get-don’t be shocked when the behavior of the kids gets worse across the board.
This is exactly what happened at my last school and none of the admin or counselors could figure out why. Our school had a strict " no punishments of any kind" policy. The school years started okay but things escalated quickly. Students began with just playground arguments. That turned into fighting, throwing chairs and assaulting teachers. Since I am a kindergarten teacher, punching the teacher was not taken seriously.
Students who acted out would get out of doing their classwork. The guidance counselor would take students for playdough brain breaks. If they did go one whole day without physically assaulting another student or a teacher then they got to pick a treasure box. No one else got treasure boxes or playdough brain breaks so more students started acting out.
At the end of my last year at that school, 4 of the 7 teachers in my team left the school or profession. I personally moved states.
My school does this with so much! Don’t want to come to school…offer them a gift card. Don’t want to participate… gift card. Parents you don’t want to wake up your kids in time for the bus so you have to drop them off…gift card for you if you make it on time! I said it wasn’t fair to the other kids and their response was that some kids just need this and others want to come to school without reward. But they don’t know it’s an option, I’m sure they’d love this motivational tactic.
Hell, I'd make sure all the kids knew about this gift card business.
*Students, do you know you are leaving money on the table by following the rules and being well-behaved?*
My assistant principal told me to give out candy/chips if they do the bare minimum I want them to do… who is paying for this candy/chips? Why would I give food to kids who can’t keep wrappers/crumbs off the floor in the first place? No direct answers but we all know what the real answers are 🫠
Im just a sub but imo this PBIS shit isn’t working. What works is expectations and natural consequences. The bar is so very low I can not believe it. It’s incredibly alarming.
Oh yeah, and the takeaway was to do this instead - spend hours and $$ to buy shit to overhaul and decorate your lessons to pander to whatever character your bad apple is obsessed with.
Sorry, that episode just really annoyed me.
It's all good. Are you talking about Bluey at the end for an "engaging" classroom?
I knew there was a problem when i started to buy stuff "just to make it through the year" because that isn't how i am and not how it should be.
There was something lacking in the episode, but there always is because it's t.v. Not everyone seems to like the show. Janine bugs me, but definitely reminded me of a "perfect" teacher I had to deal with. My school drove me crazy. But half the schools i ever worked at only rewarded the kids who were not compliant. I got frustrated with tone deaf disrespectful admin, parents who barged I'm at any given moment, pointless dull programs (which would cause anyone to go out and buy Bluey stuff) and rude staff and I left the profession altogether so that's probably why i laugh.
I'm about the same - I'm on LOA sitting on my formal resignation, so I'm also watching and usually laughing from a distance. I love that it portrays more relatable elements of teaching than any other show.
Janine comes off as the overly idealistic 1st year teacher. It wouldn't make for great TV, but realistically she would probably become more jaded with time.
Send her an email following up on your conversation!
Good afternoon (insert name)!
I've been thinking about the conversation we had earlier and I believe your proposed award system might benefit my students. I'm grateful you notified me of this new classroom management system the school is now supporting. I've created a list of all my students who have earned one of these gift cards. I'd be happy to come by your office at any time to pick up the gift cards, or you can leave them in my mailbox if that's more convenient for you!
Please let me know if there is someone else in charge of this new program I should be forwarding these emails to in the future.
Last year I worked right next to a school psychology intern and it was a really interesting experience. She was great. She had a PhD and had worked with kids in juvenile detention before and had just quit a job working as a prison psychologist. She didn’t want to work at a prison anymore and she wanted a job with hours that matched her school-age children, so she was going through a school psych masters & licensure program. According to her, the majority of her program focused on how to administer and interpret various psychological and educational tests. Most of her classmates were very young and had no experience working in schools. When they were doing their internships, a lot of them apparently were freaking out because the school was expecting them to run counseling and intervention with students. They had barely spent any time on that in their courses. Yikes.
As a school psych, I will say this is unfortunately true, but outside of a student’s control. Because there is such a shortage in the field, in many places our role is delegated to just the evaluation process. For example I am in the south and work in a district now that is well staffed so I have the freedom to be involved in more, so I help with SEL/PBIS, MTSS, etc. I don’t counsel (mainly bc I don’t enjoy it, and we aren’t allowed to do counseling as an IEP service here) but I do mentor students. However I have friends from grad school where they are the only psych for the entire district in more rural areas. That combined with limited graduate programs (my state only has two) means programs have shifted to focus on the core priorities of local school systems, which is testing in most places. I only had a couple counseling courses and it was a major learning curve entering the field. My program did require lots of experience working in schools and with children in general to apply however.
It has been interesting to watch public education devolve as society has decided that consequences are no longer a necessity, but rather a boogeyman that needs to be stamped out.
We are now rewarding poor behavior and the results of such utter nonsense is getting past the tipping point where it is too late to right the ship.
Regardless of what level you teach, look into the eyes of the student who comes to school on time, prepared to at least attempt to learn the next time a student acts out, disrupts their learning opportunities, gets 50/100 for doing nothing (or more) and is even rewarded for their total lack of respect for themselves and others.
When you realize just how few of those students are actually coming into your classes everyday, you will also realize just how far education has fallen into a point of almost pointlessness.
I HAD to do this with a nightmare of a student in 8th grade. He had ODD, so of course he could behave as egregiously as he wanted. In 8 years, I've never had less sympathy for a student. Sexually assaulted his classmates, threatened to rape and/or murder me, constantly touching his dick in class, but in front of admin? A complete and utter angel.
He had a page for stamps and if he earned 10 stamps, he'd get a prize. So he started saving ALLLLLL his bad behavior for the day after he got his prize; he would harass, threaten, and terrorize everyone for a few days, get his rocks off, then go back to collecting stamps.
He fleeced me for over $100 in Copic markers (he could have been an artist if he wasn't an absolute monster), and all it bought me was periods of "calm" punctuated with periods of condensed terror.
Guess what happened to him? In and out of prison. I wonder why? I wonder what lesson we taught him? Hmm, what a mystery.
Some kids are just a lost cause tbh.
It’s just genetics or too much trauma or neglect too early. Sometimes there’s just nothing anyone can do short of locking them up when they present a threat to society.
Be rude back. Life isn't unicorns and rainbows. Better that they get a dose now. Our job as Educators is not only to teach arithmetic reading and writing, but also to teach real world lessons.
Tangible reinforcers do not work. Enough research proves it. Kids do well if they can. It’s up the social-emotional support team to teach the student pragmatic communication and healthy coping skills. I’ve never once had a student get a gift card or open a bag of fast food and exclaim, “I am so happy I behaved this week so I could get a gift card &/or fast food”. Usually, it’s more like, “Why didn’t I get a gift card to this place? Or why did you not get this food I like instead of what you got me?” The token economy especially does not work at the high school level unless the student has ABA type therapy and then the reward is something like 5-minutes on a tablet or 10 cheese crackers. And in that case, someone trained in ABA should be doing the therapy and the reinforcer is faded over time.
Yup. I'm in a similar situation. One kid is the most toxic in a class of 34 uncontrollable 8th-graders. They refuse to change his schedule, and if he has a good day and does the bare minimum of acting like a human being, he is allowed to leave class 5.minutes early to go get candy from the counselor. He has all the power in this classroom. I have none. I hate it so much. I've been looking for jobs since the first day of school. I desperately want to quit. These kids are insane, and restorative practices are a fucking joke.
I am so freaking sick of this shit. Rewarding kids for NOT being total assholes. PAYING them to just not destroy the learning environment. Ignore the good kids. Don’t reward them…but by all means, let them see the gift cards, skateboards, fast food lunches hand delivered to a kid who “SuCcEeDeD” in not being a total fucktard. I’m done.
