Category: Writers Block
The Effective Bribe
Introduction: Do you remember in elementary school being that kid or rather seeing that obnoxious kid, and that very teacher that rubbed how bad you were in your face or in the face of the person who was obnoxious, call you or them out in front of the entire class, reprimands and yells at you, or the usual detention, call home, wrote you a referral to the office? Can you tell me how much these things helped you be a better student and really improve or did you just feel picked on? How much did you learn from it? Was it the most effective? The answer, I think is no, I've gone through it, you've gone through it, and most people have gone through it. Most in California at least, which is one of the states lacking in education has gone through it. It is far from effective because there is definitely still a ton of students being bad. If it was effective why is bad behaviors still happening? Prey tell, why are there bad kids who act up and get low grades? The simple answer, as I mentioned because it is not effective. It's a great topic, but no one really cares or knows about positive reinforcement systems. When you talk about it people keep turning you off and not listening. Yet, it is a very good and useful system it encourages life, happiness, and helpfulness. Most people get defensive and say kids are bad, they need telling off, if you don't they won't ever improve every time you bring up the positive reinforcement model. I think that is unfortunate.
credibility: I think, I am a decent compassionate person and I care deeply for people, but maybe that's not why you should listen to me, but let me tell you that I have done a research project about this not because I had to choose this topic, but because I wanted to, because I was passionate about it. I have spent a total of four whole week researching, working, and writing a paper about it and looked at various academic sources and studied them.
thesis: I am here to inform and hopefully persuade you to believe that positive reinforcement is a good system to use, that you should fight for it, and how it could even benefit you in general as well.
Body preview: Today, I will be discussing with you how positive reinforcement works and why anyone should adopt such a system, what are the different systems some of which oppose positive reinforcement in the classroom, and how it could Apply to anyone in general, but I can't cover the last details of each I only have 8 minutes here, so this will only be a brief overview and introduction.
i. What is positive reinforcement.
a. positive reinforcement is reinforcing students for good behavior.
1. Davis-Johnson in 7 essentials for character discipline elementary classroom management, "Provide positive educational environments, develop the self-esteem and positive self-concepts of students, develop students' respect for self and others, and emphasize the importance of academic success"
2. You must be explicit at the beginning to state the terms and expectation clearly and not expect them to be good on their own.
3. It gives them the attention they need, but for being good.
4. negative tention is not there because you are ignoring the bad behaviors and don't give them attention.
5. less of a cycle more effective more incentives to do good to win prizes.
b. It is done with care
1. stating expectation clearly.
2. Usually with many rewards building up to a prize.
3. You catch them being good and prompt them to do the good when the bad is done.
c. There is many good reasons why you should fight for it and stand up for it to be implemented in classrooms and push for it to be an integrated part of schools.
1. It's a friendlier happier environment, there is no vicious cycle.
2. A more benevolent and kinder system it teaches kindness and helpfulness, peacefulness, love, and a lot of these good traits.
3. It makes for a just world and help children understand self-worth, self-esteem, and self respect and for others.
4. Teachers spend less time disciplining children and more time teaching.
transition: Positive reinforcement isn't just one system it's an idea with a bunch of methods to it.
Ii. The different points of view people use are interesting some of which are part of encouraging the system only tweeking it a little some don't like it.
A. The systems which oppose reinforcement in the classroom and how they think of the system.
1. Praise everyone don't want to hurt anyones feelings everyone deserves to be praised
2. praise only good students all the time, the idea of the student is good so they should be favored and made an example of.
3. don't praise: talked about it in the beginning the one about that students ought to be good so not worth praising.
4. praising every little thing even if it's already natural and learn that they are just amazing and a rockstar.
b. There is also a lot of systems of behavior modification that supports or is the token reward system.
1. prrases or tokens only
2. Reasoning with praise and token explaining to the child as in asking the child to make them think through their actions or explain how, why, what, and how it will affect them in the future.
white, Fremont, and wilson "Personalizing Behavior Modifications." "questions that begin with ""what", or ""how come", rather than ""why.", ""Why", is often perceived as a challenging statement."
3. Mostly the positive reinforcement system, but add in a few negative reinforcements to make it more effective. to keep order to make sure negative behaviors are not out of hand, to keep things in check to support expectation, so kids don't believe the teacher is just too nice.
Pfiffner and o'leary in the peered review scholarly article called THE EFFICACY OF ALL-POSITIVE MANAGEMENT AS A FUNCTION OF THE PRIOR USE OF NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES "the teacher was told to issue as many reprimands as she deemed necessary (with a minimum of one per child), the rate of negative consequences to the class gradually decreased across days from 40 reprimands during the observational hour on the first day of this condition to 11 reprimands on the last day."
transition: While positive reinforcement is great for the classroom that is not the only thing that it could be used or good for.
Iii. How can you apply this to life, you woddou?
a. you are probably thinking about how this applies to your life
1. while advocacy is most of my call to action in this speech, I do think we could be kinder to one another.
b. So the take home, no matter if you're a genitor, a soldier, the president of the united states, or a ceo incharge of a big company.
1. treat people nice
2. positive results better then negative negative invites a vicious circle of negativity.
2. praise your friends and people a little more and if necessary tell them what you don't like, some feedback is always better then nothing.
conclusion: I think that if we implement such a system in the classroom that the world will be better, we will have better results in the classrooms all over this nation and more disciplined children. As I have shown you throughout my speech this is the right system and the one that must be implemented. I ask that if you are wanting to become a grade school teacher especially at elementary please consider looking in to and implementing such a system instead of the traditional disciplinarian one. If you're interested in doing anything else, but a teacher consider advocating making some noise, and making it known that we want it in place. Also, think about consciously and attempt to be a kinder, more understanding, considerate, and respectful person. It's a good system, and I am sure we all want a better world, so please don't miss the chance to make this reality!