Yr 1 - reward and de-merit system????

[beagle101]

My DD has just started year 1 and her new teacher (who is newly qualified - not that I am making a point about that just mentioning incase this is some new education philosophy that I don't know about!) has set up this huge landscape wallchart in the classroom.

The class is a mixed class of year 1 & 2

Each child is represented on the chart by a balloon face and they start up in the sky near the top of the chart - if they break a rule or talk (God knows what rules although I do know 'talking too loudly' is one that moves you down a level) they are made to get up from their seat and move their balloon face down the board towards the mud at the bottom. If they do really good work they get to go and move their balloon face up.

Kids who are in the stars at the top of this lovely landscape get the whole of 'golden time'- where they can choose a fun activity those further down the chart have their time reduced with those in the mud at the bottom getting no 'golden time'.

On Friday there were 3 kids (all Yr1 rather than Yr2)at the bottom of the chart who had to literally sit and watch the other kids playing. It wasn't my DD but I am absolutely HORRIFIED that such a system could be implemented.

A few of the other parents have expressed unease about this and DH and I are thinking of going in and speaking to the teacher and probably Head about this - surely this system is just humiliating for the kids in the mud - making them move their face things down in front of other kids and it teaches really unpleasant thing to all of the others.

It strikes me as just a really lazy way to impose rule obeyance and doesn't take account of the differences in children - am I wrong is this some new educational philosophy thing - what do others think?

Thanks!

cory, they reckon to take all comers, too. After all, the original Montessori classroom was in a run-down area of Rome.

Beer - hre I work the y1 teachers do taske their PPA time during Golden time, but they take no more time than they would ifit wasn't Golden time. They have exactly the same amouch of PPA time as they are entitled too. Golden ime hshould def not mean the teachers are taking extra time off.

Golden time should not be about just sat watching a DVD either.

We have a selection of structured activities over the three classrooms, plus outdoor space as well. Children select their activities and can move between therooms and outside within that selection made. The TAs supervising (or teachers if not PPA time) supervised and engage with the children throughout.

Doesn't grown-up life involve an element of reward and punishment though? I appreciate that we don't want to end up with a situation where children will only be good as they want to know what reward they get, but there is a major place for this approach.

vesela Mon 13-Sep-10 14:19:03
"cory, they reckon to take all comers, too"

Yes, but in Britain it is more common (though not exclusively so) for Montessori schools to be self-selecting in the sense that many parents apply specifically because they have thought about the educational ethos of the school. These, by definition, are also the kind of parent who are more likely to be able to support their child educationally and socially. So there will be a higher proportion of children whose parents care about their education and about what they get up to at school.

Yes, but that doesn't negate the advantages of the system as a whole.

The private montessories that I know of do try to accommodate parents on lower incomes if they want their child to attend. I guess that most people see that they are private though and write it off immediately. Their hands are tied as well though as the cost of running a school is high. I would love to see more montessori principles adopted in state schools.

The discipline thing is very hard to explain in words, because it's not a simple formula like bad behaviour = sanction, good behaviour = reward. It's much more complicated than that. Instead of treating the immediate behaviour the cause is analysed and either prevented in the first place or remedied so that the problem is not caused in the future. The best way to understand it is to understand the theory behind it, or to see it in action.

Sometimes actions such as removing a child from a situation or taking something which is being used inappropriately away are necessary, and you could say "Well you can't say there is no punishment at all then" but the difference is it isn't purely to punish. It's a necessary action which may or may not be unpleasant - e.g. the child may be taken away which they might not be happy about, but they may then be taken and distracted with another activity. Or they might be unable to be distracted and find everything else boring. Either way there would not be a separate, unrelated (or only indirectly related) sanction like losing golden time or moving down a chart.

x-posted because half doing something else

Adults get punished for committing offences.
While the aim of education is among other things to bring children up to be the sort of adults who won't commit offences, it doesn't follow that the way to do that is to actually use punishment/rewards.

I'm more anti-reward than I am anti-punishment, though :)

(in the sense of Bertie's last paragraph, which I agree with).

Pixie:

For example, if you commit an offence, you are going to be punished, no doubt about it. If you do something well, you will get a promotion at work, or will be rewarded with a bonus.

I find this pretty simplistic. If you commit a crime as an adult, yes of course you will be punished, if you get caught. (Hmm... bit like punishment from parents/teachers then!) How many people think it's fine to drive at 80 or 90 on the motorway if there are no police cars around, for example? Or slow down for speed cameras? Surely it's better to teach children to think about the reasons behind the rules/laws and understand they are put in place to protect everyone.

I don't think that rewards can really be compared to bonuses and promotions either... there are lots of things that need doing in adult life with no reward at all, you just have to get on with it! Whether you tidy your house well or not - the reward is to have a nice tidy house and a sense of accomplishment, and feeling proud/happy when people visit, as opposed to feeling down, under a pile of stuff and feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed when people visit. There's no bonus, no star chart, the reward is entirely in your own head. Should we not teach children to be proud of their achievements for their own sakes rather than how many stars it earned them?

Hulababy, when I saw the child being removed they went out of the teaching part of the class to the quiet area (cushions and the like - Montessori classrooms are zoned and this was in the room but outside of the teaching zones)) and the teacher stayed with them until they were calm, and then they found something different to do together. It wasn't punishment, or exclusion, because the child was never left alone. It was respectful to the child, but at the same time the child was learning that they should treat the learning area and the other learners with respect.

At dd2's Montessori there were 30 dc and 3 staff, two who were fully qualified and one TA.

Ah right ok - many of our Y1 classrooms are set out with zones too, but on a smaller scale due to necessity. So this is very similar to what we would do ayway. Obviously a teacher or TA remains with a child who requires it, although we also give them the opportunity to sit quietly alone to calm down too as some children prefer this, and the room is smaller obviously so easier to monitor I guess.

In that situation the child wouldn't just be removed either though. The root cause of the problem would be found and it would be ensured that the child understood what he or she was expected to do in that situation, rather than what he or she did do. E.g. ask nicely for a turn with the red pencil, rather than snatching it and starting a fight.

It's just focusing on what we would like to happen rather than what has happened which we didn't like. It just makes more sense to me.

was that at a preschool though, spiritmum? (re. the staffing).

I'm sure that teachers in most schools would use those sorts of principles, too. I'm just surprised at the prevalence of the reward chart/golden time thing.

vesela "Golden time sounds insidious - "You are golden children, and you're going to have some golden time. Not you, though." You could make a case for the name being racist, in fact. It just has horrible overtones in general."

I have to say -that's one of the daftest statements I've seen on this board for a while.

Our infants school has a traffic light system. All start on green. One warning then moved to amber another warning then red. If there are 2 reds for the SAME bad behaviour in a week then they lose extra friday playtime (an extra 10 minutes play). Golden time is not lost unless it is extreme behaviour and this time is used to speak to HT and/or parents.It is felt at our school that children of infant age respond better to NOT using golden time as part of punishment, I agree with them. It seems to work very well as far as I can see in the 2 years ds has been there.

vesela i have always seen golden time to mean the exact opposite of what you think. It is a time of the school week (usually an afternoon) when children are still allowed to freeplay as under 8s should, and not be totally bogged down within the cirriculum. It also allows teachers to get some their planning,marking done as I find TAs usually supervise the children. I personally think its brilliant.