Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS's K teacher uses a green-yellow-red clip system, and my DS is one of the group of boys who moves his clip to yellow most days and to red occasionally. Sometimes it is most or all of the class, sometimes just the group of boys. The reasons don't seem arbitrary, when DS moves his clip it's for a good reason (usually talking during quiet time or touching/playing with another student during class time).

With a young 5 year old and a full day of K, DS is not a model of behavior and the clips give him a visual reminder of when his behavior is getting off track. I don't think it's wrong to remind the more immature children that behavior is important. My SIL tells me that her DS is a perfectly-behaved student who gets stressed by bad behavior from others, more like your DS. Learning to tolerate or ignore other's behavior or misbehavior is another form of maturity.

I love it when parents fall for that 'visual reminder of behavior' line. In order for that to be true, the child would first have to be able to distinguish between "my behavior is bad" and "I am bad." But they can't. So a clip on red is a visual reminder that your child is a bad person. That's basic child psychology, which most teachers don't seem to know anything about. Gah, ignorant people piss me off.

Child development would be half-day kindergarten and a more appropriate level of expectation. Since we don't have that, I don't have a problem with a fairly applied discipline system, visual or nonvisual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS's K teacher uses a green-yellow-red clip system, and my DS is one of the group of boys who moves his clip to yellow most days and to red occasionally. Sometimes it is most or all of the class, sometimes just the group of boys. The reasons don't seem arbitrary, when DS moves his clip it's for a good reason (usually talking during quiet time or touching/playing with another student during class time).

With a young 5 year old and a full day of K, DS is not a model of behavior and the clips give him a visual reminder of when his behavior is getting off track. I don't think it's wrong to remind the more immature children that behavior is important. My SIL tells me that her DS is a perfectly-behaved student who gets stressed by bad behavior from others, more like your DS. Learning to tolerate or ignore other's behavior or misbehavior is another form of maturity.

I love it when parents fall for that 'visual reminder of behavior' line. In order for that to be true, the child would first have to be able to distinguish between "my behavior is bad" and "I am bad." But they can't. So a clip on red is a visual reminder that your child is a bad person. That's basic child psychology, which most teachers don't seem to know anything about. Gah, ignorant people piss me off.

Anonymous wrote:My mentor teacher used something like this and it seemed to work well for her--she had good overall classroom management. However, I tried it one year when I had a particularly challenging class, and I hated it. I have since found other tools that I find to be much more effective--especially since taking a Responsive Classrooms class.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten or first?

Yes, those stupid charts are designed to suck the souls out of boys and do nothing but make them hate school or think they are bad at school.

Fourth!!!! My son doesn't even get in trouble, but he hates seeing his friends in trouble every day and tells me how mean the teacher is. (Op)

Maybe his friends shouldn't misbehave.

They don't, which is why the chart is useless.

Clearly they do, or they wouldn't be racking up the demerits.

Ok, lazy teacher with poor classroom management skills who uses clip chart, you're right.

Nope. Just a parent who's witnessed some hellions in my time. The problem isn't the teacher -- it's usually the boys who don't have any discipline at home.

This is an overly simplistic view. The brain development of 4-7 year olds is very complex, especially among boys. If you dig into the literature/talk to neuroscience professionals, you would not make such blanket, judgmental statements.

Anonymous wrote:My DS's K teacher uses a green-yellow-red clip system, and my DS is one of the group of boys who moves his clip to yellow most days and to red occasionally. Sometimes it is most or all of the class, sometimes just the group of boys. The reasons don't seem arbitrary, when DS moves his clip it's for a good reason (usually talking during quiet time or touching/playing with another student during class time).

With a young 5 year old and a full day of K, DS is not a model of behavior and the clips give him a visual reminder of when his behavior is getting off track. I don't think it's wrong to remind the more immature children that behavior is important. My SIL tells me that her DS is a perfectly-behaved student who gets stressed by bad behavior from others, more like your DS. Learning to tolerate or ignore other's behavior or misbehavior is another form of maturity.

Anonymous wrote:My son's teacher uses this and he tells me that the teacher is constantly having kids move their clips down the chart. And for the most minor things that you wouldn't associate with bad behavior. I asked him if he has to move his down frequently because I haven't heard anything bad from the teacher and he said he doesn't, but he's had to a few times. He told me of three occasions and only one of them seemed like a legitimate reason to be reminded of class rules. He was talking to his neighbor when he should have been sitting quietly.

He said the same kids are moving their clips every day, and that some days, almost everyone has to move the clips down the chart. He describes the teacher and the classroom environment in such a negative and depressing way. He also claims that the teacher is mean. I don't know what to tell him other than to make sure he's aware of what's expected of him in class and to do his best. I also told him that I'm not hearing anything bad from the teacher, so he must be doing alright, but he hates going to school because of the "mean" teacher. The worst part is that he seems to think that she moves clips just for things that are minor annoyances to her.

They didn't have this behavior chart at his old school. I'm hoping his teacher next year will NOT have this approach to classroom management. I guess I'm venting, but also wondering if many other elementary schools are using this as a method of classroom management. It seems like it's very distracting to my son because he's so focused on that stupid chart!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten or first?

Yes, those stupid charts are designed to suck the souls out of boys and do nothing but make them hate school or think they are bad at school.

Fourth!!!! My son doesn't even get in trouble, but he hates seeing his friends in trouble every day and tells me how mean the teacher is. (Op)

Maybe his friends shouldn't misbehave.

They don't, which is why the chart is useless.

Clearly they do, or they wouldn't be racking up the demerits.

Ok, lazy teacher with poor classroom management skills who uses clip chart, you're right.

Nope. Just a parent who's witnessed some hellions in my time. The problem isn't the teacher -- it's usually the boys who don't have any discipline at home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten or first?

Yes, those stupid charts are designed to suck the souls out of boys and do nothing but make them hate school or think they are bad at school.

Fourth!!!! My son doesn't even get in trouble, but he hates seeing his friends in trouble every day and tells me how mean the teacher is. (Op)

Maybe his friends shouldn't misbehave.

They don't, which is why the chart is useless.

Clearly they do, or they wouldn't be racking up the demerits.

Ok, lazy teacher with poor classroom management skills who uses clip chart, you're right.

Nope. Just a parent who's witnessed some hellions in my time. The problem isn't the teacher -- it's usually the boys who don't have any discipline at home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten or first?

Yes, those stupid charts are designed to suck the souls out of boys and do nothing but make them hate school or think they are bad at school.

Fourth!!!! My son doesn't even get in trouble, but he hates seeing his friends in trouble every day and tells me how mean the teacher is. (Op)

Maybe his friends shouldn't misbehave.

They don't, which is why the chart is useless.

Clearly they do, or they wouldn't be racking up the demerits.

Ok, lazy teacher with poor classroom management skills who uses clip chart, you're right.