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conuly
One about a classroom desk design that allows students to sit, stand, or sit and kick their feet without being disruptive
There's a video of it here
Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not
By SUSAN SAULNY
MARINE ON ST. CROIX, Minn. — From the hallway, Abby Brown’s sixth-grade classroom in a little school here about an hour northeast of Minneapolis has the look of the usual one, with an American flag up front and children’s colorful artwork decorating the walls.
But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the country, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown’s class do not have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget all class long if they want.
And they do.
On one recent morning, while 11-year-old Nick Raboin had his eye on his math problems, Ms. Brown was noticing that he preferred to shift his weight from one foot to the other as he figured out his fractions. She also knew that his classmate Roxy Cotter liked to stand more than sit. And Brett Leick is inclined to lean on a high stool and swing his right foot under a desk that is near chest level. Helps with concentration, he and Ms. Brown say.
The children in Ms. Brown’s class, and in some others at Marine Elementary School and additional schools nearby, are using a type of adjustable-height school desk, allowing pupils to stand while they work, that Ms. Brown designed with the help of a local ergonomic furniture company two years ago. The stand-up desk’s popularity with children and teachers spread by word of mouth from this small town to schools in Wisconsin, across the St. Croix River. Now orders for the desks are being filled for districts from North Carolina to California.
“Sometimes when I’m supertired, I sit,” Nick said. “But most of the time I like to stand.”
The stand-up desks come with swinging footrests, and with adjustable stools allowing children to switch between sitting and standing as their moods dictate.
“At least you can wiggle when you want to,” said Sarah Langer, 12.
With multiple classrooms filled with stand-up desks, Marine Elementary finds itself at the leading edge of an idea that experts say continues to gain momentum in education: that furniture should be considered as seriously as instruction, particularly given the rise in childhood obesity and the decline in physical education and recess.
Dr. James A. Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, advocates what he calls “activity-permissive” classrooms, including stand-up desks.
“Having many children sit in a classroom isn’t the craziest idea, but look at how children have changed,” Dr. Levine said of the sedentary lives of many. “We also have to change, to meet their needs.”
Teachers in Minnesota and Wisconsin say they know from experience that the desks help give children the flexibility they need to expend energy and, at the same time, focus better on their work rather than focusing on how to keep still.
Researchers should soon know whether they can confirm those calorie-burning and scholastic benefits. Two studies under way at the University of Minnesota are using data collected from Ms. Brown’s classroom and others in Minnesota and Wisconsin that are using the new desks. The pupils being studied are monitored while using traditional desks as well, and the researchers are looking for differences in physical activity and academic achievement.
“We can’t say for sure that this has an impact on those two things, but we’re hypothesizing that they may,” said Beth A. Lewis of the School of Kinesiology, or movement science, at the University of Minnesota. “I think we’re so used to the traditional classroom it’s taken a while for people to start thinking outside the box. I think it’s just a matter of breaking the mold.”
While adult-size workstations that allow for standing are commonplace, options for young students are not, and until now, data on the educational effect of movement in the classroom have been scant. But at Marine Elementary, the principal, Lynn Bormann, feels as if she need not wait for the research results.
“We just know movement is good for kids,” Ms. Bormann said. “We can measure referrals to the office, sick days, whatever it might be. Teachers are seeing positive things.”
Marine Elementary lies in a small, fitness-minded, high-achieving school district where experimentation is encouraged. Ms. Bormann bought the desks with money from several grants awarded to the school, which is now in its second full year of using them.
Ms. Brown says she got the idea for the stand-up desks after 20 years of teaching in which she watched children struggle to contain themselves at small hard desks, and after reading some of Dr. Levine’s work.
“As an option,” she said, “it gives students choices, and they feel empowered. It’s not anything to force on anybody. Teachers have to do what fits their comfort level. But this makes sense to me.”
At Somerset Middle School in nearby Somerset, Wis., the children in Pam Seekel’s fifth-grade class rotate in their use of both traditional and stand-up desks.
