{"id":5568,"date":"2020-02-28T10:26:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T15:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/?p=5568"},"modified":"2022-05-29T08:14:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T13:14:31","slug":"1164-praise-or-punish-for-better-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/28\/1164-praise-or-punish-for-better-behaviour\/","title":{"rendered":"#1164 Praise or Punish for Better Behaviour?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

He abruptly raised his hand as if to hit my lovely dog. My dog just looked at him, unsure what to think. My dog-walking, human acquaintance looked at me and said \u201cYou\u2019ve never hit your dog, have you?\u201d

\u201cNo need\u2026\u201d
There are two ways to raise a dog \u2013 either through praise or punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My first dog, trained with praise.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We got in a discussion about training dogs. He came from a farm background where discipline was instilled with a heavy hand. I had taken another path, decades ago, inspired by a book called \u201cTraining your Dog Positively.\u201d In a nutshell, it promoted praising positive behaviour in a big way while acknowledging challenges with brief but succinct and mild corrections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both our dogs were very well-behaved and could walk off leash by our side. The difference was his dog worked from a basis of fear – \u201cI better be good or I\u2019ll be scolded or hurt.\u201d My dog functioned based on positive reinforcement \u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s nice to me when I work well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dog #2 praise and support<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The two mindsets create vastly different beings \u2013 one is fearful, one is positive:
\u2022 Opening with positive expectations and intrinsically positive outcomes creates an atmosphere of wanting to perform well.
\u2022 Coming in with a \u201cDo this, or else!\u201d attitude creates a tougher environment resulting in less (positive) risk taking and community cohesiveness.

Extrapolate these two mindsets to the classroom and you create two different learning environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What positive reinforcement might look like:
\u2022 To help establish expectations and positive outcomes during transitions I offer drumming opportunities to students (and the whole class) when they transition quickly. The drumming creates a positive outlet for the whole class to work towards. See my drumming transitions featured in Professionally Speaking<\/a>, “Get Creative” on page 32-34.
\u2022 Praise positive behaviour publicly: I draw class attention to a display when it exceeds expectations – \u201cWow! I love how Djenane has organized this science project.\u201d
\u2022 Address missed expectations \/ poor performance privately, quickly and with support: Quietly at their desk \u201cHi Robin, I notice your science project is missing parts. Are you ok? What do you need to make this better?\u201d
\u2022 Praise positive changes, however small: \u201cThanks for getting your shoes in the right spot today!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The two dogs cast in clay by Carol Froimovitch<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, stronger corrections are needed but they should be brief and effective before returning to positive praise in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I saw an article sharing quantified studies that recognized the positive effects of praise and positive mindsets in teaching<\/a>.

The studies<\/a> saw significant effects of positive teachers in controlled studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Praise the positives publicly.
Manage the challenges quietly.<\/em>
That\u2019s good news for my dogs and for students in the classroom. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tweet He abruptly raised his hand as if to hit my lovely dog. My dog just looked at him, unsure what to think. My dog-walking, human acquaintance looked at me and said \u201cYou\u2019ve never hit your dog, have you?\u201d \u201cNo Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[326,318,330,329,327,328,76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5568"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5579,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568\/revisions\/5579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}