Over on 60-Second Science Blog, the news source of Scientific American, Karen Schrock reported that a task force of the American Psychological Association (APA) released a report recommending that caregivers eschew physical punishment. Ms. Schrock noted that at least one member of the task force disagreed with the recommendations, but that most members endorsed it.
Corporal punishment has long been a hotly debated subject, with conflicting study results and opposing ideologies feeding the fire. Now the results of a five-year effort to review the scientific literature are in: a task force appointed by the American Psychological Association concludes that “parents and caregivers should reduce and potentially eliminate their use of any physical punishment as a disciplinary measure.”
Continue reading ‘Physical punishment repudiated’
The effects of rewards on people’s test scores has been the subject of many studies. Under the headline “Learn-&-Earn Plan Pays Off: Scores Soar At Cash-For-Kids Schools” In The New York Post Kelly Magee and Yoav Gonen reported about the results of a program that rewarded students for obtaining higher scores on tests.
An overwhelming number of schools participating in a controversial program that pays kids for good grades saw huge boosts — up to nearly 40 percentage points higher — in reading and math scores this year, a Post analysis found.
Continue reading ‘Rewarding test scores’
A story about positive behavior support (PBS) by Stephanie Hoey, reporter for NBCConnecticut, was picked up by MSNBC. The story features an elementary school in Connecticut as an illustration of PBS and provides a brief-but-credible glimpse into use of the components of PBS. The local angles for the coverage are the school and the work of George Sugai, of the University of Connecticut, in developing and disseminating PBS methods.
A UConn education professor developed a teaching approach now used widely at schools across the country. Dr. George Sugai’s system is called Postivial Behavior Support or PBS.
>>snip<<
Professor Sugai co-directs a national PBS Center funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Currently, the center works with about 9,000 schools across the country. But he estimates about four or five times that number of schools use this approach.
Link to Ms. Hoey’s story or go here to watch the video. To learn more about PBS, visit the US National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavior and Intervention Supports and find contacts who know about PBS in other US states.
Saul Axelrod, who has conducted lots of research about implementing and refining procedures for managing behavior in classrooms, presented a workshop on “Classroom Management Problems and Procedures for Solving Them” at the National Autism Conference in 2007. It’s available as free video.
This is good fundamental presentation. Download it. Watch it. Recommend it to others. Flash of the electrons to Regina at the PT site for reminding me of this. http://wpsu.org/ondemand/streams/Session_7108022.html
Over on Like Horses to Water, a first-year teacher of English has a post about discipline that caught my eye. In “Thoughts on Discipline #1: Why is discipline so difficult?” the author has captured one of the ideas that I express every semester.
“Classroom management” is one of the biggest challenges for all teachers, and one of the most difficult for us to get help with. In this blog I’ll be harping endlessly on the intensely personal and individualistic nature of teaching, and classroom management is one of the most personal parts of teaching.
It’s harder for new teachers since most of us still have our idealism, and are naturally not mean people. We’re going to win them over with love, we tell ourselves. We will treat them like mature and responsible young people, and they will rise to meet our high expectations. All together now: awwwwwwww…
That’s a noble and worthwhile approach, but it is insufficient. The author goes on to explain that this is an unrealistic view. I’m sure I disagree with some of the other points made in other posts, but there’s a lot of first-person observations that are worth reading in Like Horses to Water.
Link to “Thoughts on Discipline #1….”
Happy birthday, Fred Skinner! Here’s a post about the birthday of B. F. Skinner that I published in 2007 on my personal blog:
Born 20 March 1904 in Susquehanna, PA (US), B. F. Skinner made substantial contributions to our understanding of human behavior. Although his scientific contributions are substantial, I find his philosophical arguments for radical behaviorism even more important. I fear that his recommendations that people use scientific understanding of human behavior to overcome social ills such as war are dismissed too readily. He rejected coercion and punishment as the means of controlling human behavior and advocated humane use of reinforcement in their place.