“At a stand-up desk,” Ms. Seekel said, “I’ve never seen students with their heads down, ever. It helps with being awake, if they can stand, it seems. And for me as a teacher, I can stand at their level to help them. I’m not bent over. I can’t think of one reason why a classroom teacher wouldn’t want these.”
Pat Reisenger, director of the Education Minnesota Foundation, a teachers’ union arm that awarded Marine Elementary its first grant to buy stand-up desks, is eagerly awaiting the results of the studies.
The new desks have “become something, to be honest, of a fad,” Ms. Reisenger said.
“We’re talking about furniture here,” she said, “plain old furniture. If it’s that simple, if it turns out to have the positive impacts everyone hopes for, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”
On a similar note, an article about the importance of recess. Would you believe, I can't recall having recess at all in elementary school? (Except in the 5th grade, when I went to a different school) I wonder sometimes if my memory is just flawed.
The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess
By TARA PARKER-POPE
The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.
New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics studied the links between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children age 8 and 9. Those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. Although disadvantaged children were more likely to be denied recess, the association between better behavior and recess time held up even after researchers controlled for a number of variables, including sex, ethnicity, public or private school and class size.
The lead researcher, Dr. Romina M. Barros, a pediatrician and an assistant clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said the findings were important because many schools did not view recess as essential to education.
“Sometimes you need data published for people at the educational level to start believing it has an impact,” she said. “We should understand that kids need that break because the brain needs that break.”
And many children are not getting that break. In the Pediatrics study, 30 percent were found to have little or no daily recess. Another report, from a children’s advocacy group, found that 40 percent of schools surveyed had cut back at least one daily recess period.
Also, teachers often punish children by taking away recess privileges. That strikes Dr. Barros as illogical. “Recess should be part of the curriculum,” she said. “You don’t punish a kid by having them miss math class, so kids shouldn’t be punished by not getting recess.”
Last month, Harvard researchers reported in The Journal of School Health that the more physical fitness tests children passed, the better they did on academic tests. The study, of 1,800 middle school students, suggests that children can benefit academically from physical activity during gym class and recess.
A small study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder last year found that walks outdoors appeared to improve scores on tests of attention and concentration. Notably, children who took walks in natural settings did better than those who walked in urban areas, according to the report, published online in August in The Journal of Attention Disorders. The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better.
Andrea Faber Taylor, a child environment and behavior researcher at the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, says other research suggests that all children, not just those with attention problems, can benefit from spending time in nature during the school day. In another study of children who live in public housing, girls who had access to green courtyards scored better on concentration tests than those who did not.
The reason may be that the brain uses two forms of attention. “Directed” attention allows us to concentrate on work, reading and tests, while “involuntary” attention takes over when we’re distracted by things like running water, crying babies, a beautiful view or a pet that crawls onto our lap.
Directed attention is a limited resource. Long hours in front of a computer or studying for a test can leave us feeling fatigued. But spending time in natural settings appears to activate involuntary attention, giving the brain’s directed attention time to rest.
“It’s pretty clear that all human beings experience attentional fatigue,” Dr. Faber Taylor said. “Our attention has to be restored from that fatigue, and there is a growing body of research evidence that nature is one way that seems particularly effective at doing it.”
Playtime and nature time are important not only for learning but also for health and development.
Young rats denied opportunities for rough-and-tumble play develop numerous social problems in adulthood. They fail to recognize social cues and the nuances of rat hierarchy; they aren’t able to mate. By the same token, people who play as children “learn to handle life in a much more resilient and vital way,” said Dr. Stuart Brown, the author of the new book “Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul” (Avery).
Dr. Brown, a psychiatrist in Carmel Valley, Calif., has collected more than 6,000 “play histories” from human subjects. The founder of the National Institute for Play, he works with educators and legislators to promote the importance of preserving playtime in schools. He calls play “a fundamental biological process.” “From my viewpoint, it’s a major public health issue,” he said. “Teachers feel like they’re under huge pressures to get academic excellence to the exclusion of having much fun in the classroom. But playful learning leads to better academic success than the skills-and-drills approach.”
