I am writing this as an addendum to my original post about Rachel’s Challenge.
It has been three weeks since the students went to the Rachel’s Challenge presentation. As far as I can tell, their overall behavior toward one another has not changed on way or the other. The kids still call names, physically bother, etc. each other.
The one thing that has changed is we have trained them to expect some sort of reward for being kind and doing nice things for others. Everytime a good deed is performed the kids say “I should get a chain for that.” They are requesting a paper chain link with their name on it for the school wide chain. So, instead of doing nice and kind things for others because it is the right thing to do, they now expect a reward.
It is a sad state that we have to bribe kids to be nice and kind.
The other thing, the In School Suspension teacher has a group of kids that she works with. They had a Thanksgiving lunch for themselves, their parents and the faculty and staff of the school. The kids who were in trouble and in ISS helped serve the meal. OUr school social worker wanted all us teachers to make chain links for the ISS kids for helping. Um….let me think about that. NO! Those kids are in trouble. They broke the school rules and are being punished. They do not get rewarded for that. They did what the ISS teacher told them to do as they are supposed to do. They wouldn’t have been serving were they not in trouble.
It all goes back to kids not being expected to be held accountable for their actions so that we have to bribe them to act right.
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
