Should I complain to the principal or the teacher? - Page 2

[Rose-Roget]

Originally Posted by Amys1st

Your school is a PBIS school as my principal would say.

What does PBIS stand for? Not Positive Behavior Support, surely, because this is not.

My ds's teacher finally took away the green/yellow/red system finally, but she did comment to dh and me that sometimes kids need a little humiliation to keep them in line. I can't believe that those old school philosophies are in our current educational system.

[Altair]

PBIS isn't the red light or the cards, per se, ... PBIS is a collection of supports within the school and looks radically different in each school. But there is often some kind of behavioral element, either as a transitional part or permanent, even if that's kinda not the point...

PBIS can be tricky to implement and can have varied results depending on the school population and the school staff. It *can* work well if everyone is on board and the school devotes resources to creating a system that works for them.


To the OP, it's a rare day indeed you find teachers who practice the work of Kohn, especially in public schools where we are given quite extreme behaviors to deal with, often. How I parent my child and how I would teach my own private school (or really, any public school that could actually have a real discipline policy where violence and extreme behaviors were not allowed to continue and disrupt all the other student's learning... meaning, at the end of the day, students could be expelled just like they can at private or charter schools)... is not the same as how I teach all of the time, because I have been put into impossible situations (30 kids per room, 10 kids with extreme behavioral needs, miles and miles of curriculum to cover before we sleep...) where there just simply isn't the reality of being able to allow students 100% decision making and they just aren't going to be intrinsically motivated to study whatever it is we're required to study that day.

That said, we're a PBIS school and the vast majority of our discipline is positive, but as any Kohn follower will tell you, behaviorism is still behaviorism and dangling a reward or token economy in front of a kid isn't so different from the lights/cards... that said, it's still an improvement in my book when you have few supports at your disposal.

Oh wow that run on sentence makes me tired just looking at it, but after teaching and parenting all day I'm kinda too spent to even re-read it... so I hope I make some scrap of sense.

[MrsH]

My daughter has actually really done well with this system (much better than what her 3rd grade teacher uses). She's known all about traffic lights since she was 3 years old, yelling "STOP!!!!" whenever a red light was anywhere in sight. She played red light, green light and other regulatory games, and really enjoyed them.

Using this super concrete and visual reminder in her first and second grade classrooms (minus bracelets) worked well for her. It provides her with immediate feedback about whether her behavior is on track, and helped her to very quickly learn what behaviors were not ok in a classroom setting. Both teachers moved kids back into the green once they started behaving according to their class agreements again, so there was always something to work towards. It wasn't explained in a "bad kid" kind of way, and I sort of doubt that that's what the teacher in your example said too. Instead, green meant "you're doing well, keep going." Yellow meant "slow down and think about your choices" and red meant "stop, you need some help (from the principal usually).

Just wanted to add our more positive experience with this system.