Here are a few of the most common questions I receive from teachers regarding rewards. Some of them may resonate with you. Question 1: “I am aware of your stance on giving students rewards. However, when students do their work and get good grades, isn’t the grade a reward?” My reply:Yes, the good grade is a reward, and there is nothing wrong with this reward. Neither is anything wrong with rewards as acknowledgments. What I object to is giving rewards for expected, appropriate behavior. Grades are an incentive and they work to motivate only if the person is interested in a good grade. Many students are. But some could care less about the grade given them by a teacher. Question
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Benjamin Franklin understood that the art of persuasion is to induce the person to influence himself. He knew that persuading others to his point of view took patience and endurance. He assumed that people are often won over slowly, often indirectly. He believed that if you don’t win the bargain today, go after it again tomorrow—and the next day. Here are some of Franklin’s strategies of persuasion and bargaining: 1. Be clear in your own mind about exactly what you are after. 2. Do your homework so that you are fully prepared to discuss every aspect and respond to every question and comment. 3. Be persistent. Don’t expect to “win” the first time. The first objective should be simply to
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 15 Number 11
#1 A Better Approach with a Defiant Student
#5 Collaboration Is More Effective than Competition in Learning
#7 Using DWS with PBIS
I often come across articles about how an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of teenagers. It is true that teenagers, by virtue of their hormonal changes, are prone to be emotionally volatile, unpredictable, self-absorbed, and hypersensitive. However, the IMMATURE BRAIN that supposedly causes teen problems is nothing less than a myth. Most of the brain changes that are observed during the teen years lie on a continuum of changes that takes place over much of our lives. In addition, some of these myths are based on studies of brain activity of teens as compared to adults. But snapshots of brain activities have nothing to do with causation. A person’s emotions, such as stress, continuously
READ MORE >>> →The Good Behavior Game uses outmoded and counterproductive approaches. The program confuses discipline with instruction and relies on rules and manipulative approaches.
READ MORE >>> →It’s so easy to embrace the negative. In my seminars I pose the following situation: Suppose your supervisor asks you to stop by the office before leaving for the day. I then ask people to respond by a raise of hands as to how many immediately engage in negative self-talk, e.g., “What did I do wrong?” The raised hands are unanimous. But the negative assumption doesn’t have to be created. Consciously or not, this negative self-talk is our own imposition. Compartmentalize it. Your supervisor may have a positive communication for you. Since you don’t know what the conversation will be about, a wrong assumption may prompt undue stress. As an elementary school principal, a middle school assistant principal, and a
READ MORE >>> →In the U.S. news: Coercion used on defiant student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina results in police officer being fired. The video showing the defiant student being flipped over while sitting at her desk has gone viral. One side says that force was too extreme. The other side says that the defiant student should have followed the police officer’s request and that the force used was justified. I was asked what I would have done in this situation. I would have used a third option. I would have used authority without coercion. First, the power struggle should have been avoided. When adults argue with a young person, it is like arguing with a pig. Both get dirty,
READ MORE >>> →Little children come to school in kindergarten filled with curiosity. They are endlessly asking “Why?” questions in an attempt to find meaning and make connections. Somewhere around grade four they stop asking, “Why?” and begin to ask, “Will we have this on the test?” These two questions indicate the change in learning more than any other observation that could be made. The “Why?” question is an internally motivated curiosity question; the “Will we have it on the test?” is a conformity question to the system. It is essential for a civil society to follow ordinances and laws and conform to societal expectations. It is a necessary part of the culture. However, in order for a DEMOCRATIC society to flourish, the
READ MORE >>> →What do you do when you have a negative experience? Imagine the brain as a large ship. If a leak occurs in the floating vessel, it immediately compartmentalizes the area of the leak to prevent the leak from sinking the entire ship. This is necessary because it may take some time before the ship returns to port to repair the damages. This concept of compartmentalization can help when you encounter a negative situation, stimulation, or urge. When you have a negative experience—be it with a significant other, a child, a parent, a member of the family, or a fellow worker—COMPARTMENTALIZE IT. Set it aside. Isolate it. Deal with it later when you are in port and in a better place
READ MORE >>> →Logic prompts people to think. Emotions prompt people to act. This fact applies to learning, also. If you want people to remember what you teach, touch an emotional chord by painting a picture or by telling a story. There is a greater chance of the learning staying in long-term memory using these approaches than when the lesson just focuses on information itself. If you think back to your own time when you were a student, you’ll realize that this is true. Which teachers were memorable to you? In what classes were you most engaged? Chances are your mind goes back to those teachers who did more than just focus on facts—they made the subjects come alive by helping their students
READ MORE >>> →Studies suggest that smiling makes people appear more attractive, kinder, and by some accounts, easier to remember. All smiles share something in common: an emotional foundation. Depending upon what the emotion is, the brain sends different instructions to the face. The areas in instigating a polite or voluntary smile (the kind exchanged with a bank teller, for example) are not the same ones involved in a more emotional smile (such as the kind that emerges on seeing a loved one or hearing a funny joke). However, regardless of what prompts a smile, the results are the same. Both you and the recipient are prompted to have good feelings.
