5 year old French School Magnet Punishment System

[Romika]

My dear little 5 year old boy is at a state school in Paris, France. His new form teacher has instilled a system whereby each of the kiddies gets a different coloured magnet for each time they step slightly out of line, from white to yellow to pink blue red etc, or some such.. and he's terrified of doing anything it would seem, being late, speaking too loudly, because of the stigma attached.
Does this seem hideously punitive and might stifle independent thought etc, or am I being overly woke? I know that they can be little nutters but it seems a little extreme.
Thanks!

Still is. I got it removed from my sons school

We were given the belt at school and whilst i don't think we should be belting children, i can honestly say it hasn't caused me any lasting trauma after being belted once. I was at secondary school when the Belt was banned, the standards of behaviour changed within weeks. Suddenly well behaved pupils became little sods or even worse bullying little sods. We need some form of punishment.

How big are these magnets? Do the kids ever get to handle them themselves or does the teacher control them all?

I would be a little worried in case one got swallowed. I would be petrified if more than one got swallowed, by the same child that is.

Any discipline method becomes a problem when a child doesn't understand what they did wrong / what earned them a negative, or what they need to do to get a positive. My DS had the sun/cloud system when he was 5, and apparently spent most of year 1 on the cloud (according to a friend he came home with). He didn't seem to have a clue about it - and was accordingly not motivated to change his behaviour. Mind you, he didn't respond hugely to collecting merit points when he was 7 and 8 either.

OP - it's a huge shame your child is so terrified of getting it wrong. See if you can support them to figure out one thing to do/not do, at a time, and reassure them that getting something wrong is ok at times.

Oh yes being terrified to make a mistake must work wonders for raising confident, independent learners.

It's not common at all anymore, very outdated.

It isn't just about the system, it is also about how it is administered. So the rule is children sit in their seats until told to do something else. Little Johnny forgets and starts to stand up and

a. Miss Honey looks at him and says "Johnny" and Johnny realises he needs to sit down so he does and Miss Honey smiles and gets on with the lesson.

B. Miss Trunchbull looks at him, shouts "sit down" and gives him his magnet.

Same magnet system, totally different for Johnny.

Can I ask why you all think this is extreme? I fully concede I’m a dinosaur 🦕 and got a few names on the blackboard (yes in chalk) during my time in school at that age. I even got a few of the dreaded check marks after my name.

No it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but at the end of the day they disappeared and tomorrow was a new day.

It also allowed the the teacher to call out bad behavior without stopping class.

I was a pretty normal kid and I’d guess most of us got our name written a few times. Maybe it’s just me but it would seem that if a child has an extreme reaction to this there are other issues at play that are more detrimental in the long term than being called out for not following the rules on occasion.

Discipline in French schools is very, very strict. No talking, no moving, no messing, and silence in class. The teachers certainly don’t want independent thought so forget that straight away. Your son will get used to it, he will have to.

Not for five year olds. Is he GS or CP? Either way there will still be a lot of learning through play and shared activities though CP will have more formal structure than GS.

Can I ask why you all think this is extreme?...it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but at the end of the day they disappeared and tomorrow was a new day...I was a pretty normal kid

It's not generally an issue with typical kids and tends to work well, which is why it is so widely used. As you found, most children will experience getting the "red light" occasionally, see it as a warning, and go oops, never mind, and get a clean slate the next day.

The problem with it as a system in general is that in every class there will be at least one, probably a small number of children who are constantly on red/orange. It's not working for these children. The system that only punishes does not help teach them what it is that they are expected to do, and it does not look at why they are not meeting the behaviour expectation. They essentially never get a clean slate because they are on red/orange very early in the day and never move off it. They will then have one of two reactions to the chart - either they will stop caring about it because it is impossible to satisfy, which means it has no motivational power at all, or they will become very anxious about it. The anxiety then fuels the unwanted behaviour, which instantly gets them put on orange/red again, so they are trapped. These children are then more often than not, simply written off as "bad". Well the system works for the other children. Look, they are all coping with it fine and they are all on green most of the time. Why can't you do it Matthew?

