Withholding Recess as a Punishment

If you are a teacher in a school where children are lucky enough to get recess, I’d recommend that it not be used as a disciplinary tool. As tempting as it might be, don’t deny students that have misbehaved recess to punishment them. Now during my teaching career, I have to be honest, I didn’t always follow my own advice. But looking at what research says I know there are better ways of handling these issues. I now believe if you take away recess, you will be doing a disservice to your students. we will address some of them.

 After all, I found it’s usually one or two students that misbehave and to punish a whole class to me just isn’t a sound idea. It’s been my experience, that in very rare instances whereby the majority of the class misbehaves. Now if that’s the case then there’s something else at play here.

 First of all, Given the value of recess regarding a student’s physical and social development, and the need for periodic breaks from classroom instruction, using recess as punishment is really inappropriate.

 Instead of using recess as a punishment create a group agreement. When kids create their own rules, then they feel ownership to upholding those rules. As a class talk about what’s appropriate and what’s not. Ask your students to identify rules that the entire class should abide by. If every student agrees, write it on an anchor chart and post it in a conspicuous place. If someone disagrees, ask them why and discuss. When the list is complete have every student sign the rules. Now when a rule is broken, a quiet reminder from you and reiterate the fact that the class did agree on the rules will go a long way.

 Secondly, developing fun lessons will go a long way with respect to managing behavior.  When lessons are fun and engaging, students do not want to miss out. Give students ownership, ask interesting questions, let kids curiosity shine, and having discussions. Even play games with the kids, integrating the curriculum.

 And most importantly, Give your elementary students the tools to succeed. Everyone benefits from different learning environments. Provide these to help students. Let students teach and lead others. Provide quiet, friendly reminders to students who are working to change bad habits. Also try providing students a safe space to take a time out when they feel they need it. Trust the child.

 Try to help students develop self control, as they are young children, their interpersonal skills can be improved. Through stories and examples, teach calming techniques, such as counting backwards from 10 and visualizing. Have students practice in class either all together or individually. Then provide gentle reminders to students when they need to use self-control.  If a student is acting out, then it is time to find out why. Pull them aside and tell the student what you've observed. State the facts about what you saw, and heard. Let the student determine how they are feeling. Sometimes a simple conversation can lead to better behavior. Other times, you may need to note how the behavior is affecting their learning, or dig deeper by further questioning.

 While our educational system tells us that taking away something students look forward to is a way of teaching them a lesson, but in reality there are other ways to approach students that are misbehaving.

 Taking away recess has become common practice among teachers trying to rein in unruly students. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that found that 77 percent of school principals reported taking away recess as a punishment, while a 2006 study found 81.5 percent of schools allowed students to be excluded from recess. While teachers may think taking away recess is an effective way to punish students for bad behavior, recess plays an important role in children’s development. Research shows the value of recess: It gives kids a much-needed break from intense studying, teaches them social skills, encourages them to use their imagination, and allows them much needed exercise.

 So why is this practice so prevalent? In her work mentoring teachers, Olga Jarrett, a professor at the College of Education at Georgia State University  often hears teachers express frustration and a sense that they have few other options for controlling misbehavior in their classrooms. At one event where she discussed the importance of recess, a group of teachers from the same school asked, “What do we do? We give them silent lunch, and we keep them in at recess as punishment.”

 Now, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, recess plays a vital role in child development, benefitting children emotionally, socially, physically, and academically. The AAP believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child's development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons. In other words kids need recess, and recess should not be taken away from children to punish them for misbehavior or as punishment for not completing or incorrectly completing with their work.

 Again, this cannot be stressed enough. Recess is not a privilege. It is not a reward. Children should not have to earn recess, and they should not miss recess as a punishment. Because recess is such a vital part of a students' development, taking recess away from children makes as much sense as taking away math, reading, or spelling. It does not help them to become better students or better people. So, why are so many schools still using this form of punishment?

 Well, perhaps it's because it seems like a simple solution to unwanted behavior. The problem is that punishment is often less effective in correcting behavior than other forms of discipline. In the case of recess, this punishment is less effective because kids need recess in order to decompress, socialize, and get the wiggles out so that they can focus and behave better in class.

 Another possible reason schools take away recess is that teachers are operating with limited time and options. Creative discipline can take time away from instruction and time away from other students.

 So, how do teachers change or improve student behavior without taking away recess? There are no simple solutions, but one key is the support of administrators and parents. Administrators must work with teachers to come up with alternative forms of discipline and ways to improve student behavior (perhaps even offering more recess time). Schools must also keep the lines of communication with parents open. When parents know what teachers expect and how their children might be falling short of these expectations, they can help by taking action at home. It's unlikely that taking a child's recess away will result in a positive change in behavior. But taking way his television or electronics might.

 Childhood is fleeting, and the amount of time children have to play during their day has decreased dramatically in recent years. Current trends in education have forced many schools to severely limit or is some cases eliminate recess. I don’t believe that this is right, and it certainly isn't in the best interest of children. It might take some time to restore recess to its rightful place in the curriculum, but the first step toward restoring recess is to acknowledge that it is not a privilege reserved only for the well behaved.