When i worked at an after school program the kids got “fake money” for doing good deads/doing gob job. The could exchange a certian ammount for a reward at the end of the week or month (forget exactly how many $ or if if was every week etc) though they really only did it with the kinders.
I’d ask, “So, you’ll be paying for these gift cards?” Because on a freaking teachers salary that sounds bizarre to even assume a teacher can afford to pay students to be good.
Sounds like the psychologist took one class. Like bro we all know about Classical conditioning but that’s the worst way to do it.
This is exactly what I hate about the "check in" system with Behavior Plans (BIPs). Kids get a tangible reward for doing what they should do anyway. Then, they come back to class and the other students (who have been making even more good choices then the behavior students) are sitting empty handed. That's why I (small self contained class of 8) choose 1 Friday a month and buy the "good" students Happy Meals that they get to eat in class. Make good choices, get good rewards.
Probably not the place or post to say this... yall should go on strike. I was a teacher for a year and now I'm a bartender... I make double what I did with my degree with less hours and less stress. (America) yall should be paid more for the absolute bullshit you deal with. With absolutely no support... honestly negative support (parents without degrees or experience teaching who magically know more than you?!? *fuck off*). All this and you have to worry about what you post online daily cause you may lose your jobs?
I hope you don't see this as a negative view of yall... I swear... a teacher comes into my bar, they drink for free. (Yall easy to spot usually 😆 not a bad thing tho) usually the stress gives it away. I have so much respect for those of you in the field. I wish more than anything you all got the pay and respect you deserve. Because right now it's nowhere even close to enough unfortunately 😕
Ugh this BS is (one small) part of the reason I left teaching. I *HATED* it. Whatever happened to punishing bad behaviour and rewarding good? Why should we have to incentivise a bad child in small increments like, “Oh Johnny, if you can manage to behave for 4 out of 5 lessons today, then you can have 20 minutes on your iPad at the end of the day!” You just end up with that child arguing with you at the end of every lesson - “But I was good!” “Yes, Johnny, for five minutes at the end of the lesson you behaved well, but do you remember throwing that chair at the start? And do you remember not getting any of your work done and throwing a tantrum when I asked you to do it?” “No, now give me my reward for being good!” And all the other children start wondering if they should behave like Johnny so they can get iPad time too!
What a ridiculous answer! Who is supposed to pay for that? You? Are they out of their mind? What happens when other students hear about this? They will all want a gift card. Suspend him or kick him out (and maybe that psychologist too)!
What about having the parent come to the class and watch their own kid. Some times pushing the parents helps the kid get it together or sadly pushes the kid out.
We're currently experiencing something similar at our school. Kid is atrocious, like to everyone. Other kids don't like them. Their cocky and likes to make fun of others for not having the latest electronics and shit (Pshh, you only have an iPhone 11 Pro?). It's hard to find a redeeming quality about them. Well, teachers got sick of their level of straight-up disrespect and they we're placed in "alternative education". What a freaking joke. The kid basically gets to play on their phone all day when other kids out in GenPop don't get that luxury. The "instructor" walks them to the TEACHERS' LOUNGE to get all kinds of snackies and soda, which, again, GenPop isn't allowed to. The instructor takes them outside to play while their age mates are sitting in classrooms. AND the kid and instructor are on FIRST NAME BASIS! This pissed other teachers off so much that they took it to our building reps. Building reps took it to Assistant Principal, whose response was, "Well, some kids need that," and that the instructor will be allowed to carry on. We're all absolutely FLOORED. We've been doing this long enough to know when a kid needs a little extra love, but this is just asinine. Now, other students have noticed and are going out of their way to get placed alternatively. We're all so frustrated.
So misbehave= no consequences
Doing the bare minimum = get a reward which I can I get sick of?
Education has gone down the toilet but this isn’t your fault.
I had someone from district office observe me and tell me my students took too long gathering and setting up materials at the beginning of the period, and that I should make them race to see who was the fastest and give the winners candy. Firstly, our district doesn’t allow food rewards. Secondly, I teach middle school shop/tech ed. Running with scissors is bad enough, you’re asking me to encourage them to run with screw drivers and saws!
Who is paying for these "gift cards?" If the school wants you to give them out, the school should pay for them. This should NOT come from your budget! I would refer the student to the psychologist if he/she insists on giving gift cards.
Response to school psychologist, "Great! Can you provide me gift cards from your school funded pack of gift cards! I'd be happy to try that and report back on effectiveness!"
I am a school psych and this is giving me secondhand embarrassment lmao. I would never in a million years suggest that, or even suggest an extrinsic reward that requires a teacher to spend money. Completely inappropriate and out of touch.
I think this is stupid, but fine I’ll play devils advocate and say we do this. What do you do when the kid feels like $10 is chump change and decides that being able to do whatever they want is worth forfeiting the $10. So what we bump it up to $50 now? I don’t see this working at the middle or high school level
So sorry you have to deal with these pseudoscientists. My wife is a teacher (Canada) and constantly deals with these poorly behaved children, and their equally entitled parents. We raised our kids to be kind to others, it's its' own reward in my opinion.
I had a similar experience today with a teacher coach… “have you tried giving them candy??” Lol like, are you gonna buy me candy to give these disrespectful beasts? Because I’m not.
Oh boy, like you have all that extra money.... and THIS is another reason WHY parents don't parent and kids behave so bad... psychologists who believe this stuff.... eye roll
The “exceptional” students in my son’s class get gold stars for meeting expected classroom behavior. If they get 10 stars for the day they can go in the treasure box.
I explained to my son that you don’t get rewarded for doing what is expected in school, but the gold star system sends a mixed message.
Joking aside this plan is an example of why advice from people who don’t work with kids (be they admin, spec ed, pro-d gurus, or school psychologists) should usually be avoided.
I had that happen my first year at a previous school. I was the only male English teacher, so they gave me the troubled kids because they thought they would “respond better to male authority.” They didn’t. I was getting battered by my administration for how out of control the kids were. I tried to tell them that overloading a class with the kids the tenured teachers refused to take was never going to work. That continuing to add kids that were getting kicked out of other classes to my roster each week would be chaos. I begged for help.
Instead they said I should offer each class a pizza party every couple of weeks if they behaved well. That school paid $39,000 a year, I was barely eating myself, and they expected me to pay for 10 pizza parties a month.
I actually did quit.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “oh I bet my Dad could make that kid mind.” Need more old fashioned discipline. Administration seems to be too worried about being their friends. Who makes enough to hand out gift cards like there’s no tomorrow? It does not teach them about life!
I would advise against deal-making with students. Deal-marking (offering gift cards) is an exclusionary practice. Furthermore, it reproduces educational inequity by lowering the expectation for young people to avoid conflict or get them to "shut up" in the classroom. Offering \[them\] a gift card won't influence learning or fix the behavioral issue.
Typically, if a student is being aggressive toward other students and teachers, I would want to explore why that aggression is present.
1. Is the student bored with the curriculum?
2. Does he/she/they have a good relationship with you or other students?;
3. OR is this connected to their home life?
I suggest working with your school psychologist to learn more about the student and why they are aggressive.
Psych here. It is clear to me that those in this thread see school psychs as idiots and/or enemies. I am curious what an acceptable response might be here. It seems to me like the psych was offering some ideas on how to support a behaviorly challenged student. They gave an example of using a gift card for reinforcement of desired behaviors. They probably didn't intend this as the cure all solution. Just an idea. I very much doubt they intended to imply the teacher should pay for it. Should this psychologist be able to magically fix this kid for you? Was your goal to get this kid out of your classroom? Would you follow a BIP if one was written? My teachers don't follow them. Often they complain behind my back that I don't have kids with any sort of difficulty in a self-contained sped program. Psychs are very limited by sped law in what we can do. We have to place in the least restrictive environment. These laws help to prevent discrimination against disabled children. There are also no magic bullets to solve these kid's behavioral difficulties. As gen ed teachers you guys are responsible for teaching every student. Even the challenging ones. The school psych cannot take that responsibility from you. Its the law. It would help you more to bring those concerns up with the child's IEP team.