READ MORE >>> →with Michael F. Shaughnessy Eastern New Mexico University (Click on the question to see the answer)
READ MORE >>> →We know that when stress overcomes us, choices seem limited, thereby decreasing effectiveness. Behavioral scientists have a name for this psychological reaction: learned helplessness. This phenomenon has been studied in laboratory rodents whose nervous system bears striking similarities to that of humans. Here is how one experiment works. If you provide mice with an escape route, they typically learn very quickly how to avoid a mild electrical shock that occurs a few seconds after they hear a tone. But if the escape route is blocked whenever the tone is sounded, and new shocks occur, the mice will eventually stop trying to run away. Later, even after the escape route is cleared, the animals simply freeze at the sound of the
READ MORE >>> →Here is an example of how choice can be used to redirect an impulse toward more responsible behavior—even with a very young child. It is part of a communication from a friend. “I marvel at what my grandson understands and how he manages to communicate. The other night his parents went to dinner, and he started to cry real tears and scream. I picked him up and gave him a hug and proceeded to explain to him that mommy and daddy went to dinner and they would soon come back. Then I asked him if he wanted to keep on crying until they returned or play with his trains. The tears shut off like a switch! He loves Thomas the
READ MORE >>> →You will notice that when you smile at someone, the “imitation response” that neuroscientists have discovered prompts a natural tendency for the other person to smile back. This phenomenon indicates that the face is an enormously rich source of information about emotion. In fact, your face is not just a signal of what is going on in your mind; in a certain sense, it IS what is going on in your mind. The expression on your face is sufficient to create a marked change in the autonomic nervous system. You can prove this to yourself by thinking of a sad thought. With that thought still in your mind, look up at the ceiling and smile. Then try to keep that
READ MORE >>> →Do you like when someone uses coercion or other approaches that prompt negative feelings in order to get you to do something? Of course not. So why, then, do so many adults use such approaches with young people? The essence of the famed psychologist Jean Piaget’s hierarchy of cognitive development is that children’s brains develop at different ages but they—even infants—have similar feelings as adults. Young people experience negative feelings of pain, anger, and fear, all of which prompt resentment toward the person who prompted such feelings. Sharing information and asking reflective questions, as outlined in the Discipline Without Stress methodology, do not carry the baggage of prompting negative emotions and resentments as coercion does.
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 15 Number 9
#2 Using Noncoercion with a Challenging Youth
#5 Choice Motivation and Learning
#6 A Cute Message to Parents about Sugar
A generation or two ago, parents promoted the characteristics of initiative and perseverance to their children. In other words, parents thought twice before doing things for young people that the youngsters could do for themselves. Of course, without the presence of 24/7 technology permeating every aspect of life back then, times, in general, were slower and perhaps even less stressful. Today, most people (young and old alike) want things done now—quickly and correctly. This may explain, in part, why adults tend to do more things for youth. We can promote initiative and perseverance, which are part and parcel of responsibility, by asking ourselves, “If I do this for the youngster when I know that the youngster is capable, will I
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