Punishment and Rewards in the Classroom

So often as teachers, we find ourselves being upset by the behaviors and actions of our students. It’s not academic behaviors and actions I speak of here, but social ones. We could have the most academically gifted student in the world, and still have a skewed opinion of him or her because of the personality that they express. It’s amazing how poor social behavior can so negatively affect our opinions of a student. Of course we are not alone in feeling this way, the student’s peers see it too. Through exemplary behavior, we can help these socially defunct students learn new, more suitable behaviors. 

As teachers, a large part of what makes our job difficult is motivating our students to perform. Whether we are encouraging them to exhibit appropriate social and classroom behavior or strong academic skills, it’s an enormous task that is nowhere near as simple as it may sound. It draws many aspects of the child’s life, personality, and home environment under the microscope for examination to discover what the child will respond to. It is important to identify the demographic of our students and the families to which they belong. It requires skill and knowledge on the part of the teacher to not just do what is effective, but what is best for the child. Personally, I wish for my students to not only be able to function, but excel at what they do both socially and academically. The difficulty comes into play when attempting to construct a plan to do so. As teachers responsible for an operational classroom management policy, it is worthwhile to us to analyze and implement the strategies that work to assist our students in functioning on a social level.