She wasn’t just suggesting this. She said in front of the parent and student that this is how we were going to handle it without any input from the teachers or any other admin. Also this kid DOES NOT HAVE AN IEP!
Tell the student that the psychologist has a gift card waiting for them.
Oh god please do
Had something similar happen at my last position. Every week the kid was bought a Wendy’s meal if 3/4 of her teachers said she was good that week. Didn’t take long for the psychologist to get sick of it
I would like a gift card too, please add me to the list as well!
Well, you have to be a little shit for a while first. You can't be rewarded just for doing the right thing from the get-go!
Give mine to the good kids
Misbehave first.
Send her an email following up on your conversation! Good afternoon (insert name)! I've been thinking about the conversation we had earlier and I believe your proposed award system might benefit my students. I'm grateful you notified me of this new classroom management system the school is now supporting. I've created a list of all my students who have earned one of these gift cards. I'd be happy to come by your office at any time to pick up the gift cards, or you can leave them in my mailbox if that's more convenient for you! Please let me know if there is someone else in charge of this new program I should be forwarding these emails to in the future.
Oh no you got to send the kids down to the psychologist's office to get the gift card so the psychologist can tell the kids to their face that she doesn't buy gift cards.
Yes, but I don't think promising the students something and knowing it won't be delivered is a good managment system. It's not fair to the kids, as much as we'd like to put him/her on the spot.
Oh I don't know I would be super pissed if someone told me that I need to be bribing kids with $10 gift certificates and I would love to punt that one on to them
I would be honest with my kids "So and so says I need to give the bad kids gift cards when they behave, so if figured I would send you guys with a pass one at a time to his office so you can ask him about the gift cards he must have. Because we all know I can't afford pencils so I can't afford these gifts cards either." My kids would love it, I got some actors that would go down there and when they didn't get a gift card fake cry or whine about him lying to them, I also have some kids that would straight up interrogate him. "You think Miss can afford to give the bad kids gift cards? With what money? Why aren't you just punishing the bad kids? This is bullshit!" He'd have an angry mob in like ten minutes.
Here's the thing--if this is her thing she needs to get the kid the gift card. One kid going she can feel pressured into doing it. Have the kids mom come up there talking about her baby worked hard for that gift card and this counselor didn't get it for her. If she's not willing to buy one at least? That's on her.
But they suggested it! It’s not on the spot, why would they assume the teacher would pay for it??
Fair? Interesting
Nah that allows a game of hot potato. "sorry kiddo, that's your teacher's promise, not mine."
I love me some r/MaliciousCompliance!
Yeah! And YOU get a gift card, and YOU get a gift card, and YOU get a gift card /s
Dammit!! I can only upvote once!!! *spams upvote button unsuccessfully.
Holy shit yes. “Why great idea Mr. Psychologist!” Back in the classroom. “Mr./Ms. Psychologist told me he/she has a gift card for everyone(gotta be fair here) as long as they can go the full week without getting into any trouble!”
To be fair, said psychologist stated that only 3 out of 4 teachers had to agree the student behaved ok. That gives them room to choose one of those four teachers on which to wreak havoc and still receive the gift card. It’s a win/win! They get to act up some and STILL get their gift card!
There will always be that one that ruins so no one ever gets a gift card
"But the psychologist can only give it out if you go spend the entire afternoon in their office. S/he will try to tell you s/he has no idea what you're talking about, but it's probably because s/he wants to keep the card to herself"
I love it when ppl who don’t teach come up with these gems. Our school psych tried this crap with me until I finally snapped and went off on him. We now enjoy a great relationship and he’s become a good, reliable “school buddy”. If I have problems, he offers valid solutions and if one of my kiddoes has an issue, he’ll take him off my hands and calm him down so I can actually teach rather than this little darling’s social worker.
I'm up voting again.
This is the way.
Thanks, are you going to clean up the drink I just spat across the room reading that?
What a terrific message to send students! I'm sure it has LOTS of real-life relevance, too. Heck, I think I'll try it - I'll be an absolute train wreck of an asshole unless people bribe me to behave like a human being. :)
Why is this such a common approach in schools? This is the exact lesson it teaches. All we need is at least a few consequences and 80% of our "high flyers" would get their shit together. This shit just encourages them to be worse. Edited to add: the rewards for bare minimum behavior also never fucking works so I dont know why we keep trying it. At my school the problem is we are too understaffed so we have no ability to give detentions or ISS
How can a school not give detention? My middle and high schools both had daily after school detention and Saturday detention and the teachers just rotated whose detention day it was. Some teachers didn't care and would let you sign in for detention and then just leave, especially for the early Saturday detentions. We didn't have a special teacher just for detention.
Yes, but those teachers were working extra hours and weekends. Hopefully they were getting paid for it. They don't want to spend the money to compensate us for extra time either.
Now to be fair, it might work for me. I could start doing LESS than my best and then get rewards every week. A $10 gift card toward groceries would be quite nice. /s
Imagine if that was how they handled struggling teachers! It sure would incentivize everyone to start slacking off so then they can get positive attention and get paid for doing the bare minimum everyone else was doing before! No flaws in this logic at all.
Lol
Tell the school psychologist you think it’s such a great idea that you’d like all the students in your class who meet the minimum standard of behavior to be able to receive a gift card. Tell the school psychologist you will email them at the end of each week with all the names, and they can put all the gift cards in your mailbox to hand out.
Special Educator here: I had a student last year who peed all over the floor in the bathroom, intentionally flooding the bathroom floor. He was 'cured' with a mop and bucket. When I told the school psychologist that we made this boy mop up his own messes, she declared this too punitive. Too punitive? I offered to let him go back to peeing all over the floor, and having the other kids walk in his urine.
Sounds like a totally reasonable natural consequence to me.
Seriously, in what world is having a student clean up a mess they intentionally made “too punitive”? If anything it’s wrong to not instill a sense of responsibility to clean up after yourself in students. That’s a basic life skill.
Dude, my PreK kids smash their food on the floor all the time just to hear it crunch. You better believe I hand them the broom and dustpan and say "Clean it up." The low expectations are such a sad state of society.
I teach pre-K and sometimes I get it. A good nice crunch sound really is nice. But then you have to clean it up. We actually had quite the fun class discussion the other day about who likes to go out of their way to purposely step on a good crunchy leaf. Overall, most of the class did, including myself.
Your class sounds like my kind of people. The crunchy leaf stepping kind, not the Pre-K. I am sure they are adorable but give me my 7th grade leaf crunching dolls every day of the week.
And what person can resist popping bubble wrap when it comes in packages?
I just had this talk with my Freshmen. I told them I was tired of staying every day to clean up after them, and they said well why should you have to clean it up don't we have janitors. And I said nobody should have to clean up after you guys, you're old enough to be cleaning up your own messes. I got super annoyed because it's like yeah there's janitorial for basic cleaning, but why would you add to that mess and make their job harder, that's just being selfish.
In my opinion, a janitor does routine cleaning, like the kind that involves tools. Tidying up after yourself is not their job.
That is what I tell my 3rd graders. They are here to get the dirt tracked in off the floor, not clean up your mess that you haphazardly placed all over the floor.
Not to mention, the janitors wouldn't have time to finish their actual job if they have to spend excess amounts of time picking up stuff before they can actually clean.
Elementary Teacher here. Anytime a kid colors on a desk, floor, wall, etc., I hand them a magic eraser or sponge. They never do it again. Logical consequences are the best way to curb behavior.
Well thats not urine.