 But the question is, is there a way we could utilize recess time to make the students more disciplined and take away the idea of punishing students? I think that this is a very important point.

 Make a plan:

 If a student’s behavior is consistently an issue, it's time to get to the bottom of it! First ask the student what’s not working when the they are acting out? What are they trying to accomplish? Brainstorm things that could be done differently. Once you and the student agree on a plan, write it down.

 Children are like a piece of canvas and how they turn out in the future is our responsibility as parents and teachers. The best attributes are developed in the initial years of education.

 Lastly I would like to point out the co-relation of recess with socializing. Increased use and access to technology has allowed us to be connected to anyone in the world with the click of a mouse.

 Sure it sounds amazing but the practical reality is the effects are somewhat unfortunate. A study shows that increased use of electronic devices is damaging the social skills in children, they appear to be more shy when they have to interact with someone in person, the presentation and interpersonal skills either do not develop or they lose opportunities  because they do not know how to approach people.

 While shyness is considered cute in younger children, if not addressed with practice it could lead to awkward situations in the adult life, and especially when they are in college or have to prepare for an interview.

 Putting it all together, recess allows children to meet other kids and they learn how to approach people and how to talk and how they should be interacting with others depending on their age.

 Recess is also a great time for teachers and other school staff members to observe the students’ behavior and how they interact and socialize with others. 

Grading Practices

Grading is a cumbersome task for all teachers, but for new teachers it can be debilitating. We know we need to give timely and relevant feedback, and we know grading is important, but how can we make the process easier on ourselves? Grades reflect personal philosophy and human  psychology, as well as efforts to measure intellectual progress with standardized, objective criteria. Whatever your personal philosophy about grades are, their importance to your students means you must make a constant effort to be fair and reasonable while maintaining grading standards you can defend, if challenged. Grades cause a lot of distress for students and often seem to inhibit enthusiasm for learning for its own sake, but grades are a fact of life. They need not be counterproductive if students know what to expect.

We are going to break down few tips and strategies that will help struggling teachers to work out their grading and make things better!!

The first part of post will deal with [5] helpful tips with regards to good grading practices.

1.   The basic step for having a good grading practice is to PLAN THE WHOLE POLICY! Whatever the teacher is about to do, plan it, and, then do it! Make a plan for evaluating student work and stick to it. Establish evaluation procedures when the subject/course is in the planning stages. Something that would help the teacher further in the process is, if the teacher is working with assistants or colleagues, meet with them and decide how many and what kinds of evaluation methods to use. Then decide how the students' work should be graded and what proportion of the final mark each assignment, quiz, etc., will comprise. This is also the time to set out a policy for missed or failed work and late assignments.

2.   And, while investing yourself in the first step, keep in the mind the basic idea, not everything is to be graded! And, by that we mean, depending on the curriculum expectations for your school, you may be in a position to determine what is and what is not worth going in the gradebook. Use that power. It’s OK to not grade an assignment or to give credit for participation. This is very important as you have a life outside of teaching. Now folks, I would break down the grading situation as follows: I would focus grading primarily on summative assessments, things such as end of chapter, end of unit tests, quizzes, and STEM projects. Now things that need not be graded may include formative assessing, practice work, morning work and of course homework. Having said that, I would always review student work & homework to see where I’d need to reteach, and pull in small group instruction when appropriate. Those things that I did not grade, I’d simply put a check on the paper and file accordingly.

3.   Explain your plan and grading policy!

Yes, you need to do it, not only for your sake, but for the students to know how they are going to be awarded grades. Once your plan is in place, take the earliest opportunity to make students aware of your policies. Letting them know about how the grades are going to work will only make them more responsible.

Also take time in class to tell students what you expect from them and how you plan to measure their progress in achieving the goals of your class. Explain these goals and how you feel the evaluations, grading procedures and policies will help to achieve these goals and allow you to fairly evaluate their progress. Good planning and clear explanations will

prevent student confusion. Be clear about any consequences to grades that will result from absences, missed tests and quizzes, late assignments or violations of ethical conduct.

4.   Once the teacher has made himself/herself clear about the process of grading, then it is practically easy for the teacher to do the work. But, merely informing the students about the plan alone does not work. Keep students informed of their progress throughout the grading period. If a discrepancy exists between the grade a student thinks he or she has and the number in your grade book, resolve that discrepancy immediately.

5.   And, once the policy is set, then by all means Be Consistent! Make sure the policy applies equally to all students. Subjective adjustments during or after a reporting period are likely to cause confusion. Validate grades with an alternative assessment of learning, such as a pre/post-test or knowledge survey. Avoid testing on material other than what you teach or using grading methods other than those stated before hand.

Now those were [5] tips that can enhance your grading. But these alone are not enough for a teacher to be effective! So, now, we will be looking into [5] steps that will help a teacher make grading more effective.

1.   Create assignments that have clear goals and criteria for assessment. The better students understand what you’re asking them to do the more likely they’ll do it!

