Teacher A: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t have to use any aversive procedures. Punishment is such a drag.
Teacher B: Yes! I agree. Positive reinforcement is sooo powerful—shaping, schedules, maintenance, and all that. You can do just about everything with it.
Teacher A: Really. I mean, we should make our classes totally positive this year. No negatives. None!
As strongly as I advocate the use of positive strategies in classroom management (“Catch ‘em being good!”), I have to acknowlege that there are at least three reasons it is impossible to create behavior management systems that exclusively employ positive reinforcement. Here’s why reasonable folks should resist the superficial appeal of the all-positive or positives-only Chimera.
Continue reading ‘Why not only positives?’
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Look under ‘posters & stickers’
I am pleased to call readers’ (both of you) attention to NoSpank.net. Although much of the advocacy presented there promotes parenting and teaching practices that have limited scientific bases, the organizing feature is a rejection of the use of physical violence as a disciplinary method. I support that effort.
There are at least 40-11 better alternatives, starting with teaching the child or youth what to do. More specifically and technically, here is a list of alternative methods for reducing the chances that a behavior will occur in the future:
Continue reading ‘No spanking’
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Over on Smart Classroom Management, the site where he presents tips based on his book, Michael Linsin offers three reasons for not using behavior contracts. After a brief introduction that is generally pretty accurate, he argues that (a) “behavior contracts label students,” (b) “external rewards are short term,” and (c) “follow through is a bear.” He recommends employing a consistent behavior management plan for classrooms and adhering to it faithfully.
I certainly agree with the recommendation that teachers adopt and faithfully execute a carefully conceived and evidence-based classroom management plan, but I disagree with Mr. Linsin’s rejection of use of behavior contracts both because I think that contracts may be a component of a comprehensive management plan and because I think the objections he raises are specious.
Continue reading ‘Behavior contracts that work’
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Just in case anyone doubts the need for preparing teachers to manage classroom behavior, here are five illustrations:
Continue reading ‘Need for management training’
In one more example of the mis-representation of “behavior modification,” another of those facilities aimed to serve (not the right word?) children and youths with behavior that their parents find unacceptable has been identified as a “behavior modification facility. Tranquility Bay, more accurately characterized as an extremely strict re-education camp, is the subject of a documentary. It is one of the schools affiliated with the World Wide Association Of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), a group that has had facilities closed because their methods were inhumane (see example of a story from New York Times appended here).
Continue reading ‘B mod NOT’
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