There are many teachers that know rewarding good student behavior is a much better approach to dealing with children than waiting for the bad behavior to sneak in. There are some great ways to do this, but each teacher has a different idea of how to go about it. No matter what your ways are, there are always going to be times when you want to try something new to keep things interesting. Children always respond to a new program and hope to do well. That is why many of these things work out so well.
When I was in second great, my teacher had an excellent program to reward good student behavior. He was in a very large classroom, which helped, so that gave him room to do a few things that some teachers may not have the room for today. He had a huge teepee in the room, along with some other neat things. He had made up arrow heads out of clay, and these were used to reward excellent student behavior and other achievements. Once a student had enough, they could trade them in for time to study in the teepee. It worked well and we all loved it.
Some teachers use stickers in the same way, but these rewards for good student behavior may be anything in the world that the teacher can think of. It might be the ability to be first in line on one day of the week – which is of great importance to a younger child – or the opportunity to do something that no one else in the class gets to do at that moment. When you use this system for student behavior modification, children are going to strive to be better and the bad behaviors may drop off substantially.
Good student behavior for older children is a bit harder, but it can be done. Most of the time, spending time in a teepee or in the front of the line means very little to them, and will not motivate them to be on their best behavior. However, if you can talk with a few businesses in your community, you may find that some will make donations to help you out. That means the kids in your class can earn points towards a free slice of pizza or even free admission to a school event. As long as they are not too hard to earn, these rewards work very well.
Good student behavior is not always going to be all that you see in your classroom. If you have one or two that always act up and are a constant disruption, that does not mean that your system is not working. You have to keep it up. It may take a while, but they are going to want to be in on whatever it is that you are offering the other kids for good student behavior if they watch others do things they can not for long enough. For some kids, that?s just the way it is. Don?t give up on them or your program.
