In my work as a consultant, I wish I had thought of using a behaviour chart like this with educators. What better way for them to see and feel the impact that this approach can have on student engagement and motivation. Imagine if at your next staff meeting your administrator called you out in front of all of your colleagues and made you move your clip for scrolling through email on your cell phone, digging through your purse, or talking to the educator seated next to you. And imagine how much more upset you'd be if your transgressions were actually work related - checking email for a field trip confirmation, looking for a pen to write notes during the meeting, talking to your colleague about the meeting content!
Behaviour charts do not help educators to determine the underlying causes of behaviour. Instead of dealing with the problem, we are only reacting to the symptom. If we don't address the cause, the 'problem behaviour' is most likely going to continue to happen. So the child who is rummaging through their desk when the teacher is teaching a lesson - maybe they are looking for a pencil because it helps them to remember instructions if they write them down, maybe they need a fidget toy in their hands to help them listen - we'll never know if we don't ask.
And while behaviour charts may shame students into compliance, they do not help students to develop skills they need to be successful in school and life, like self-regulation. Often, instead of focusing on the behaviour, the use of behaviour charts focuses on the child. The child who is frequently moving their stick into yellow or red is seen by their classmates and, often in their own mind, as 'the bad kid.'
See Aviva Dunsiger's great blog post on this idea: When and How Do Perceptions Matter?
For the child who is seldom asked to move their clip, having to do so can impact their learning for the rest of the day.
So what can educators do instead of using behaviour charts?
- when thinking about student behaviour, ask 'why and why now?' All behaviour is communication, so what is the student telling us with this behaviour?
- reframe behaviour: Is this stress behaviour or misbehaviour?
- keep conversations about behaviours private, when possible
- build community in the classroom rather than compliance. A great resource for this is Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community by Alfie Kohn or the articles listed below
- help students to develop skills of self-regulation in age appropriate ways. What does calm feel like? How does being calm help them learn? What helps them to feel calm? What are classroom appropriate ways that they can use to manage their energy states, emotions, behaviour and attention in ways that are socially acceptable in the school and classroom context?
- read and reflect on our own practice.
Here are some articles that discuss why to remove behaviour charts as well some alternatives to use instead. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments or to send them to me in a DM.
Tear Down Your Behaviour Chart by L. Jung and D. Smith, Educational Leadership, September 2018
Death to the Behaviour Chart! 3 Reasons to Resist the Lure of Punishments and Rewards - Education Week Teacher
5 Reasons I'm Against Behaviour Charts (What I Do Instead) from WeAreTeachers.com
When Behaviour Charts Don't Work, Throw Them Out from Edutopia
Step Away From The Stickers - a previous blog post I wrote for the MEHRIT Centre
I quit using those very early on. It just made the behaviour worse. And I felt like a jerk for shaming a child when I also believed he couldn’t help it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response Lisa. Many educators have said the same - using the behaviour charts just felt wrong but they're not sure what to do instead.
DeleteFrom Aviva Dunsiger (via Twitter)
ReplyDeleteOh Lisa, I totally love this post! Thanks for linking it to one of my previous MEHRIT Centre ones. This makes me think of a presentation that my teaching partner and I did for a group of administrators at the Hamilton-Wentworth Principals' Conference. One principal mentioned that if he shared our scenarios with staff, the teachers would likely identify the adult behaviour as "stress behaviour," but if the same behaviours were attributed to kids, they might first see them as "misbehaviour." Does seeing this behaviour through an adult lens help us see kids differently? I feel that maybe this is what the principal was also trying to accomplish.
From Facebook Grade 3 Teachers (Ontario) page:
ReplyDeleteSusan Kirton Middleton I used token economies and behaviour charts at the beginning of my career but was never really comfortable with them - I knew that shaming a child was unlikely to result in “good” behaviour and bribing them doesn’t have lasting effects either. I’ve morphed to trying to create a class culture that encourages pro-social behaviour and helps kids feel the intrinsic rewards of appropriate behaviour.
I’ve reduced the number of classroom expectations to 4 - be responsible, be respectful, be reliable and be ready - but acknowledge there are times we (me included) slip up on them sometimes, despite our best intentions and talk about how to fix it when we do. We celebrate when we’ve (or certain individuals have) been outstanding (that starts small - “Did you notice that when we walked down the hallway respectfully, not one classroom shut their door because we weren’t distracting them! We know how annoying that can be when other classes don’t respect when we’re learning, so it’s good to know we didn’t make others feel that way!” but it becomes “bigger” as the kids understand the expectations more fully.)
When expectations aren’t followed, that’s usually a private conversation with me where we discuss not only the slip up but try to explore why whatever happened occurred.
We also use zones of regulation to have a common vocab to discuss how we’re feeling.
This has all served me much better than behaviour charts and the like BUT I encountered a student that it just simply didn’t work with this year, which is problematic and continuing to bother me. I’ve had to work hard for buy-in from some kids before but this was another level entirely and I never did find what would help her, sadly.
From Facebook Grade 3 Teachers (Ontario) page:
ReplyDeleteLaura Kathleen i haven't tried this yet myself, but I have seen a teacher use a behaviour journal. The students write in it daily and also as they feel they need it (after an event of some sort). They need to: identify what happened, their response, how they felt (emotional vocabulary and/or emoji's), and what they might do next time. I believe it was a daily thing to do for the first few months to get students into the habit, but then became an "as needed" resource. The idea was to get students to reflect on the connections between their feelings and behaviours and to think about their choices for responding. During community circle, students could choose to share their ideas if there was a specific issue in the class, and role-play the situation for the group.