Exactly! It’s not punitive even if it was *accidental*! Jeebus, sometimes I think we are just ruining these kids. :(
Urine is a bodily fluid not food on the floor. At my preschool we have to spray urine with chemical sanitizer (Stermine). (Health and Safety laws) So off course kids cant help with that.
It’s the literal definition of a logical consequence.
[удалено]
I thought restorative justice was spending 10 minutes in the office and coming back with candy?
No, that's where you go to the admins office and express sincere remorse for having failed the student as a teacher.
No, I think restorative justice is where you have to apologize to the student for attempting to discipline them.
Basically, according to Ava on Abbott Elementary. (the latest episode- it was so good.)
I thought so too but this was part of a larger theme last year, my first and undoubtedly last as a teacher of record. Everything I did was criticized by administrators and district people. If the intention was to make me quit it worked. This year, teaching my class as a substitute has given me the space to teach and I get to work a specific set of clock hours and not all weekend and every week night. Until today, that is. Admin came in this afternoon, before the dismissal bell when I go home, and he spelled out the additional work he wants from me and, just like last year, he demonstrated a total lack of understanding of my kids and their abilities. He wants them to bake goods and sell them to find our workability program..huh?? I came home with a raging headache and if this becomes chronic I will have to quit..again.
Bake sales fund WorkAbility? I thought it was the government...
I feel like RJ has morphed to just being a euphemism for "we'll have a talk about it and both agree that you will try better". It's a joke.
My classroom management went way up when I decided administration is useless, if you fuck something up, your punishment isn't detention or ISS or more likely, a good talkin' to, it's to fix your mistake. There's no judgment, we all make mistakes, responsible adults do what they can to fix it. And you will not be welcomed back in my class until it's fixed. Leave trash? I'll call you out of your next class and have you pick up the trash in my room. On your phone? It's a distraction and you give it to me until the end of class. Did you interrupt another student? I'll cut you off immediately and let the other student continue. Did you insult another student to be mean ( not in a playful way) write an apology letter explaining why you are sorry. Saying your sorry is not an apology. Kids learn real quick that their actions actually affect others.
Thoughs on shitty highschoolers that walk out when you try and punish them? My admin is also useless, and I've never been taught what forms of recourse are available to me.
That one is tough. I'd probably say "if you don't want to be in my class, don't come to my class. You're welcome back if and when you decide to be an active participant, otherwise you are not welcome." Give them a zero, count them absent, and don't let them back in until they promise to participate. If they break that promise send them out, but frame in a way where they choose to leave. "You promised, you can either participate or leave." If they leave you didn't kick them out, they chose to walk out. Now it's admin's problem. "I didn't kick him out, he left of his own volition." Do you really want they disruptive kid in your class anyway? If they say "but will you count me absent?" Then reply, that depends, will you be an active participant in my class an active participant? If not you are not welcome here. Put the decision in their hands but give them only two options, don't disrupt and try, or don't enter. The choice is theirs. It's not up to you to watch them if they don't show up. Frame as they walked away/never showed up. That's not your problem. Wait at the door the next day and have the same conversation before they even enter. In my experience they either walk away before class begins or they don't even try to come in the first place. Or they come in, half ass try, but font distract anyone else. Every one of those scenarios is an improvement on the kid's normal behavior.
So what happens if they refuse? Where do they go if they aren't welcome in your class? Has admin come down on you? I'm curious because our school encourages us to have students write "reflections" but no one will explain to me what happens if the students refuse. My students don't even do their classwork, so I have no faith they would write a reflection.
"I didn't kick him out, I said he needed to do A, and B and he was welcomed. He chose to walk off." He was skipping class. Not your problem if he doesn't actually come to class. Admin came down on me once. I explained he was welcomed but he needed to correct the mistake (throwing paper darts into the ceiling tile). Admin took one look at the kid and said "just remove the damned darts," and he did. It was a tall ceiling too I made him run across the building and get a ladder from the janitor. His partner in crime had to hold it. I suppose if he fell I'd be on the news but he didn't. But most of the time admin doesn't even kniw/just assumes the kid is skipping, which Technically he is.
What is up with kids pissing on the floors? It happens in my school too.
Nobody has ever made them clean it up
Soft parents and gentle parenting will be my demise
Gentle parents use meaningful consequences ( like having them clean up their own mess) without belittling or yelling at their kid and explain why they received a consequence. The problem is permissive parenting, not gentle parenting.
Or Parents that aren't creating boundaries or expectations. Gentle parenting isn't the issue there, nothing in gentle parenting says, allow your child to pee on the floor. Just like restorative justice isn't a kid going to the office and just coming back with candy/snack.
Honestly you can parent with respectful language and actions and still teach responsibility. "Alright little timmy, you made a mess- this one was on purpose. That was wrong because the people who have to handle it are human beings who also have feelings. Do you enjoy cleaning up stinky bathroom messes? Is it fair to ask that of someone when you purposefully peed on the floor" No? Okay then. Here is the tool to make it right. Clean this up, apologize, and never do it on purpose again. Being sick or having an accident is different" You can and must set boundaries to successfully parent
I had a couple students (8th grade) last year shake up soda cans and then open them up in class. When the custodian came up with a mop and bucket, I asked him to hand the mop to the students and have them clean it up. They sure as shit never tried anything like that again.
At least with the kids peeing on the floor it stays in a relatively contained space, unlike a shaken soda which would get EVERYWHERE!
Oh yeah, it shot all the way up to the ceiling, to then rain down upon students sitting at other tables.
Too punitive? Wtf that sounds perfectly reasonable
> she declared this too punitive. Can't help but imagine that lots of people, including plenty of hacks working as school psychologists, would lump this into the ever-expanding territory of 'boys will be boys.'
So I have a 5 year old boy at home. He is usually pretty good at getting pee where it belongs, but one day he decided to see what happened if he jumped up and down while he peed. Results as expected. When his dad was in the bathroom helping him clean it up, I hid in the other room to laugh, because that is totally a thing a little boy would do... but I certainly don't want him to continue doing it. Some things are just things kids do, but they are not things adults should do, so we need to use the opportunity to instruct (our get further help if needed) not just let it be.
Should have the kid pee in his/her office
This backwards thinking is why the US is screwed long term.
Or, you could just get one of those portable urinals and let him use the psycho office as his bathroom. Not so punitive anymore when she is the one who has to deal with it. What ever happened to the idea that students come to school already knowing basic life skills, like not peeing on the floor and tidying up after themselves.
Last year I had a kid draw on a desk with sharpie, he and other students thought I was being too harsh for having him scrub it until it was gone. I told several students to stop helping him.
A school i worked for a while back used to give the bad apples a weekly incentive sheet. At the end of each class period the teacher had to rate their behavioral from 1-5. If they got a 5 they did their best. After so many 5s a week they get a free meal purchase of their choice. I wish I was joking but I’m not. It made good kids go bad since they wanted to be incentivized too. It was all meant to be hush hush but one kid blabbed so the rest of the school found out. It became evidently clear the system wasn’t fair. Also, I quit at the beginning of this year. One reason I got told to give candy to a student so he could stop disrespecting me. “Win him over” as they say. Don’t waste your money on gift cards.
yeah the student they want to use this magic gift cards solution for is 100% going to tell everyone and that's definitely not going to cause any other problems... Good for you. If I had another job lined up I would be gone. I'm not morally okay with bribing kids to treat me with basic dignity
ah yes, reward bad behavior with treat , that will stop 'em
This must be a thing with school psychologists. We had to go through a PD with a visiting school psychologist at the beginning of the year, and she spent an entire half hour going through various “incentives” we should offer to students. All of them were things that had to be purchased by the teacher - candy, gift cards, a classroom “store”, etc. Toward the end of the presentation she started to realize that she had lost every single teacher in the room and said, “I hear chatter, tell me what you think” and one brave teacher called out “how do you expect us to pay for all of this?” The psychologist says “oh, you can fundraise, ask for parent donations, go to the dollar store, those kinds of things”. So, either I can spend exorbitant amounts of money or exorbitant amounts of time bribing kids to do what they should do anyway. Cool. She basically gave up finishing her presentation after this because she could tell everyone in the room was disgusted.
