Would you be surprised to learn that in today’s classroom children sometimes aren’t learning due to behavioral issues? Teachers are attempting to teach classes in which students can be disruptive, disrespectful and defiant. Classrooms are often overcrowded which adds to the frustration of the situation. Teachers are often tempted to take the easy way out, using antiquated strategies that will usually not help the child to learn. In fact, some types of punishments can actually cause the child to become even more rebellious. The child can experience a sense of worthlessness after being punished again and again.
Children do not act out because they are “bad.” They act out in the hopes of receiving some kind of response or reward. In the past, children who acted out were classified as “bad kids” therefore were isolated or punished and often wound up slipping through the cracks of the educational system. Recently, some teachers have been attempting to help the behaviorally challenged child. Instead of isolating, punishing, labeling or ignoring a child, with work we can help them to become a part of the class. Teachers also have the power to help the child who would have once been considered a “lost cause” to learn. Many researchers have worked on learning about the causes of behavioral problems and possibly more importantly, have suggested some solutions to the problem. Behavioral theorists include B.F. Skinner, E. Thorndike, and William Glasser to name a few. Although their research and theories go by different names they all have one thing in common. All of the above theorists are, in effect, saying that we are not going to change the child’s behavior by changing the child. We must change our reaction to the behavior in order to change it.
The idea that bad behavior should not be rewarded is a basic concept. When one rewards any kind of behavior, bad or good, that behavior will continue. Children are especially quick to catch on to what kind of behavior will get them the result that they desire. B.F. Skinner, a behavioral theorist, says that “when a particular Stimulus–Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the individual is conditioned to respond.” Skinner’s theory is known as Operant Conditioning (Skinner, 1950-71). Although it seems basic or common sense it is easy to forget that each behavior displayed addresses a need. That need may be attention...
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...t every student will understand or grasp every lesson. The important thing to remember is that the student who tries needs to be rewarded too.
When using the reward system, teachers need to make the result that we desire the same result that the child desires. This is very tricky. William Glasser’s “having fun” need comes into play here. The lessons have to be fun for the student that participates. On the other hand the student who is disruptive or refuses to participate should be uncomfortable due to his or her “attitude.” The norm should be participation and appropriate behavior. If teachers continue to try different strategies in the classroom and pay attention to the theorist’s research and suggestions, they will find that there are less children falling through the cracks of the educational system.
References
Boeree, George C. (1998). Abraham Maslow. Personality Theories http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/maslow.html.
Boatman, Andrew Mclain. (1998). Educational Theory Handbook. http://www.theshop.net/aboatman/edtheory.htm.
Skinner B.F. Operant Conditioning. 1950-1971. http://tip.psychology.org/skinner.
Thorndike, E. Connectionism. (1913-1928). http://tip.psychology.org/thorn.html.
By avoiding conflict and avoiding punishment the child becomes accustomed to not receiving consequences. If this child were to step into a classroom and misbehave, teachers wouldn’t just overlook the issue, they would respond with punishment. A large part of life is actions and their consequences.
‘A good smack never did a child any harm, that’s how they learn what is right and what is wrong’ has been proven wrong by Behavioral Psychologists, by conducting conditioning experiments. B.F Skinner who studied and performed an experiment on operant conditioning proved that to punish a child, does not always provide the direction that reward does, and in fact it teaches the child that a particular behaviour is unacceptable, and doesn’t show which other behaviours are acceptable.
...orce the good behaviour with rewards and decrease the likelihood of negative behaviour being repeated. The structured discipline of both parents and teachers help the child to appreciate that good behaviour is much more beneficial than bad behaviour but without this structure in one or both of these settings, could lead to the child not understanding, leading to it being much more difficult to correct behaviour that isn't wanted without resorting to drastic measures of physical or psychological punishment that would do more harm than good. Further research into helping the children in these sort of circumstances would be much more beneficial to the topic of child behaviour and punishment.