There's a video of it here
Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not
By SUSAN SAULNY
MARINE ON ST. CROIX, Minn. — From the hallway, Abby Brown’s sixth-grade classroom in a little school here about an hour northeast of Minneapolis has the look of the usual one, with an American flag up front and children’s colorful artwork decorating the walls.
But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the country, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown’s class do not have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget all class long if they want.
And they do.
On one recent morning, while 11-year-old Nick Raboin had his eye on his math problems, Ms. Brown was noticing that he preferred to shift his weight from one foot to the other as he figured out his fractions. She also knew that his classmate Roxy Cotter liked to stand more than sit. And Brett Leick is inclined to lean on a high stool and swing his right foot under a desk that is near chest level. Helps with concentration, he and Ms. Brown say.
The children in Ms. Brown’s class, and in some others at Marine Elementary School and additional schools nearby, are using a type of adjustable-height school desk, allowing pupils to stand while they work, that Ms. Brown designed with the help of a local ergonomic furniture company two years ago. The stand-up desk’s popularity with children and teachers spread by word of mouth from this small town to schools in Wisconsin, across the St. Croix River. Now orders for the desks are being filled for districts from North Carolina to California.
“Sometimes when I’m supertired, I sit,” Nick said. “But most of the time I like to stand.”
The stand-up desks come with swinging footrests, and with adjustable stools allowing children to switch between sitting and standing as their moods dictate.
“At least you can wiggle when you want to,” said Sarah Langer, 12.
With multiple classrooms filled with stand-up desks, Marine Elementary finds itself at the leading edge of an idea that experts say continues to gain momentum in education: that furniture should be considered as seriously as instruction, particularly given the rise in childhood obesity and the decline in physical education and recess.
Dr. James A. Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, advocates what he calls “activity-permissive” classrooms, including stand-up desks.
“Having many children sit in a classroom isn’t the craziest idea, but look at how children have changed,” Dr. Levine said of the sedentary lives of many. “We also have to change, to meet their needs.”
Teachers in Minnesota and Wisconsin say they know from experience that the desks help give children the flexibility they need to expend energy and, at the same time, focus better on their work rather than focusing on how to keep still.
Researchers should soon know whether they can confirm those calorie-burning and scholastic benefits. Two studies under way at the University of Minnesota are using data collected from Ms. Brown’s classroom and others in Minnesota and Wisconsin that are using the new desks. The pupils being studied are monitored while using traditional desks as well, and the researchers are looking for differences in physical activity and academic achievement.
“We can’t say for sure that this has an impact on those two things, but we’re hypothesizing that they may,” said Beth A. Lewis of the School of Kinesiology, or movement science, at the University of Minnesota. “I think we’re so used to the traditional classroom it’s taken a while for people to start thinking outside the box. I think it’s just a matter of breaking the mold.”
While adult-size workstations that allow for standing are commonplace, options for young students are not, and until now, data on the educational effect of movement in the classroom have been scant. But at Marine Elementary, the principal, Lynn Bormann, feels as if she need not wait for the research results.
“We just know movement is good for kids,” Ms. Bormann said. “We can measure referrals to the office, sick days, whatever it might be. Teachers are seeing positive things.”
Marine Elementary lies in a small, fitness-minded, high-achieving school district where experimentation is encouraged. Ms. Bormann bought the desks with money from several grants awarded to the school, which is now in its second full year of using them.
Ms. Brown says she got the idea for the stand-up desks after 20 years of teaching in which she watched children struggle to contain themselves at small hard desks, and after reading some of Dr. Levine’s work.
“As an option,” she said, “it gives students choices, and they feel empowered. It’s not anything to force on anybody. Teachers have to do what fits their comfort level. But this makes sense to me.”
At Somerset Middle School in nearby Somerset, Wis., the children in Pam Seekel’s fifth-grade class rotate in their use of both traditional and stand-up desks.
“At a stand-up desk,” Ms. Seekel said, “I’ve never seen students with their heads down, ever. It helps with being awake, if they can stand, it seems. And for me as a teacher, I can stand at their level to help them. I’m not bent over. I can’t think of one reason why a classroom teacher wouldn’t want these.”