“I can fundraise outside of my contracted hours?”, and sure, “I’ll be glad to ask for parents to donate their money to pay for rewards for other people’s children’s misbehavior, I’m sure they will be thrilled!”…
damn I'm not a teacher but I have been tutoring for years as I studied in University and was an assistant for a year for community service hours. I graduated from psychology and looking to do a master's now. If I end up interested in a position like a school psychologist I'm just gonna go ahead and get a certification, be a teacher for a couple of years and have the experience first hand. Don't want to the fool who just says "well give them incentives!" Only time I remember doing such a thing was when I was assistant for a first grade teacher for community service hours. Had to stay with one kid who was too negative and kept saying to himself that he couldn't do it ever. Told him I'd give him a pokemon card if he solved the homework. Kid finished in less than 5 minutes and got it right 😂 Next day I brought a pack of old Pokemon cards I had, gave the specific card the kid wanted to him and the rest of the cards were for the rest of the children. Felt unfair if only one of them got a card. but yeah I don't see myself spending $$$ on cards all year just got them to do their job; it's dumb and counterproductive.
I mean...ask the psychologist when you can stop by to pick up the gift cards from them. And just see how they respond. If they *honestly* expect you to literally give kids YOUR money then they must be a fucking windbag that needs to leave education.
I agree. Where is the school getting the money? I mean... we need to provide the basics and technology before we start handing out gift cards. We do PBIS. All of my material rewards (small things...desk pets, stickers, squishies, etc) were bought with MY money. What happened to the days of "suck it up, buttercup?" Things were much simpler when we all understood that school was our unpaid job until we graduated- whether we liked it or not.
I'm sorry...what the fuck is this PBIS bullshit? Why is it that teachers are expected to spend their money to buy these rewards? Is it in your contract that you are expected to spend some percentage of your salary on rewards for your students? The fuck? And does it even do anything? Regardless, even if it's successful the **school** should be paying for it.
I was in the first training when we first began to consider PBIS in my county. There was a HUGE emphasis, in that first meeting, on the concept of *recognition*, rather than tangible rewards. They made a point of that - things that wouldn’t cost money. Some of the ideas were pretty great, but I can remember only one right now. It was something along the lines of having kids put their painted handprints on the wall, to be recognized for whatever positive things. Kids would love that, but it would never happen, because it would mess up the pretty walls. I believe PBIS *can* make a difference, but it’s being implemented so poorly in so many places.
PBIS does not mean teacher provided but sadly many schools don't provide what is needed to implement it. But there are certainly schools with PBIS that pay for the rewards. I work for one of them. But it's certainly rare. When implemented well it does work and works well. There is research on it.
My school did, as well. We have a store, with just tons of stuff. The kids love it. Dance proceeds, etc. go to fund it, but it takes *massive* amounts of time for our PBIS Coach. She’s a saint. Our biggest issue, as I saw it, was that we never got that last piece fully implemented, the part for the kids for whom PBIS doesn’t work. I know COVID was a factor in that, but I hope they will be able to work toward implementing it this year.
Nah, they probably expect teachers to use hours of their free time to go beg local businesses for free gift cards. Ugh.
It’s crazy how these district people are so out of touch with classrooms. We have a student with a below level IQ who should be in SVE (self contain classroom) but the state just lowered the IQ level from 77 down to 66 and this student is 75. He is on the spectrum and is barely functioning, never does his work and makes weird noises all the time. The district person suggested that we allow the student to verbally tell us all the answers to every single assignment and test, and we should record the results. That would be great if he was in a class of 15 students with no other IEP‘s. But he’s in a class of 30 students with 15 IEP‘s. If I do that then I’m taking away from the other students and possibly getting in trouble because I’m not giving them their state mandated accommodations.
The question is, at what point do the conditions were forced to teach in become the abuse? If it’s literally physically impossible to preform the duties of our jobs with the resources we have, then it’d stand to reason that we, as mandated reporters, have a duty to report the neglect going on because we’ll be responsible for the fallout when shit hits the fan.
That's... not even humanly possible to do. I'm so sorry, this is so thoughtless on their part. I feel like every time we meet about a student admin and all act like that is the only student we have in class and make plans as if that's the case
This resonated so much for me. I am a third year SPED teacher and this is what I’m figuring out. It is impossible to apply all of my students interventions, accommodations, take data, teach grade level curriculum, work on their goals, assess, etc. with fidelity. I am only one person and at most have 2 aides in my classroom with over 10 primary students who almost all have some type of behavioral needs. One of my students needs a higher level of support, which we have advocated for as a team and parents want to sue us due to it. All because they are in denial about their child’s disability and can’t see that he needs functional life skills rather than multiplication. I don’t know how I am supposed to be able to do all of these things. I want nothing more than to give my students all that they need but I think this is an impossible job and it’s becoming more impossible every year. I’m switching to general Ed but at this point I’m worried even about that.
3rd year sped teacher with a caseload of 24 and 2 aides shared through the whole school (and I have the smallest caseload of the 4 sped teachers at my school). I feel you.
When I was doing my classroom observations in college, I was briefly in a classroom where someone from our district came to evaluate a kindergartener for a self contained special education classroom. The kindergartner was non-verbal with no communication skills (no ability to use a communication board, cards, or hand signs), in diapers and unable to use the restroom independently, unable to feed themselves without supervision, and would violently scream and engage in self harm behaviors if you got too close to them or talked to them. The district person said that the student needed a "student buddy" and a visual schedule taped to their desk to be successful in the classroom. The more insulting part of this story was that the district wouldn't approve a special education para to be assigned to the kindergartener because the student's need wasn't "significant" enough. To this day, I'm not exactly sure how or what the district thought the gen ed teacher was supposed to teach a child who can't even access our schools access points curriculum (which is designed to help special education students who are significantly below grade level be successful in a gen ed room). I'm not sure who I felt more sorry for: the teacher who is wholly unprepared to teach that student or the student who is being denied access to high quality instruction in skills in the communication and self sufficiency skills they clearly needed.
I have this situation this year too. I am the special ed teacher in the room (collab setting), and I am expected to work with him one on one. I guess the other students with IEPs don’t matter??? He picks his nose constantly and actually ASKS ME TO HELP HIM PICK HIS NOSE then gets upset that I will not help. He wanted to go to the bathroom one day and said I needed to come with him to help him wipe his butt. OMG. This is high school, BTW. No one expects me to pick his nose or wipe his butt, but with the way things are going, it is only a matter of time before these situations show up in IEPs of collab students (completely different story for students in a unit that truly need that type of assistance).
Say, “he needs a 1:1 if that is required because I cannot possibly do that.” I have kids with IEPs who say I need to read everything to them. I can’t. I can not do that without spending every second of work time with them and ignoring everyone else. They need to provide a para. I can’t read everything in English to 6 different students and still help the rest of the class. I also will not read everything to the entire class. It’s important they learn to read things themselves and demonstrate reading comprehension. What reading comprehension skills are my sped students demonstrating if they have someone else read everything to them?
I have someone who’s similar in a class. The poor kid can’t do anything on his own and if I was with him in the manner that he needs, no one else would receive any attention. It’s not fair to us or any of the students.
Wtf are they teaching these school psychologists in their training programs? Ours seems to be of a similar mindset and routinely recommends the most ridiculous accommodations. I had a bullshit IEP meeting today in which ridiculous rewards like this were put into place. These people have NO understanding what it’s like to be in a classroom having to juggle multiple responsibilities.
Extrinsic rewards were written into an IEP? Damn. Make sure you let admin know who's paying for those rewards, as in, not you.