In second grade I was apart of a wild classroom. Their was a lot of chaos from all the young children. My teacher struggled to get everyone on task and to complete our work. After some time my teacher decided to make up a reward system (positive reinforcement). The children in the classroom were able to earn tickets for doing their homework, being respectful, and many other things. We were able to save these tickets and cash them in on fridays for treats, toys, or even sometimes extra recess. The teacher had a separate system for when we misbehaved. There were 3 colors you could earn everyday. If you weren’t on task, out of your seat, or just being disruptive she would change your color from green to yellow. If it happened again you got a red card and lost your tickets you earned for that day. This is a perfect example of positive punishment. It gave each child an opportunity to earn tickets for good behavior, and a warning system with the cards that possibly would lead to losing your earned tickets. Our teacher was using operant conditioning to produce a change in our
I can guarantee that punishment is not the answer. Punishment is a suggestion made by reformers (Postman, 311), but it is the absolute worst decision that can be made in our schools. When students get out of school suspension (OSS), they treat it as a vacation day and most of them use it to play video games, and they still get to make up the work they missed. A countless amount of kids in my high school did exactly that. On another side of that, punishment is giving a student attention. Not a great kind of attention, but attention nonetheless. If a student really wants attention, it won’t matter to them what kind. If something is awry in the classroom, it should be ignored. Usually in situations where students are causing a disturbance, it is because they crave the attention. Punishing them is falling right into their
“Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free. By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse compartments may be realized.” (Foucault)
Schools are in great need of systems, processes, and personnel who are able to support the needs of students with problem behavior. Research indicates, however, that (while I am a big, fat cheater) information has not been made available to teachers and other professionals in a format that allows these strategies to become common practice. Many teachers choose isolated behavioral strategies that are not applied immediately after the problem behavior has occurred.
In light of my School Experience (SE), I will be analysing, discussing and evaluating an aspect of classroom practice. The practice that I have chosen is ‘Behaviour Management’. Behaviour management plays a key role within the classroom and there are a number of techniques used by teachers on a day to day basis. I will look at these techniques in detail, analysing and evaluating them with the work of behaviour management authors and also taking into account my SE observations.
Noncompliance has several negative impacts on an individual. Firstly, noncompliance to requests or instructions can hinder a child from learning. This is especially so for children who engages in noncompliance behaviours maintained by escape. A child’s learning will be affected if he is often out of the class, taking away opportunities for him to learn new skills. Thus, compliance with teacher instructions in classroom settings is critical for effective learning (Martens & Kelly, 1993). In addition, noncompliance affects social skills development as the child may learn to engage in inappropriate behaviours to gain attention or escape from demand. These inappropriate behaviours may in turn affect positive social interactions with his peers and teachers. Secondly, noncompliance also limits access to potential job opportunities, especially for growing individuals with learning and developmental disabilities. Ability to comply to instructions and requests from supervisor is a necessary skill required of an employee. In addition, noncompliance are often made worse when individuals engage in aggression or self-injurious behaviours to escape from demands. Noncompliance, coupled with inappropriate behaviours, ...
There are different ways that a teacher can deal with a student’s undesirable behavior. Some of these strategies are: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment or extinction. The type of r...
First, be sure to recognize the difference between reinforcement and punishment. To increase the desired behavior, reinforcement should be used. Punishment is used to decrease unwanted behaviors. Second, when an adult begins to use positive reinforcement and ignoring the inappropriate behavior, some students may begin to exhibit behavior that get worst. This abnormal behavior is referred to as “extinction burst”. The student is acting out in an effort to generate the reinforcement they use to get from the adult. Thirdly, teachers and adults should use positive reinforces that are attainable quickly and easily. Sometimes, food is not accessible and is not appropriate so positive phrases work well. Lastly, inappropriate behaviors should always be ignored, unless they are
.... I feel that in most cases, once a student has been punished through negative reinforcement for doing wrong, the student will attempt to correct such behavior in the future to avoid punishment. In addition, positive reinforcement should be given for those students who are the majority and behave, as well as for the students who are occasional troublemakers because positive reinforcement helps show what is correct behavior in response to bad behavior.
According to Charlie S (2016), positive reinforcement has been seen to be a more viable procedure than punishment. Actually, it can make children to concentrate on the positives and encouraging them is a valuable approach to guarantee good behavior.
My goal as an educator is to continually learn, reflect and change my practices in order to ensure all students learn at high levels. As I stated earlier, my initial educational philosophy was behavioral. I was somewhat surprised to find that I still scored the highest in this category on my self-assessment. However, after further reflection and reading B.F. Skinner, I believe that behavioral aspects still have an important role in education today. As an educator I have a moral responsibility to help students learn how to function as members of a classroom community. Skinner believes that the environment of a classroom and school should be as “conducive as possible to students’ learning”. Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports is a model I truly believe in and have used with success with children. Through PBIS, expected behaviors...
The reward system is a beneficial behavioral modification teaching method, which promotes more positive behaviors in the classroom (Charles & Barr, 2014). Many teachers generally use the reward method of praise within their classrooms for a variety of reasons. The first advantage of using praise within the classroom is because it encourages students do repeat positive behaviors in the classroom. Many children are simply looking for attention and enjoy it, which makes it a great technique to use in the classroom (Charles & Barr, 2014). Another advantage for this reward type is that due to the encouragement, the students are able to perform at a better rate; students excel academically. A final advantage to using praise is that it is easily implemented into the classroom and requires little to no preparation. This makes the reward method a great addition for teachers as well as students because students get instant feedback without