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My son spent much of his first three years at school under a black cloud. I’m talking of course about a ’school behaviour system’, in other words, teachers trying to get children to do what they want them to do. Jamie would often not do what his teachers wanted him to do.
“…His name, along with the names of the other children in his class, was printed on to card and laminated and a piece of velcro was attached to the back. Three pictures were similarly printed; a sunshine, a sunshine poking out from behind a cloud and a black cloud. On the first day of the year, all the names were stuck on a felt covered board under the sunshine, because all children are good and the sunshine is a good place to be. If a child stepped out of line then their name would be moved underneath the sun and cloud. If they offended again, their name would then be moved under the black cloud. The black cloud is a bad place to be, it is cold and dark there. The child would then have to display some consistently good behaviour in order to be moved back towards the sunshine.
“….There were two names under the black cloud, my son’s and another little boys. Everyone else’s names were basking in the sunshine. After that I checked the board most days. The state of affairs mainly remained the same. Jamie came to school in the morning, four years old, full of joy and his name would be under the cloud, from the day before. At the end of the day it would normally not have made any progress towards better weather.
”From ‘Under a Black Cloud – shame-based behaviour systems in schools’ (read full post here: http://www.sallydonovan.net/2012/01/06/under-a-black-cloud-why-i-dont-like-shame-based-behaviour-systems-in-schools/ )
From an excellent blog by an adoptive mother of traumatised two children. I’ve lost a lot of the last two days reading through this blog, must read for educators. Gives a good idea of what’s going on with some of our students outside the classroom and what may have happened to the before they reached us. (I’m sure we’ve all met a Jamie)
GWALP adds: Indeed, this was a good read. Not all classroom/behavior management systems work for all students. At the high school level, this type of public shaming is completely ineffective and often counterproductive.
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Unfortunately, I see or read about too many of these “behaviour management systems” that are failing our students - especially those with special education needs. It frustrates me that this is considered a behaviour management technique (like that’s a good thing) when I can see that a concept was (mis)applied by someone not up to date on behaviour change, behaviour analysis. If a tool such as this is meant to function as punishment - it is working at punishing school attendance, co-operation and being ready to learn while doing very little to motivate a student to work with their teacher and learn skills. Behind every challenging behaviour is a purpose and thus a missing skill on the part of the learner. How does labeling one’s behaviour under the category of black cloud of shame promote learning and skill development?
Behaviour change is a process and will not occur with just a sticker chart or a sun/cloud picture (as if those hold relevance). Shame and punishment-based systems teach students what to avoid and if teachers/EAs/support staff are associated with these system, the student ultimately avoids (or tries to escape from) them.
And finally, all of these poorly applied and mismanaged behaviour management systems give behaviourism (and ultimately B.F. Skinner) a bad rap. I’m pretty sure Skinner never intended classroom management and learning to look like this; and neither do behaviourists like me.
(via girlwithalessonplan)