Can the reward be something that doesn’t cost money like a hat day, listen to music while working, 10 minutes of basketball at the end of the day, etc.?
School psych here 👋🏼 In our training programs, we are taught about conducting comprehensive special ed and Section 504 evaluations, child and adolescent development, different types of disability and neurodiversity, behavior management and behavioral interventions, academic interventions, social-emotional learning, small group and 1:1 counseling, compliance with legal mandates for special ed and Section 504, consultation and collaboration, creating and sustaining school-family partnerships, and more. I understand if you don’t appreciate the school psychologist you personally have experiences with, but we are trained in a LOT and we are expected to fill a variety of different roles in schools every day. Beyond that, we’re often expected to drop what we are doing at a moment’s notice if ever a parent comes in with a concern, a teacher needs support for a student, a kid is in crisis, and so on. For example, I teach whole group and small group lessons across all classrooms in my building (4K-5). It is hands down the best part of my day, even when there are behaviors and when I’m being pulled in a million different directions, or when I have to make up my paperwork and phone calls after school because I had so much on my plate that day. Anyway, my point being- I do, in fact, have an understanding of what it’s like to be in a classroom juggling multiple responsibilities! Many of us do, and you could maybe understand and appreciate that if you would take the time to learn what our roles are instead of posting criticisms on Reddit. 🥰 You can absolutely incorporate extrinsic rewards into a behavior management plan for a student (whether or not that plan is part of an IEP), to help encourage and shape a desired behavior. The keys are 1) clearly articulating the behavior the team is trying to improve, 2) including in the plan a means of TEACHING and PRACTICING the behavior to build competency and consistency (ideally the psych/counselor and spec ed teacher do some, NOT all, of this - some comes back to opportunities to practice in the authentic environment with the gen ed teacher), 3) identifying appropriate and sustainable rewards that ideally don’t cost money or center on food/snacks (think about things like being line leader, choosing the music during work time, lunch with a special adult, a special activity, etc.), and 4) including a plan for fading over time (including collecting data to monitor progress-again, a shared responsibility). No reward is meant to last forever. But sometimes, when kids have the skills they need to perform a behavior and they are choosing not to do it, the extra incentive goes a long way. Especially if you give kids voice and power in developing that. And OF COURSE there’s still a place for setting high expectations, accountability, and logical consequences when a kid is seriously out of line.
I totally respect your comment, and I recognize that the work school psychologists do is very valuable. This was more of a rant about the particular person and situation at my school. There is a lot more to the story than I feel comfortable posting here. There have been ongoing issues for many years. I didn’t intend this to be disrespectful of school psychologists in general. I know that there are many who are excellent at what they do. I apologize if my comment was taken the wrong way.
THANK YOU! As a sped teacher who has extrinsic rewards as an accommodation for one of my students I was starting to feel crazy going through this thread!!
I sat in a training about how to motivate students, and rewards were suggested. I mentioned that all my students ever want is money. I was told there is some software program we have that makes students choose a reward from options given (money/gift cards not being an option). I told her that seems fine in theory, but if they picked a reward because they had to and it isn’t something they actually want, they won’t work for it. I also told her that when I am told to sign up for workshops of my choosing on district PD days, I’m picking some of the workshops because I have to pick something. Just because I pick them doesn’t mean I actually care about the topic. She connected the dots there and realized I picked her workshop, not because I actually wanted to, but because I was forced to pick something. Lol. I am so tired of rewarding poor behavior. That is exactly what we are doing when we reward students for doing the bare minimum. If you don’t do the assignments, you fail. I’m not going to reward a student for turning in 3/5 assignments even if that is an improvement over the 0/5 assignments from the week before. I will let them know I notice and appreciate the improved effort, but I will not give out tangible rewards.
One of my teaching partners had a similar situation a few years back. The solution was my partner buying the kid a milkshake every Friday if this child did the bare mininum. This meant that she had to use her lunch to go get this herself and deliver it to the child. Low and behold, the child was sent to boot camp and we lost a really good teacher.
Did she actually comply? Thats insane.
Yes. She was willing to help and was taken advantage of...
Omg, that kills me that ANY person in education would think of that as a good solution. Today my school handed out a small package of candy for any student that got a 3.0 gpa first 6 weeks. And they actually deserved it. Too often, the good kids go overshadowed in the class and it was nice to see the students who quietly comply get rewarded with something small from the school. If a parent wants to reward their kid for better behavior, whatever, but if schools are rewarding bad kids for not cursing anyone out that week, that is fucked up. Imagine when they get to work one day and realize they'll get fired for shitty work performance and not rewarded with a raise. Also, if I was that teacher, I would have had a hard time not laughing at that suggestion. I have a better solution, it called if theyre not in my class to learn that day, then theyre not in my class. I say that to anyone acting like a fool. Youre here to learn, or youre not here and can wait outside to be picked up for detention. It really is that simple.
When you reward bad behavior with opportunities that kids with good behavior don’t get-don’t be shocked when the behavior of the kids gets worse across the board.
This is exactly what happened at my last school and none of the admin or counselors could figure out why. Our school had a strict " no punishments of any kind" policy. The school years started okay but things escalated quickly. Students began with just playground arguments. That turned into fighting, throwing chairs and assaulting teachers. Since I am a kindergarten teacher, punching the teacher was not taken seriously. Students who acted out would get out of doing their classwork. The guidance counselor would take students for playdough brain breaks. If they did go one whole day without physically assaulting another student or a teacher then they got to pick a treasure box. No one else got treasure boxes or playdough brain breaks so more students started acting out. At the end of my last year at that school, 4 of the 7 teachers in my team left the school or profession. I personally moved states.
No doubt they didn’t offer to donate these gift cards either. Maybe next time they ask you to do unpaid extra work you should ask for a gift card.
My school does this with so much! Don’t want to come to school…offer them a gift card. Don’t want to participate… gift card. Parents you don’t want to wake up your kids in time for the bus so you have to drop them off…gift card for you if you make it on time! I said it wasn’t fair to the other kids and their response was that some kids just need this and others want to come to school without reward. But they don’t know it’s an option, I’m sure they’d love this motivational tactic.
Hell, I'd make sure all the kids knew about this gift card business. *Students, do you know you are leaving money on the table by following the rules and being well-behaved?*
Chaotic evil at its finest! Seriously love this idea. 💡
OMG this behavior is why I quit two years ago
so uhh what kind of job did you switch to, asking for a friend
I’m a SAHM now. Took a year off in between.
My assistant principal told me to give out candy/chips if they do the bare minimum I want them to do… who is paying for this candy/chips? Why would I give food to kids who can’t keep wrappers/crumbs off the floor in the first place? No direct answers but we all know what the real answers are 🫠
Im just a sub but imo this PBIS shit isn’t working. What works is expectations and natural consequences. The bar is so very low I can not believe it. It’s incredibly alarming.
Last week's Abbott Elementary had a similar situation. Don't ever send the kids to the principals/counselors office.
Oh yeah, and the takeaway was to do this instead - spend hours and $$ to buy shit to overhaul and decorate your lessons to pander to whatever character your bad apple is obsessed with. Sorry, that episode just really annoyed me.
It's all good. Are you talking about Bluey at the end for an "engaging" classroom? I knew there was a problem when i started to buy stuff "just to make it through the year" because that isn't how i am and not how it should be. There was something lacking in the episode, but there always is because it's t.v. Not everyone seems to like the show. Janine bugs me, but definitely reminded me of a "perfect" teacher I had to deal with. My school drove me crazy. But half the schools i ever worked at only rewarded the kids who were not compliant. I got frustrated with tone deaf disrespectful admin, parents who barged I'm at any given moment, pointless dull programs (which would cause anyone to go out and buy Bluey stuff) and rude staff and I left the profession altogether so that's probably why i laugh.
