Drury18's question:
Quote:
I have a question as I've come across something new with my child's teacher this year. They just started Grade 3 and in a 3/4 split and came home to tell me the teacher has a behaviour chart posted in the front of the class where the names are posted with a coordinating colour. They've attended this school for the previous 3 years and none of the other teachers had these charts. The teacher is also brand new to the school and I believe a first year teacher as well. Previous teachers have always been discrete about issues and would take children aside and do things in an one on one manner and then talk to the parents afterwards or leave a note in the agenda. The chart is one of the "Green = Good, Yellow = Okay, Red = Bad, Purple = Call Home".
As parent/teacher's are coming up, I wanted to have a discussion with the teacher about this system as I don't agree with a public discipline system like this for children as it causes some to feel more stress and shame then they should (as proven in a couple of studies regarding this method of classroom discipline) as well as opens children up for bullying if they are always seen on the "bad" list. I am not sure how to approach this conversation.
Is this method used by many teachers? What would be the appropriate way to voice my concerns about this system?
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I have a strong opinion about this... I do not agree with this type of discipline. I see the teacher's role as one that helps students learn. By this, I do not just mean helping them learn the necessary content but, helping them to learn how to behave, how to socialize, how to interact, how to problem solve, how to express themselves, how to collaborate, how to think and be creative... and so forth. The other job teachers have is to help students develop a positive self-esteem. With all of the tragic stories in school these days, this job is perhaps the most important job of all.
So, how do we teach kids how to behave while making sure their dignity and self-esteem are in tact? I do not think the answer is to track behavior on a chart for all to see. Here are my reasons...
First of all, I did this type of thing my first year of teaching but it was a "Positive Behavior" chart. On it, I recorded a check mark when students were caught behaving well, were doing something positive, or when they did their homework...things like that. What I came to realize is that you can not catch all students doing good things all the time and therefore, I missed a lot of 'positive acts' and the kids hated that. In addition, some students knew how to 'play the game' better than others so they received more check marks but was that really authentic? After one year I decided it was an inequitable system and I never used it again. (Although I did not give out red or purple marks for "bad" behaviour it was easy to see who was "good" by the number of check marks they accumulated. Not my best teaching moment.)
Secondly, a system that tracks negative behavior and makes this available for public view does in fact cause anxiety and stress for many kids. Anxiety and stress actually shut down the parts of the brain that are needed to learn, reason, process, and think. Obviously this is not an optimal learning environment!
Finally, kids who get a lot of red and purple marks may start to act like they don't care and might just "check out" all together. Sometimes this is done to save face as it is easier to not care than to "fail" or be "bad" (For my dissertation research I studied how kids behaved inside a classroom where the teacher publicly ridiculed students whom she thought were "bad". By the end of the year, these "bad" kids totally checked out. It was tragic).
So... in my opinion a system that publicly shames, humiliates, or stresses kids out is wrong. School is about learning, and learning to behave is part of that deal. In my experience, kids just want to be heard, to be cared about, to be safe, and to learn along side their peers. Usually the most difficult kids needed the most caring of all, but that is just what it takes. Caring... and teaching (not tracking) the appropriate ways to behave, socialize, and interact.
So... to answer your questions, I am not sure if this system is widely used but I hope not. It was not when I was in the classroom. In terms of the best way to voice your concerns, just be honest (There is a lot of research that will back you up!).