Some people will defend behaviorism in schools on the basis that workplaces uses behaviorism too - but it’s different: workplaces pay employees, and employees can quit.
If children wish to be in behaviorist schools because it will better prepare them for a certain kind of life, fine; but there is no justification to impose it on children who do not consent to it
I remember doing placements when training as a teacher in the early 2000s and rewards and sanctions were a big part of the ‘behaviour management’ module. The implication was that if you didn’t make the children behave, there was no way that they would do it naturally and the onus was on the teacher to ‘manage’ the behaviour, ie make them sit still and comply.
I have used star charts in my class but with a points system where children could collect points to get prizes and a variety were on offer so those who found ‘behaving’ difficult could easily collect a few points for a small prize and those who ‘always behaved’ could collect longer for a bigger prize. This promoted the idea of saving up for something but didn’t penalise those students who couldn’t. I’m still not sure it achieved what I hoped but I felt it was a less shameful way of promoting good behaviour which is what the school wanted and I was graded on.
As a parent I’ve been on the receiving end of rewards and sanctions with both my autistic boys. Eldest liked to follow the rules and never had a meltdown in school, but because he didn’t have behaviour issues, he went under the radar and never got rewarded for the amount of effort it took to keep that up. Youngest has a PDA profile and found it impossible to cope with the amount of pressure to maintain ‘good’ behaviour which resulted in him not being able to attend school at all. He will carry the belief that he is ‘the worst child ever’ with him for a long time - this is what he internalised though it’s not what the school intended or ever said directly.
Personally I wonder when this trend for ‘behaviour management’ changed? When I was at school 40 years ago, there were no extrinsic rewards and very few sanctions - you could have to miss a playtime for badly disruptive behaviour but few students were disruptive. Yes, the teacher was God and maybe stricter than now but I don’t see that much difference. As a teenager, it was rare to get detentions - they were a pretty major event, yet last year my 11 yo got a lunchtime detention for forgetting a ruler (?!)
Perhaps if we credit our young people with the skills that they actually have and respect that they are people in their own right, along with accepting that if they can do well they will, we can recognise that ‘bad behaviour’ will not be solved by shaming, only by identifying the underlying issue that is making it impossible for that child to meet those expectations in that moment.
So, so true. For every ‘challenge’ I had with my neurodivergent kids, Health Visitors and teachers told me to use my own version of behaviours charts. (I didn’t!) School coercion to behave, which my kids inherently can’t meet, was done via behaviour charts. Not once did I manage to get through to them the damage they can cause. If parenting has taught me one thing it’s that most people in authority over children don’t know how to motivate them. Nor do they care.
Some people will defend behaviorism in schools on the basis that workplaces uses behaviorism too - but it’s different: workplaces pay employees, and employees can quit.
If children wish to be in behaviorist schools because it will better prepare them for a certain kind of life, fine; but there is no justification to impose it on children who do not consent to it
I remember doing placements when training as a teacher in the early 2000s and rewards and sanctions were a big part of the ‘behaviour management’ module. The implication was that if you didn’t make the children behave, there was no way that they would do it naturally and the onus was on the teacher to ‘manage’ the behaviour, ie make them sit still and comply.
I have used star charts in my class but with a points system where children could collect points to get prizes and a variety were on offer so those who found ‘behaving’ difficult could easily collect a few points for a small prize and those who ‘always behaved’ could collect longer for a bigger prize. This promoted the idea of saving up for something but didn’t penalise those students who couldn’t. I’m still not sure it achieved what I hoped but I felt it was a less shameful way of promoting good behaviour which is what the school wanted and I was graded on.
As a parent I’ve been on the receiving end of rewards and sanctions with both my autistic boys. Eldest liked to follow the rules and never had a meltdown in school, but because he didn’t have behaviour issues, he went under the radar and never got rewarded for the amount of effort it took to keep that up. Youngest has a PDA profile and found it impossible to cope with the amount of pressure to maintain ‘good’ behaviour which resulted in him not being able to attend school at all. He will carry the belief that he is ‘the worst child ever’ with him for a long time - this is what he internalised though it’s not what the school intended or ever said directly.
Personally I wonder when this trend for ‘behaviour management’ changed? When I was at school 40 years ago, there were no extrinsic rewards and very few sanctions - you could have to miss a playtime for badly disruptive behaviour but few students were disruptive. Yes, the teacher was God and maybe stricter than now but I don’t see that much difference. As a teenager, it was rare to get detentions - they were a pretty major event, yet last year my 11 yo got a lunchtime detention for forgetting a ruler (?!)
Perhaps if we credit our young people with the skills that they actually have and respect that they are people in their own right, along with accepting that if they can do well they will, we can recognise that ‘bad behaviour’ will not be solved by shaming, only by identifying the underlying issue that is making it impossible for that child to meet those expectations in that moment.
So, so true. For every ‘challenge’ I had with my neurodivergent kids, Health Visitors and teachers told me to use my own version of behaviours charts. (I didn’t!) School coercion to behave, which my kids inherently can’t meet, was done via behaviour charts. Not once did I manage to get through to them the damage they can cause. If parenting has taught me one thing it’s that most people in authority over children don’t know how to motivate them. Nor do they care.
In the old days people were put in the stocks, but mysteriously that form of manipulating people's behaviour went out of fashion some time ago.
Never worked with my pdaer. And he can't follow social stories. And don't even do the daily velcro chart. As he will destroy it.