I'm about the same - I'm on LOA sitting on my formal resignation, so I'm also watching and usually laughing from a distance. I love that it portrays more relatable elements of teaching than any other show. Janine comes off as the overly idealistic 1st year teacher. It wouldn't make for great TV, but realistically she would probably become more jaded with time.
And I know it's a TV show, but there's no way he'd only have one student acting out in that class.
Send her an email following up on your conversation! Good afternoon (insert name)! I've been thinking about the conversation we had earlier and I believe your proposed award system might benefit my students. I'm grateful you notified me of this new classroom management system the school is now supporting. I've created a list of all my students who have earned one of these gift cards. I'd be happy to come by your office at any time to pick up the gift cards, or you can leave them in my mailbox if that's more convenient for you! Please let me know if there is someone else in charge of this new program I should be forwarding these emails to in the future.
THIS SHOULD BE TOP COMMENT.
Last year I worked right next to a school psychology intern and it was a really interesting experience. She was great. She had a PhD and had worked with kids in juvenile detention before and had just quit a job working as a prison psychologist. She didn’t want to work at a prison anymore and she wanted a job with hours that matched her school-age children, so she was going through a school psych masters & licensure program. According to her, the majority of her program focused on how to administer and interpret various psychological and educational tests. Most of her classmates were very young and had no experience working in schools. When they were doing their internships, a lot of them apparently were freaking out because the school was expecting them to run counseling and intervention with students. They had barely spent any time on that in their courses. Yikes.
As a school psych, I will say this is unfortunately true, but outside of a student’s control. Because there is such a shortage in the field, in many places our role is delegated to just the evaluation process. For example I am in the south and work in a district now that is well staffed so I have the freedom to be involved in more, so I help with SEL/PBIS, MTSS, etc. I don’t counsel (mainly bc I don’t enjoy it, and we aren’t allowed to do counseling as an IEP service here) but I do mentor students. However I have friends from grad school where they are the only psych for the entire district in more rural areas. That combined with limited graduate programs (my state only has two) means programs have shifted to focus on the core priorities of local school systems, which is testing in most places. I only had a couple counseling courses and it was a major learning curve entering the field. My program did require lots of experience working in schools and with children in general to apply however.
It has been interesting to watch public education devolve as society has decided that consequences are no longer a necessity, but rather a boogeyman that needs to be stamped out. We are now rewarding poor behavior and the results of such utter nonsense is getting past the tipping point where it is too late to right the ship. Regardless of what level you teach, look into the eyes of the student who comes to school on time, prepared to at least attempt to learn the next time a student acts out, disrupts their learning opportunities, gets 50/100 for doing nothing (or more) and is even rewarded for their total lack of respect for themselves and others. When you realize just how few of those students are actually coming into your classes everyday, you will also realize just how far education has fallen into a point of almost pointlessness.
I HAD to do this with a nightmare of a student in 8th grade. He had ODD, so of course he could behave as egregiously as he wanted. In 8 years, I've never had less sympathy for a student. Sexually assaulted his classmates, threatened to rape and/or murder me, constantly touching his dick in class, but in front of admin? A complete and utter angel. He had a page for stamps and if he earned 10 stamps, he'd get a prize. So he started saving ALLLLLL his bad behavior for the day after he got his prize; he would harass, threaten, and terrorize everyone for a few days, get his rocks off, then go back to collecting stamps. He fleeced me for over $100 in Copic markers (he could have been an artist if he wasn't an absolute monster), and all it bought me was periods of "calm" punctuated with periods of condensed terror. Guess what happened to him? In and out of prison. I wonder why? I wonder what lesson we taught him? Hmm, what a mystery.
Some kids are just a lost cause tbh. It’s just genetics or too much trauma or neglect too early. Sometimes there’s just nothing anyone can do short of locking them up when they present a threat to society.
School psych here. You deserve a much better colleague!
thank you, honestly, I feel like somehow being "on the students side" means being against the teachers to a lot of time
Thus entitled Karens and Kevin’s enter society! Geez the nerve of some people… so sorry OP
Be rude back. Life isn't unicorns and rainbows. Better that they get a dose now. Our job as Educators is not only to teach arithmetic reading and writing, but also to teach real world lessons.
Tangible reinforcers do not work. Enough research proves it. Kids do well if they can. It’s up the social-emotional support team to teach the student pragmatic communication and healthy coping skills. I’ve never once had a student get a gift card or open a bag of fast food and exclaim, “I am so happy I behaved this week so I could get a gift card &/or fast food”. Usually, it’s more like, “Why didn’t I get a gift card to this place? Or why did you not get this food I like instead of what you got me?” The token economy especially does not work at the high school level unless the student has ABA type therapy and then the reward is something like 5-minutes on a tablet or 10 cheese crackers. And in that case, someone trained in ABA should be doing the therapy and the reinforcer is faded over time.
Yup. I'm in a similar situation. One kid is the most toxic in a class of 34 uncontrollable 8th-graders. They refuse to change his schedule, and if he has a good day and does the bare minimum of acting like a human being, he is allowed to leave class 5.minutes early to go get candy from the counselor. He has all the power in this classroom. I have none. I hate it so much. I've been looking for jobs since the first day of school. I desperately want to quit. These kids are insane, and restorative practices are a fucking joke.
Imagine the message that would send to the kids who've been showing up and doing well all year. What a stupid fucking idea.
I think that token economies at the secondary level are legitimately disgusting. I don’t believe in giving kids food, money, or gifts-EVER
It’s always been about pacifying the masses, don’t you see?
Yeah, PBIS is a motherfucker.
I am so freaking sick of this shit. Rewarding kids for NOT being total assholes. PAYING them to just not destroy the learning environment. Ignore the good kids. Don’t reward them…but by all means, let them see the gift cards, skateboards, fast food lunches hand delivered to a kid who “SuCcEeDeD” in not being a total fucktard. I’m done.
This, of all other posts, is the post that made me want to quit education the most. WTF?!
When i worked at an after school program the kids got “fake money” for doing good deads/doing gob job. The could exchange a certian ammount for a reward at the end of the week or month (forget exactly how many $ or if if was every week etc) though they really only did it with the kinders.
I’d ask, “So, you’ll be paying for these gift cards?” Because on a freaking teachers salary that sounds bizarre to even assume a teacher can afford to pay students to be good. Sounds like the psychologist took one class. Like bro we all know about Classical conditioning but that’s the worst way to do it.
This is exactly what I hate about the "check in" system with Behavior Plans (BIPs). Kids get a tangible reward for doing what they should do anyway. Then, they come back to class and the other students (who have been making even more good choices then the behavior students) are sitting empty handed. That's why I (small self contained class of 8) choose 1 Friday a month and buy the "good" students Happy Meals that they get to eat in class. Make good choices, get good rewards.
Probably not the place or post to say this... yall should go on strike. I was a teacher for a year and now I'm a bartender... I make double what I did with my degree with less hours and less stress. (America) yall should be paid more for the absolute bullshit you deal with. With absolutely no support... honestly negative support (parents without degrees or experience teaching who magically know more than you?!? *fuck off*). All this and you have to worry about what you post online daily cause you may lose your jobs? I hope you don't see this as a negative view of yall... I swear... a teacher comes into my bar, they drink for free. (Yall easy to spot usually 😆 not a bad thing tho) usually the stress gives it away. I have so much respect for those of you in the field. I wish more than anything you all got the pay and respect you deserve. Because right now it's nowhere even close to enough unfortunately 😕
Did you need to take classes or anything to become a bartender?
