Blog #7

There are so many classroom rules. In fact, I think the teachers add rules throughout the day. For example, once the teacher sees a behavior or action they don’t want the students to repeatedly doing they say, “Remember! That’s a rule (what the child is doing or not doing); in our class we do not do …” Some of the rules I’ve frequently heard reiterated are to keep the chairs on all four feet, keep your hand to yourself, respect one another, be on time to your seat, self-start, stop talking when the teacher uses a cue word or hand signal, no candy in class, keep money in your pocket, no whistling in class etc.

The eternal list of rules is impressively enforced two specific reward systems. One is the “Star Chart,” the children are given wet erase, written stars on a card as the follow rules and maintain on-task (averaging 4-12 stars daily). When the students Star Chart is filled up, they get to move their dinosaur (school mascot is a raptor) from one cupboard door to another that rewards them with Free Time on Mondays. This Star Chart is allocated from grades K-6 and the product demonstrates the desired behavior from the students.  The other reward system employed by the grade classrooms are “Class Bucks” Each student has a handful of laminated green paper pretend bucks, when they are caught off- task; bucks are taken away or paid to the teacher, and when caught on-task the students are awarded bucks. Each week on “Fun Friday,” the students get to make purchases from the class store with their class bucks.

Cleary, there are copious, measurable benefits from exercising rewards systems. I have observed the students actively participating in learning objectives purely by the use of this extrinsic motivational tool. Adversely, I feel the continuous routine of rewards negatively charges the generation towards an entitled state of mind. I wonder if now-a-day kids have an innate sense to do “Good” for the “Greater Good”, rather than just for the means to the end….