Pat Reisenger, director of the Education Minnesota Foundation, a teachers’ union arm that awarded Marine Elementary its first grant to buy stand-up desks, is eagerly awaiting the results of the studies.
The new desks have “become something, to be honest, of a fad,” Ms. Reisenger said.
“We’re talking about furniture here,” she said, “plain old furniture. If it’s that simple, if it turns out to have the positive impacts everyone hopes for, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”
On a similar note, an article about the importance of recess. Would you believe, I can't recall having recess at all in elementary school? (Except in the 5th grade, when I went to a different school) I wonder sometimes if my memory is just flawed.
The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess
By TARA PARKER-POPE
The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.
New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics studied the links between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children age 8 and 9. Those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. Although disadvantaged children were more likely to be denied recess, the association between better behavior and recess time held up even after researchers controlled for a number of variables, including sex, ethnicity, public or private school and class size.
The lead researcher, Dr. Romina M. Barros, a pediatrician and an assistant clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said the findings were important because many schools did not view recess as essential to education.
“Sometimes you need data published for people at the educational level to start believing it has an impact,” she said. “We should understand that kids need that break because the brain needs that break.”
And many children are not getting that break. In the Pediatrics study, 30 percent were found to have little or no daily recess. Another report, from a children’s advocacy group, found that 40 percent of schools surveyed had cut back at least one daily recess period.
Also, teachers often punish children by taking away recess privileges. That strikes Dr. Barros as illogical. “Recess should be part of the curriculum,” she said. “You don’t punish a kid by having them miss math class, so kids shouldn’t be punished by not getting recess.”
Last month, Harvard researchers reported in The Journal of School Health that the more physical fitness tests children passed, the better they did on academic tests. The study, of 1,800 middle school students, suggests that children can benefit academically from physical activity during gym class and recess.
A small study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder last year found that walks outdoors appeared to improve scores on tests of attention and concentration. Notably, children who took walks in natural settings did better than those who walked in urban areas, according to the report, published online in August in The Journal of Attention Disorders. The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better.
Andrea Faber Taylor, a child environment and behavior researcher at the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, says other research suggests that all children, not just those with attention problems, can benefit from spending time in nature during the school day. In another study of children who live in public housing, girls who had access to green courtyards scored better on concentration tests than those who did not.
The reason may be that the brain uses two forms of attention. “Directed” attention allows us to concentrate on work, reading and tests, while “involuntary” attention takes over when we’re distracted by things like running water, crying babies, a beautiful view or a pet that crawls onto our lap.
Directed attention is a limited resource. Long hours in front of a computer or studying for a test can leave us feeling fatigued. But spending time in natural settings appears to activate involuntary attention, giving the brain’s directed attention time to rest.
“It’s pretty clear that all human beings experience attentional fatigue,” Dr. Faber Taylor said. “Our attention has to be restored from that fatigue, and there is a growing body of research evidence that nature is one way that seems particularly effective at doing it.”
Playtime and nature time are important not only for learning but also for health and development.
Young rats denied opportunities for rough-and-tumble play develop numerous social problems in adulthood. They fail to recognize social cues and the nuances of rat hierarchy; they aren’t able to mate. By the same token, people who play as children “learn to handle life in a much more resilient and vital way,” said Dr. Stuart Brown, the author of the new book “Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul” (Avery).
Dr. Brown, a psychiatrist in Carmel Valley, Calif., has collected more than 6,000 “play histories” from human subjects. The founder of the National Institute for Play, he works with educators and legislators to promote the importance of preserving playtime in schools. He calls play “a fundamental biological process.” “From my viewpoint, it’s a major public health issue,” he said. “Teachers feel like they’re under huge pressures to get academic excellence to the exclusion of having much fun in the classroom. But playful learning leads to better academic success than the skills-and-drills approach.”
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 12:51 am (UTC)I have punished Elementary School students by taking away some recess time, but I don't think it was a problem. I took one minute from the entire class and a second minute from the worst offenders (about a half dozen students). It was enough to make them pay some attention (every time they were particularly bad, I made a tick mark on the board and five of those meant they'd lose a minute of recess). They started behaving much better once I started doing that. Taking away an entire recess period though is often a bad idea and can set up a bad downward cycle.