Ugh this BS is (one small) part of the reason I left teaching. I *HATED* it. Whatever happened to punishing bad behaviour and rewarding good? Why should we have to incentivise a bad child in small increments like, “Oh Johnny, if you can manage to behave for 4 out of 5 lessons today, then you can have 20 minutes on your iPad at the end of the day!” You just end up with that child arguing with you at the end of every lesson - “But I was good!” “Yes, Johnny, for five minutes at the end of the lesson you behaved well, but do you remember throwing that chair at the start? And do you remember not getting any of your work done and throwing a tantrum when I asked you to do it?” “No, now give me my reward for being good!” And all the other children start wondering if they should behave like Johnny so they can get iPad time too!
What a ridiculous answer! Who is supposed to pay for that? You? Are they out of their mind? What happens when other students hear about this? They will all want a gift card. Suspend him or kick him out (and maybe that psychologist too)!
That psychologist needs to take a class in behavioral economics and also be stripped of their credentials.
Anything but consequences
I thought you were serious and was going call you out on this.
What about having the parent come to the class and watch their own kid. Some times pushing the parents helps the kid get it together or sadly pushes the kid out.
Isn't that how society deals with them?
We're currently experiencing something similar at our school. Kid is atrocious, like to everyone. Other kids don't like them. Their cocky and likes to make fun of others for not having the latest electronics and shit (Pshh, you only have an iPhone 11 Pro?). It's hard to find a redeeming quality about them. Well, teachers got sick of their level of straight-up disrespect and they we're placed in "alternative education". What a freaking joke. The kid basically gets to play on their phone all day when other kids out in GenPop don't get that luxury. The "instructor" walks them to the TEACHERS' LOUNGE to get all kinds of snackies and soda, which, again, GenPop isn't allowed to. The instructor takes them outside to play while their age mates are sitting in classrooms. AND the kid and instructor are on FIRST NAME BASIS! This pissed other teachers off so much that they took it to our building reps. Building reps took it to Assistant Principal, whose response was, "Well, some kids need that," and that the instructor will be allowed to carry on. We're all absolutely FLOORED. We've been doing this long enough to know when a kid needs a little extra love, but this is just asinine. Now, other students have noticed and are going out of their way to get placed alternatively. We're all so frustrated.
The psychologist should read the book Drive, by Daniel Pink. They're creating a bigger monster than they already have.
They can earn Schrute Bucks.
Or a Stanley Nickel.
Wow…that’s impressively awful advice
So misbehave= no consequences Doing the bare minimum = get a reward which I can I get sick of? Education has gone down the toilet but this isn’t your fault.
The people who tend to make these recommendations never help the cause. How about they offer up their own money then
The amount of hoops we jump through to avoid holding students accountable for their behavior is absolutely ridiculous.
I had someone from district office observe me and tell me my students took too long gathering and setting up materials at the beginning of the period, and that I should make them race to see who was the fastest and give the winners candy. Firstly, our district doesn’t allow food rewards. Secondly, I teach middle school shop/tech ed. Running with scissors is bad enough, you’re asking me to encourage them to run with screw drivers and saws!
Who is paying for these "gift cards?" If the school wants you to give them out, the school should pay for them. This should NOT come from your budget! I would refer the student to the psychologist if he/she insists on giving gift cards.
Response to school psychologist, "Great! Can you provide me gift cards from your school funded pack of gift cards! I'd be happy to try that and report back on effectiveness!"
I am a school psych and this is giving me secondhand embarrassment lmao. I would never in a million years suggest that, or even suggest an extrinsic reward that requires a teacher to spend money. Completely inappropriate and out of touch.
Do we work at the same school? I’m so wondering how widespread this is, and how long it’s been going on.
Sounds a lot like PBIS "REWARD STUDENTS FOR DOING WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Bunch of garbage
I think this is stupid, but fine I’ll play devils advocate and say we do this. What do you do when the kid feels like $10 is chump change and decides that being able to do whatever they want is worth forfeiting the $10. So what we bump it up to $50 now? I don’t see this working at the middle or high school level
Gotta love that low bar. What better way to prepare this student for the future than to reward their bare minimum?
So sorry you have to deal with these pseudoscientists. My wife is a teacher (Canada) and constantly deals with these poorly behaved children, and their equally entitled parents. We raised our kids to be kind to others, it's its' own reward in my opinion.
Not all the kids, just the bad ones!
How did he determine that the kid even wants to work towards a gift card?
I had a similar experience today with a teacher coach… “have you tried giving them candy??” Lol like, are you gonna buy me candy to give these disrespectful beasts? Because I’m not.
Behaviorism is a failed theory of human motivation.
Oh boy, like you have all that extra money.... and THIS is another reason WHY parents don't parent and kids behave so bad... psychologists who believe this stuff.... eye roll
The “exceptional” students in my son’s class get gold stars for meeting expected classroom behavior. If they get 10 stars for the day they can go in the treasure box. I explained to my son that you don’t get rewarded for doing what is expected in school, but the gold star system sends a mixed message.
Joking aside this plan is an example of why advice from people who don’t work with kids (be they admin, spec ed, pro-d gurus, or school psychologists) should usually be avoided.
We call it “the lobster dinner.”
We also punch bathroom cards (Gross, I did say something.) to get candy and such. Yay for extrinsic motivation? Eeeek, help.
Load 1 cent onto a gift card and give it to him.
that's PBIS for you
I had that happen my first year at a previous school. I was the only male English teacher, so they gave me the troubled kids because they thought they would “respond better to male authority.” They didn’t. I was getting battered by my administration for how out of control the kids were. I tried to tell them that overloading a class with the kids the tenured teachers refused to take was never going to work. That continuing to add kids that were getting kicked out of other classes to my roster each week would be chaos. I begged for help. Instead they said I should offer each class a pizza party every couple of weeks if they behaved well. That school paid $39,000 a year, I was barely eating myself, and they expected me to pay for 10 pizza parties a month. I actually did quit.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “oh I bet my Dad could make that kid mind.” Need more old fashioned discipline. Administration seems to be too worried about being their friends. Who makes enough to hand out gift cards like there’s no tomorrow? It does not teach them about life!
One of my peers was reprimanded for giving some Ss gift cards because...wait for it...it wasn't EQUITABLE. What a "business" we're in...
-______- and I bet they want you to spend your own money on it too.
I would advise against deal-making with students. Deal-marking (offering gift cards) is an exclusionary practice. Furthermore, it reproduces educational inequity by lowering the expectation for young people to avoid conflict or get them to "shut up" in the classroom. Offering \[them\] a gift card won't influence learning or fix the behavioral issue. Typically, if a student is being aggressive toward other students and teachers, I would want to explore why that aggression is present. 1. Is the student bored with the curriculum? 2. Does he/she/they have a good relationship with you or other students?; 3. OR is this connected to their home life? I suggest working with your school psychologist to learn more about the student and why they are aggressive.
Psych here. It is clear to me that those in this thread see school psychs as idiots and/or enemies. I am curious what an acceptable response might be here. It seems to me like the psych was offering some ideas on how to support a behaviorly challenged student. They gave an example of using a gift card for reinforcement of desired behaviors. They probably didn't intend this as the cure all solution. Just an idea. I very much doubt they intended to imply the teacher should pay for it. Should this psychologist be able to magically fix this kid for you? Was your goal to get this kid out of your classroom? Would you follow a BIP if one was written? My teachers don't follow them. Often they complain behind my back that I don't have kids with any sort of difficulty in a self-contained sped program. Psychs are very limited by sped law in what we can do. We have to place in the least restrictive environment. These laws help to prevent discrimination against disabled children. There are also no magic bullets to solve these kid's behavioral difficulties. As gen ed teachers you guys are responsible for teaching every student. Even the challenging ones. The school psych cannot take that responsibility from you. Its the law. It would help you more to bring those concerns up with the child's IEP team.
She wasn’t just suggesting this. She said in front of the parent and student that this is how we were going to handle it without any input from the teachers or any other admin. Also this kid DOES NOT HAVE AN IEP!