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Date Posted: 16:33:45 01/31/07 Wed
Author: Erie Martha Roberts
Subject: Re: Punishment
In reply to: Brad Kovach 's message, "Punishment" on 00:38:45 01/31/07 Wed

I think this is a very interesting issue in the classroom. Until I entered the classroom this year, I thought the same as you did. For me, the threat of a detention was all I needed to behave, if that. But I've found that for my students many--if not most--do respond better to some sort of positive reinforcement. My classroom management improved significantly the moment I added a group and class incentive plan. There are some students, however, for whom punishment--or the threat of punishment--seem to be the only option. It is only when they receive the phone call home or the parent-teacher conference enough times that they start behaving in class. So, basically, I guess I'm saying that like anything we should use punishment, negative reinforcement, and positive reinforcement in the classroom.

>I had a class over the weekend at the Carrier center
>in Collierville in which we discussed punishment and
>it's place in the classroom. It seems that (and
>forgive me if this is common knowledge but I'm
>somewhat new to the education field) there are a lot
>of teachers out there who like to just dangle some
>sort of threat out there (extra homework, detention,
>etc.) in order to motivate their students. I guess I
>never really saw the harm in this practice, but after
>learning a little more about punishment from the
>powerpoint included in our class CD I can see why this
>is not a good idea. I think what jumped out at me was
>that punishment will never shape a good response nor
>will it ever eliminate the bad response but only
>delay it. I also found it interesting that with
>avoidance responses you could encourage behavior less
>desirable than that which you were originally
>punishing.

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[> Re: Punishment -- Cassandra Schuyler, 13:18:56 02/01/07 Thu

I believe in the power of reinforcement as well. It is very positive and builds willpower in adolescence, when they are given a positive goal to work towards. At many times it is hard to remember this though, and you feel like you should give a punishment or take something away from those misbehaving. It is very hard not to think this way. But when you forget and give out "punishments" and negative reinforcement, the children who are on track and doing the "right thing" do not get recognized and begin to feel ignored, while those students you are concentrating on continue to act that way because they are getting what they want, your attention. Also, when you give assignments such as writing, reading, and extra homework as punishments this just deters the students from doing these things on thier own time. Forcing a student to write or read gives them a negative attatchment to that concept and they become less likely to want to do those things, since they associate it with punishment.


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