I think with any punishment method, you need to look at whether it is working. If it's working, you shouldn't need to use it often.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:17 am (UTC)2. Besides, most commenters to this article describe having a free lunch and one or two additional recesses every day.
3. I think with any punishment method, you need to look at whether it is working. If it's working, you shouldn't need to use it often.
THIS. I keep telling people, it's not about who can be more punitive, it's about which method gets better results.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:32 am (UTC)Second, I just don't believe in punishment for the sake of making people feel bad or hurting them. I do think it is sometimes emotionally satisfying to get some form of retribution, but I don't think it's actually productive. I do believe in restraining dangerous people and in shaping people into behaving better. But many people are simply not happy unless they feel that someone who did something wrong has suffered in some way they consider to be proportional to what they did wrong. So, even if you have a method that causes someone to become good and never do a bad thing again they may be upset if the person doesn't also suffer.
If you could fix a bad person by giving them ice cream and they'd be both good and happy forevermore many people would hate that.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:32 am (UTC)people think that just because something seems undesirable it's a punishment, but it's hard to remember that's not always the case.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:53 am (UTC)Positive reinforcement is providing something to encourage that behavior.
But people tend to say "negative reinforcement" when they mean "punishment" because "negative reinforcement" just sounds so much more sciencey than the plain old word "punishment". Or because they don't want to have some of the connotations of "punishment" but they still mean they're trying to decrease the behavior.
I like a bit of operant conditioning, because it's a powerful tool. It's also great with many animals. I don't like to rely on it too heavily with children because usually you want not only to change their behavior, but to shape their attitudes toward the behavior. Which doesn't mean throwing operant conditioning out the window, but it does mean you don't want the reinforcements or the punishments to be much more than is absolutely necessary. Usually you want the child to grow to want to behave in that way, not to just want to behave in that way when they may get caught or when there is a reward dangling in front of them.
But still, when you've got a class of kids you have to do something to keep it from getting too disruptive to teach. That doesn't benefit anyone. And it's not like I was whipping them or anything.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:02 am (UTC)So if the parents ever called you on it you could safely say you were using positive reinforcement and thus use accurate language to confuse and befuddle them!
If you could fix a bad person by giving them ice cream and they'd be both good and happy forevermore many people would hate that.
I have many mean things to say about that attitude, but for politeness' sake I'll shush.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:32 am (UTC)And yes, somebody probably has written a story about it. Several stories. Some of them probably don't even involve Harry Potter, Snape, and the rest of the Hogwarts crew at all! (I've been scarred. BADLY.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:44 am (UTC)Now I'm going for a masters in SPED but I did an internship program where I took MABA classes...and damned if they weren't the most boring, repetitive things on the planet...which, of course, is the whole damn point! ;)
I love to watch shows like supernanny sometimes when they talk about "punishing" their kids...without even realizing that they're totally feeding into the kids' actions which are maintained by attention, or escape from certain activities, etc. If I can see it in a 2 second clip, why can't you figure it out??
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:56 am (UTC)But yeah, I think most people have heard that sometimes kids will act up just to get attention, and you'd think it'd be something they especially look out for.
There's also the theory that caring for kids eats your brain.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 05:10 am (UTC)That said, besides occasionally playing King's Court when we had access to a ball, and a brief marbles fad, recess just meant sitting and reading for me rather playing or exercising, and at most of the schools, the only nature we had was the weeds in the cracks of the pavement. The break was still much appreciated, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 03:33 pm (UTC)And I had recess in PA elementary school, but not from K-(most of) 3rd grade in the Staten Island school I attended. Does Ana have recess there? Seth does here, and so does Topher in his Head Start (they have a running room there also, for when its too cold and the extra hyper kids (mainly Topher every. single. day.) still need to run around, lol.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 12:51 am (UTC)I have punished Elementary School students by taking away some recess time, but I don't think it was a problem. I took one minute from the entire class and a second minute from the worst offenders (about a half dozen students). It was enough to make them pay some attention (every time they were particularly bad, I made a tick mark on the board and five of those meant they'd lose a minute of recess). They started behaving much better once I started doing that. Taking away an entire recess period though is often a bad idea and can set up a bad downward cycle.
