We put up behavior charts with the intent to recognize the positive just as often (or more often) than the negative…
…but how often is it truly used to do anything more than monitor those few “naughty kids?”
We create class bucks for our students to earn for stellar work (and maybe to learn a bit of economics)…
…but how often do they end up fining just a few kids, and/or regularly overlooking those steady, dependable kids?
And we designate special accolades to honor students for “being really good…”
…but for the large pool of (rather disappointed) children who meet that vague standard, does it end up doing more harm than good as they wonder what more they could have done for such recognition?
(And we’ve all heard the argument that “Someday they might hope to be employee of the month, and not everyone gets to be that either, so let’s prepare them for that now” — but I believe that’s an apples and oranges argument for the simple reason that these are children. Who work so hard to please and do their teachers and parents proud).
Yes, we want to notice the good. We want to stay organized. We want a smoothly-functioning classroom. But I can’t help but wonder if all our energies spent toward making those charts, buying those prizes, and creating fancy spotlights (having done all those things myself in the past) would be better spent with just simple, daily relationship-building…
featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto