teacher giving candy rewards - Page 3

[blizzard_babe]

The only time I use food "rewards" (and it's not even really a reward) in my classroom is playing "Edible Vocab Bingo," where we use goldfish crackers instead of bingo chips, and you take them OFF your card, rather than putting them on. Then, everyone eats their goldfish at the end.

But (don't shoot me), as far as candy goes... Yeah, I used it as a first year teacher :. Not much (maybe three or four times a semester), but I did. I was overwhelmed and exhausted and it was expedient... it allowed me to get stuff done. My second year, I had developed enough skill to not rely so much on the carrot-stick method, and I found more proactive ways of getting things done. I could have very easily gotten into that habit, though. Since it doesn't sound like this teacher is a first year teacher, she probably just discovered that it worked and has just been using it because, well, nothing better has presented itself. Present something better, or a reason to find something better. She's probably a very good teacher (from what you said) who just has a bad habit.

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by ecoteat

I think I love you. I currently teach in a wonderful school with amazing parent support, but I have been in other not-so-great schools where a kind gesture like that would have just blown me away.

I very rarely give my students candy. Mostly because I know that if it's in the room I'll eat it all myself, but I just don't want to start the habit and create an expectation of sweets. Of course we all wish students were intrinsically motivated, but the stakes are so high in public education these days, there doesn't seem to be time for developing that. So teachers are often stuck with resorting to quick rewards in hopes that a kid will remember her times tables before the state assessment rolls around.

And *I* think *I* love *YOU*. My classroom is a candy-free zone because I have no willpower.

Try as I might to develop intrinsic motivation... if a student is used to rewards and rewards only (from home and other teachers), the rewards become self-furthering. I try to provide my students with time for reflection... I did a non-graded, non-evaluated journal last year where, at the end of their time with me, students would reflect on how class went (it was a little more structured than that, because I teach ESL and a lot of my students don't yet have the independent language to just create responses beyond "good," "bad," etc). What I found was that almost all of my students, whether they were on-task and learning the whole time or hitting other students with books, gave themselves glowing evaluations... and there was no grade or evaluation attached to it! I wanted to inspire self-reflection and encourage students to take responsibility for their behavior and learning, but all I seemed to get was a series of "I did good" self-reports.

I want to try it again this year, but need to think a little more about how to do it to encourage more useful responses. Perhaps formatting two open-ended sentences encouraging them to name one thing they did well and one thing they can work on the next day would work... but that still raises the issue of an outside authority (me) giving things labels of "good" and "bad." It's a step in the right direction, I guess...

(Can you tell I've been thinking about this a lot lately? )