I think with any punishment method, you need to look at whether it is working. If it's working, you shouldn't need to use it often.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:17 am (UTC)2. Besides, most commenters to this article describe having a free lunch and one or two additional recesses every day.
3. I think with any punishment method, you need to look at whether it is working. If it's working, you shouldn't need to use it often.
THIS. I keep telling people, it's not about who can be more punitive, it's about which method gets better results.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:32 am (UTC)Second, I just don't believe in punishment for the sake of making people feel bad or hurting them. I do think it is sometimes emotionally satisfying to get some form of retribution, but I don't think it's actually productive. I do believe in restraining dangerous people and in shaping people into behaving better. But many people are simply not happy unless they feel that someone who did something wrong has suffered in some way they consider to be proportional to what they did wrong. So, even if you have a method that causes someone to become good and never do a bad thing again they may be upset if the person doesn't also suffer.
If you could fix a bad person by giving them ice cream and they'd be both good and happy forevermore many people would hate that.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:32 am (UTC)people think that just because something seems undesirable it's a punishment, but it's hard to remember that's not always the case.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:53 am (UTC)Positive reinforcement is providing something to encourage that behavior.
But people tend to say "negative reinforcement" when they mean "punishment" because "negative reinforcement" just sounds so much more sciencey than the plain old word "punishment". Or because they don't want to have some of the connotations of "punishment" but they still mean they're trying to decrease the behavior.
I like a bit of operant conditioning, because it's a powerful tool. It's also great with many animals. I don't like to rely on it too heavily with children because usually you want not only to change their behavior, but to shape their attitudes toward the behavior. Which doesn't mean throwing operant conditioning out the window, but it does mean you don't want the reinforcements or the punishments to be much more than is absolutely necessary. Usually you want the child to grow to want to behave in that way, not to just want to behave in that way when they may get caught or when there is a reward dangling in front of them.
But still, when you've got a class of kids you have to do something to keep it from getting too disruptive to teach. That doesn't benefit anyone. And it's not like I was whipping them or anything.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:02 am (UTC)So if the parents ever called you on it you could safely say you were using positive reinforcement and thus use accurate language to confuse and befuddle them!
If you could fix a bad person by giving them ice cream and they'd be both good and happy forevermore many people would hate that.
I have many mean things to say about that attitude, but for politeness' sake I'll shush.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:32 am (UTC)And yes, somebody probably has written a story about it. Several stories. Some of them probably don't even involve Harry Potter, Snape, and the rest of the Hogwarts crew at all! (I've been scarred. BADLY.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:44 am (UTC)Now I'm going for a masters in SPED but I did an internship program where I took MABA classes...and damned if they weren't the most boring, repetitive things on the planet...which, of course, is the whole damn point! ;)
I love to watch shows like supernanny sometimes when they talk about "punishing" their kids...without even realizing that they're totally feeding into the kids' actions which are maintained by attention, or escape from certain activities, etc. If I can see it in a 2 second clip, why can't you figure it out??
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:56 am (UTC)But yeah, I think most people have heard that sometimes kids will act up just to get attention, and you'd think it'd be something they especially look out for.
There's also the theory that caring for kids eats your brain.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 05:10 am (UTC)That said, besides occasionally playing King's Court when we had access to a ball, and a brief marbles fad, recess just meant sitting and reading for me rather playing or exercising, and at most of the schools, the only nature we had was the weeds in the cracks of the pavement. The break was still much appreciated, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 03:33 pm (UTC)And I had recess in PA elementary school, but not from K-(most of) 3rd grade in the Staten Island school I attended. Does Ana have recess there? Seth does here, and so does Topher in his Head Start (they have a running room there also, for when its too cold and the extra hyper kids (mainly Topher every. single. day.) still need to run around, lol.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:56 pm (UTC)