School Reward systems (was: Thanks for the advice)
Tina
Maria, My son's school was like that too!! They had tickets they had to earn/keep from losing, checks they had to earn, and if they didn't get enough checks they were punished (which seems backwards to me!!), marbles they had to earn, and they earned candy each day. My son was more concerned about the checks, tickets, marbles, etc, than he was about what he learned!! When I would ask him what he would do at school, he would tell me what rewards he learned and nothing else!! On Wednesdays he would actually become DEPRESSED if he didn't have at least 15 checkmarks because he didn't think he would be able to earn enough in the next two days to "earn" the reward.
His teacher implemented the checkmark thing, and each child had to earn "at least" 5 checkmarks a day for a total of 25 checkmarks for the week or they had to sit out on the sidewalk while the children who DID earn 25 checkmarks got to play and eat candy. She had 12 children sitting in the sun on the sidewalk watching FOUR children play!! I mean that's ridiculous!!! And when I talked to the principal about it, she not only backed up the teacher, but said this was normal, that many classes will make children who don't have enough checkmarks sit out of parties and other things. WTH??? How does that motivate a child?? My son missed it by 2 checkmarks the first week, he earned 23 checkmarks and got punished for it. How does that encourage him to be good??
Oh, I was so riled when all that happened. That was the final straw that made me decide no matter how hard it might be to homeschool, we were going to do it. I hated how the school acted like he was their property, and they wouldn't talk to me about anything. His teacher would send home notes saying he was playing instead of doing his work, but when I would try to talk to her, she wouldn't talk to me about it, or she would say he was doing fine. She also sent home letters saying the children were ruining her day, making her life miserable, and that they were bad children. She adopted a policy of waiting for them to control themselves before she started a lesson, and one day sat there for 25 minutes waiting for them to sit still and be quiet, and then to punish them for playing (cause heaven forbid she get off her duff and try to do something with them) she made the whole class sit in time out for another 25 minutes. So they wasted almost an hour of school that day. After hearing that, I decided that nothing I did at home could be worse than that. And these were kindergarteners, not older kids!!
Although I should thank her in a way. If she hadn't shown me in one year how inept the school system is I wouldn't have felt so driven to face the fear and homeschool. I wanted to homeschool before he went, but we didn't feel confident enough. But that made me confident, and my husband frustrated enough to let me try. Now we won't ever go back.
But I just wanted to say crazy reward systems aren't just at your niece and nephew's school.
°Ü° Tina Rod. °Ü°
Dysfunctional Domestic Diva
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
His teacher implemented the checkmark thing, and each child had to earn "at least" 5 checkmarks a day for a total of 25 checkmarks for the week or they had to sit out on the sidewalk while the children who DID earn 25 checkmarks got to play and eat candy. She had 12 children sitting in the sun on the sidewalk watching FOUR children play!! I mean that's ridiculous!!! And when I talked to the principal about it, she not only backed up the teacher, but said this was normal, that many classes will make children who don't have enough checkmarks sit out of parties and other things. WTH??? How does that motivate a child?? My son missed it by 2 checkmarks the first week, he earned 23 checkmarks and got punished for it. How does that encourage him to be good??
Oh, I was so riled when all that happened. That was the final straw that made me decide no matter how hard it might be to homeschool, we were going to do it. I hated how the school acted like he was their property, and they wouldn't talk to me about anything. His teacher would send home notes saying he was playing instead of doing his work, but when I would try to talk to her, she wouldn't talk to me about it, or she would say he was doing fine. She also sent home letters saying the children were ruining her day, making her life miserable, and that they were bad children. She adopted a policy of waiting for them to control themselves before she started a lesson, and one day sat there for 25 minutes waiting for them to sit still and be quiet, and then to punish them for playing (cause heaven forbid she get off her duff and try to do something with them) she made the whole class sit in time out for another 25 minutes. So they wasted almost an hour of school that day. After hearing that, I decided that nothing I did at home could be worse than that. And these were kindergarteners, not older kids!!
Although I should thank her in a way. If she hadn't shown me in one year how inept the school system is I wouldn't have felt so driven to face the fear and homeschool. I wanted to homeschool before he went, but we didn't feel confident enough. But that made me confident, and my husband frustrated enough to let me try. Now we won't ever go back.
But I just wanted to say crazy reward systems aren't just at your niece and nephew's school.
°Ü° Tina Rod. °Ü°
Dysfunctional Domestic Diva
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]