I am not a (school) teacher and I don't have a better system to suggest. I understand why it is used widely, and it's definitely better than some other systems. But that is the main reason why it is not considered ideal in modern teaching.

Good explanation Bertie. I’m in Scotland and haven’t seen this system in use for a few years now - as in literally during the past few years it has been largely phased out. Unfortunately even the positive only behaviour management systems can have similarly negative outcomes - a P1 boy told me today that he is a bad person because he never gets house tokens…

I trained (and failed miserably) to be a teaching assistant and this exact analogy was used in a year one classroom around 5 years ago.
I don't know how I feel about it, but with regards to the OP's son's experience, controlling anyone, especially by fear is unethical.

I might be missing the point but punishing a 5 year old for being late is ridiculous. It's not like they can get themselves into school or often even be able to tell the time and know they are late. Same with the speaking too loud, do they take into account children with hearing difficulties for example who can be loud without realising? I don't think it's a terrible idea in general, but only for behaviour a child of that age can reasonably control!

@BertieBotts that is one of the most intelligent things I've ever heard. Nice analysis!!

I could never live in France.
You must conform or else. Look at religion and how people with SEN are treated and shunned.

It is heartbreaking to hear that a 5 year old thinks they are a bad person for not achieving as well.
That child was me also, but it was more my home life that cemented that.
We need to stop attaching academic outcomes to validation and worth. It has to change.

The system worked for you as a person, though.
As it has been proved with what the OP has said, this child goes home and worries.
No need for that.

Agree that fear (of punishment/sanction) is unethical tool but it is tool that is applied almost universally for everything.

I completely agree. And one of my goals for this school year is to make sure this boy knows how brilliant he is.

Yes, unfortunately, while the positive only ones are BETTER because they don't systematically label the children who can't fit into the system as "bad", they still have the same 2 main problems in that they don't look at why children aren't meeting behaviour expectations and they don't do anything to help children learn how or understand why to meet behavioural expectations. Plus, those systems can have their own issues if they end up getting used to try to counteract some of the issues, so children who are struggling get offered many more rewards/tokens for behaviours which are just expected, not rewarded in others - this can end up seeming unfair, and the children who are just in the middle, neither standout performance or "troublemakers" get overlooked and ignored.

I have heard good things about these (below) systems which have been used in schools. They work better for the kids who always end up on red, but apparently they ALSO tend to work well for the others too. Honestly I tend to think it's always a win if we're doing slightly better than the previous iteration, so non-violence is better than violence, unobtrusive punishment is better than outright humiliation, positive encouragement is better than punishment, and I agree with all the above points about the way that a system is being implemented being important too, but I do think these systems that look past behaviour are the best we have as of the current moment.

https://consciousdiscipline.com/

https://livesinthebalance.org/educators-schools/

https://zonesofregulation.com/for-your-school/

https://self-reg.ca/educators/

Interesting that nearly all comparative studies show markedly better mental health outcomes for French children and young people than those in the uk. Obviously not necessarily a correlation with school discipline measures but I think we have to consider our more progressive regime is not translating into healthier, happier kids.

My kids had the traffic lights system in the US, they all start the day on green.
It was only used in their classes for constant disruption and not listening over and over, when asked to do/not do something. Just about all the kids stayed on green all the time as they were normally acting like little kids do, it was the ones who were tearing about, being disruptive and not listening at all who moved off to Amber, then Red.

I'm not sure the French are very good at conforming. They certainly do know how to rebel ( history and current affairs tell me this.)

They have separation of state and religion whereas we have an established church with political representation in the Lords. I don't think many, maybe most, French people are very religious at all. Certainly when I taught in a French Secondary School with a boarding section, no pupil ever took up the offer of being let out to go to Church of a Sunday.

Years ago I went to a centre for severely mentally handicapped men near Paris. It was wonderful and the staff were sensitive and great with the people there so not sure about Sen provision complaints.

Children need to be taught boundaries. If parents won't do it any more then the school have to. You can always home school if your child is too precious