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Rewards and punishments

So I had this conversation with a principle of a school who is not happy with her ESL teachers as they have quite some classroom management problems.
We had this meeting where she talked about how the lessons of the teachers are too boring and that this is the reason the kids start acting up. Sure, this is one of the reasons why kids start talking and not paying attention, but then there was this other class, where the kids had fun
… actually, too much fun.
The kids had so much fun, that they didn’t  think of “working” but started to act out because they see English as some sort of playgroup or break, where they can do what they want. And let's say, it was quite hard to teach English words to those children.
That’s why we started to talk about a new approach that would be used when teaching the children and also made me think a lot about rewards and punishments, because this is you need to think about when dealing with difficult classes.

This the story behind why I wanted to give my own two cents on the most common rewards and punishments used in schools. I have to say in advance, I’m not a big fan of punishments, I prefer positive reinforcement, because this is what worked the best for me personally, but let’s see …

REWARDS:

- points, that lead to a prize (eg 10 points = 1 sticker) or stickers, directly.
Here you have 2 sides and educators are still fighting over this one ;). For one, it’s working, but then again, kids only learn because they get something and not for the sake of learning.
Well, here is the deal, you don’t give stickers for their performance (I never reward or punish for performance. You might just have this slow, but hard working kid in the class – not fair).
You give them rewards for their good behavior.
We usually don’t give them presents in our school. They are allowed to choose privileges when they got a certain amount of points (like they are allowed to tell a joke to the entire class or choose his next classroom job etc)

- Candy
be careful with this one. There might be somebody allergic to something. Never ask kids if they are allergic, they may not know and just say no or they may not care as soon as they see the candy. Always ask the parents.
Also, often parents don’t like their kids to have (too many) treats, especially if they might be eating at home after your lesson.
Plus: sugar = more energy = more moving around = kinda counterproductive
In our school we sometimes give nuts and almonds, to boost the brain power ;)


PUNISHMENTS
- Punishing the entire classroom for not paying attention
An absolute “no go”. You may perceive that it’s the entire class acting up, but I can tell you there is always this one child who is doing nothing. And you punish it for nothing .. not fair – not good.
And may lead to the calmer kids to start acting up, because they tell themselves they are getting punished anyways, so at least make it worthy and have some fun with the teacher!

- Double homework
So much no! You just teach them that homework is a punishment. No, you want to teach them that homework is helping you to understand things better and gives you opportunities to learn more.

- Detention
How often have I come across a teacher who kept a child longer during break and was then wondering why he still acted up after the break .. uhm, maybe because he didn’t have a break to recharge his batteries! Just like adults need their coffee or lunch breaks, children need them as well, even more so. So don’t take that away from them, it will just make things worse.

- send kids out the room
I don’t really like that one, because you have no idea what the child is doing outside, unless you have somebody outside having an eye on them. It’s definitely a danger factor.
Not good, unless you have a window in your door where you can peek all the time. But even then, I’m not a big fan, because the child will sit outside and miss your class. And then what? It will fall back on you, because he missed something and needs more time to pick it up later. Might be more work for you in the end

- time out chair
this is a good alternative to sending kids out the room. We have a chair (that is facing the class, not the wall!) and the child can still follow. We tell him, that we see that he or she is not ready to learn at the moment, so how about sitting on the chair and coming back to join us when he thinks he is ready.

And always keep in mind, keep the punishments relative to the crime ;)



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