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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pretty much the only punishment teachers are allowed to use is taking away recess, and the parents absolutely howl if you do that because “it’s not developmentally appropriate for kids full of energy” so I’d love to know what punishment they’d accept for their darlings. They are terribly disruptive and the parents just excuse it with “they’re social and love talking with their friends” provided that the friends are the right ones from the good neighborhood.[/quote]

I’m envious of any teacher that is allowed to take away recess. 
Even when I started teaching in public school 20 years ago, we weren’t allowed to take away recess 
Teachers truly have their hands tied in trying to deal with misbehavior.  
It’s for this reason, along with parents like the OP I walked away from teaching without a means of earning a comparable income. [/quote]

I'm a retired teacher and a mom, and taking away recess as a way to control the classroom is idiotic. Recess is often the one thing that keeps a lot of these kids from misbehaving, especially in the early grades. It's not a reward for good behavior, it's an essential part of the day.

A lot of kids don't even like recess, but they need it.

If you want to use rewards or denial of rewards for classroom management, you have to build it into the structure of your classroom. I've had kids earn things like a Friday treat with a week of good behavior in a specific area. That can be a good way to reinforce rules around a specific activity, like lining up (which is such a PITA with elementary kids).

But taking away what is often their one opportunity during the day to run around and be really, really physical is not going to get you better behavior in the long run. It might get you compliance in the moment (maybe) but in the long run it will get worse. In fact, when I had classes that were more unruly than usual, I'd often look for ways to build in more outdoor time and more physical activity during the day -- I would have them do counting games on the field where they had to run to cones to count by 5s. Or we'd do short neighborhood walks to reinforce science lessons about plants or trees, or to collect observations for writing poems or stories. Getting kids out of their chairs and moving around, even for 10-15 minutes, often means a calmer, more attentive class in the longrun.

That's why teacher's aren't allowed to take away recess. Because it's a dumb practice. It's like a parent trying to control behavior by sending a kid to bed without dinner. They are just going to get hungrier and behave worse![/quote]

Nope. Your connect is what’s “idiotic.” Yes, I know everything you just spewed is the current psychobabble du jour. It’s still wrong.

I’m GenX. We moved around a lot. I attended MULTIPLE public schools in several states. Taking away recess *worked.* It happened, the kid didn’t like it and they changed their behavior so the consequence they didn’t like wouldn’t happen again. Now teachers can’t do that, lest they hurt the kid’s little fee-fees. Oh please.[/quote]

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