Is it Incentive or Bullying?


talisyn
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Grandparent: Declo Reading Program Consequences Were "Bullying"

It has recently been brought to the attention of the news media in my area (not liberal media, this is Southern Idaho after all :P ) of the actions taken against some children in a 4th grade class who did not make their reading goals.

The class chose to have students who did not meet the goal either stay inside at recess until the goal was met, or have their faces written on by their classmates who met their goals.

Nine of the students in the class did not meet their goals. Of those, six chose to have their faces marked on and three chose to forgo recess.

What is your opinion of this?

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I'm all for letting the class decide on their own consequences, but I'm even more in favor of consequences that have something to do with the "crime." Staying in at recess makes sense, in that vein, because it's finishing work that they didn't do before. How does writing on the face relate?

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This is a story that troubles me greatly. We have our opinions and then someone comes along and makes us take another look.

I am very much against bullying of any kind. I am very much against the idea of embarrassing kids or anyone for that matter.

So this should be a no brainer right? Fire her.

Except Summer is my niece. She is a very nice shy person. She has taught for sometime and has, from what I hear, been a good teacher. There are circumstances that probably contributed to her not realizing this was a bad thing. She was suspended for a week before this ever hit the news.

Trying to be honest with myself here. I would be mad if it were my kids. My kids would probably have to grab my shirttail to hold me back. But is it worth firing her over? She is not stupid. I bet she will never do/allow anything like this again. I bet she has gone to the Lord in prayer asking forgiveness.

So it seems like this is a learning experience for me. To care for everyone. To not just jump on the vigilante bandwagon. To realize good people make glaring mistakes. I certainly have made a few in my time. And to realize repentance is real in real life in real situations.

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The idea is great. The students are rewarded according to their due diligence and efforts. They stay in class to finish their reading assignments if they did not earn it.

The face painting is kinda funny, but inappropriate. Bullying? Not even close. The children accepted the goal. The children chose to have their face painted, instead of staying inside for recess. The face painting shouldn't have been an option.

I really dislike the over generalization of important words like "bullying". It is like the over generalization of racism in popular media outlets.

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This is a story that troubles me greatly. We have our opinions and then someone comes along and makes us take another look.

I am very much against bullying of any kind. I am very much against the idea of embarrassing kids or anyone for that matter.

So this should be a no brainer right? Fire her.

Except Summer is my niece. She is a very nice shy person. She has taught for sometime and has, from what I hear, been a good teacher. There are circumstances that probably contributed to her not realizing this was a bad thing. She was suspended for a week before this ever hit the news.

Trying to be honest with myself here. I would be mad if it were my kids. My kids would probably have to grab my shirttail to hold me back. But is it worth firing her over? She is not stupid. I bet she will never do/allow anything like this again. I bet she has gone to the Lord in prayer asking forgiveness.

So it seems like this is a learning experience for me. To care for everyone. To not just jump on the vigilante bandwagon. To realize good people make glaring mistakes. I certainly have made a few in my time. And to realize repentance is real in real life in real situations.

Sure humanizes the demonic teacher. Good illustration of the danger of vigilantism.

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Recess should not be taken out a school day regardless of work requirements - especially for boys. For a non-adult, recess is needed so they can let off the pressure and expend excess energy.

When you take out recess, the rest of the day is shot because children will be crawling out of their skins. So then you'll have to punish them for misbehavior.

It's like that quote on Ever After: What else can be concluded sire but that first you make thieves and then you punish them...

Face painting is a bad idea too. For those who don't like their face painted, it induces public shame, for those who like getting their face painted (believe it or not, I used this as a reward in Primary Class!) then it's a reward.

We have book challenges in our schools here. You read a book and take a multiple choice test to earn points. Then you use those points as "reading bucks" to buy things from the "reading fair". The fair is basically the parents and teachers manning specific booths - Popsicle stands, games, etc., and the reading bucks is like your fair tickets.

And then the mayor of our city holds an annual reading celebration where you submit all your tests and if you get 25 tests for the year you get a free hotdog and drink at the celebration. The celebration is really fun - they have TV and Sports personalities reading from books they loved as children, they have characters like Clifford the Red Dog and Blues Clues and such.

In both my kids classes, everyone read at least 25 books every year for every single year in Elementary School, so they just make the annual event a yearly school field trip.

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