Original Image: "Ryerson Public School Playground"
Flickr Photo by Striatic
Released Under An Attribution 2.0 Generic Liscense
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
One management technique that I have observed many teachers using in their classrooms is taking away time from recess when students are misbehaving. Often the teacher will not say anything to the students. She will simply walk over to the board and erase a minute from the recess tally in the corner of the board. This usually gets the student's attention and they all quickly become silent. Although this tactic achieves the desired results short term, I don't think that it is a very effective management technique. Children need their recess time to burn off some of their energy so that they can refocus themselves and concentrate again in the afternoon. If children are misbehaving, they probably need their recess time even more because they are being forced to focus all day long and they simply need a mental break. Also, by cutting down on recess time, we are punishing all the students when it may not be every child in the room who was misbehaving. What do you think? Have you ever experienced this in your field placement? Is it ever an effective strategy?
Hey Jenna,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Children need to run around and get out their energy. By eliminating their recess time the teacher is punishing the entire class for a few students' behavior, this gives off the wrong message.
I'm glad that you agree. I think that this is something that we see all too often in elementary school classrooms. Teachers need to realize that there are more effective types of classroom management.
ReplyDeleteMy teacher did that in placement last year and the kids really turned around when she would take a minute or two off and then if they continued their good behavior she would give them their time back.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that children do need their time to play and burn energy. And it all does depend on your classroom some students might not care if they loose recess time (my class this year) where as others really do care.
A suggestion I do have is if you have younger students you that have a 15 minute recess you could start at 20 minutes and then start taking it away from that, then esentially they wouldn't really be losing their recess time if you only have to take a few minutes off, but then at the same time if you have students who can tell time, they might ask why they really only get 15 minutes instead of 20 if they were good the entire time.
I do like the idea of giving the children their time back because then you are not only punishing bad behavior but also reinforcing good behavior. I think that positive reinforcement is usually more effective than negative punishments. You are right though, often taking away recess time is a way that usually catches students attention and they turn their behavior around really quickly. Your idea about starting from 20 minutes is really interesting and I think that it might work well with students in younger grades. Thanks for the great input!
ReplyDelete