2.   Use different grading scales for different assignments. Grading scales include:

a.    letter grades with pluses and minuses (for papers, essays, essay exams, etc.)

b.   100-point numerical scale (for exams, certain types of projects, etc.)

c.    check +, check, check- (for quizzes, homework, response papers, quick reports or presentations, etc.)

d.   pass-fail or credit-no-credit (for preparatory work)

 3.   Limit your comments or notations so that your students can use them for further learning or improvement.

4.   Spend more time on guiding students in the process of doing work than on grading it.

5.   And as mentioned in the stages of planning, for each significant assignment, establish a grading schedule and stick to it.

Grading is not a process that has to be done for the sake of doing it. We really must try to understand the purpose for grading – and, that is nothing other than being able to give productive evaluation and feedback to the students. Now, while giving feedback to the students, have the following in mind!

1.   Use your comments to teach rather than to justify your grade,

focusing on what you’d most like students to address in future work.

2.   Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.

3.   Comment primarily on patterns — representative strengths and weaknesses.

4.   Avoid over-commenting or “picking apart” students’ work.

5.   In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students rather than provide answers for them.

When the teacher is more focused on bringing the best out of the student, and, when the student and parents find the same to be true, then it becomes totally easy for the teacher to award grades and feedback for improvement. This whole process of being available for the students is to be done with utmost care. The teacher has to be consistent in communicating with his/her students.  But regardless how much information we communicate about our grading policies, there might remain possibilities for the students to be confused. So, in order to minimize student complaints about grading, it would be helpful for the teacher to follow [4] things:

1.   Include your grading policies, procedures, and standards in your packet that you send home to parents at the beginning of the year.

2.   Avoid modifying your policies, including those on late work, once you’ve communicated them to students. Once things are set before the students, try to stick to it.

3.   For older students distribute your grading criteria to them at the beginning of the term and remind students of the relevant criteria when assigning and returning work.

4.   The most important step in grading and making students happy is by keeping in-class discussion of grades to a minimum, focusing rather on lesson or subject learning goals.

 Now, that the primary steps and general information regarding grading has been made clear. Let’s consider the Rubric as a means of grading. I think this is very powerful.  

 Now another great strategy for evaluating student work is by using Rubrics.

Establishing and discussing specific characteristics of success when an assignment is first distributed benefits both students and teachers.  Creating grading rubrics, or grids, is a typical way to do this. Having received the criteria with an assignment, students are able to work toward specific goals. Later, when they look at their grades, they can see at a glance the strengths and weaknesses of their work. Teachers are able to grade according to customized descriptive criteria that reflect the intention of a specific assignment and won't change according to the hour of night or the amount of effort a particular student has exhibited.

Rubrics can also save on grading time, as they allow teachers to detail comments on one or two elements and simply indicate ratings on others.

Finally, grading rubrics are invaluable in subjects that involve more than one teacher, as in team-taught or multi-sectioned courses, because they ensure that all teachers are measuring work by the same standards.

The process of creating a grading rubric takes a little time, but it is relatively simple. Let us have a brief walk through the [3] steps:

1.   Identify the Criteria.

The first step involved in creating assignment-specific rubrics is revisiting an assignment's intended outcomes. These objectives can be considered, prioritized, and re-worded to create a rubric's criteria. If, for example, you assign a literature review hoping students might become skilled at reducing complex texts down to pithy summaries, "concise summary" can be one of the grading criteria included in the rubric.

Take care to keep the list of criteria from becoming unwieldy; ten ranked items are usually the upper limit. In addition, to be usefully translated and used by students, criteria should be specific and descriptive. Criteria like "clear," "organized" and "interesting" don't mean much to students when they sit down to revise.

2.   Weigh Criteria

Once you have identified criteria, make decisions about their varying importance. Say, for example, you are teaching geography, and you’ve assigned an essay to help students become skilled at creating concrete and accurate observation-based descriptions, practiced in analyzing their data and in devising a land-use proposal, and able to create correctly-formatted, error-free prose. When creating a grading rubric for that assignment, you will need to decide on the relative weight of each criterion. Things like Is the error-free prose objective equal to the analysis objective?

3.   Describe Levels of Success.

When the criteria have been set, devise an assessment scale. Many teachers like to limit this section of the rubric to a three-point scale ("weak," "satisfactory," "strong"). Others may prefer to break this down into five or six levels, adding categories like "needs extensive revision"

or "outstanding”. Try to work out the levels, according to the kind of class and students you as the teacher has.

And, using this method teachers can help the students in a phenomenal way. Rather than questioning your reason for the assessment of each student’s assignment, you can take some of the mental work out of it. Did they do this? Check. Did they do that? Check. You’ll make grading easier for yourself by giving them solid feedback that you’ve already considered.

But, as we know, teachers can get busy and won’t have enough time at school to do the work. Papers can get piled up! Things can get out-of-control!!    And the tip to avoid such a situation is to not allow piling up happen in the first place.  This can be done by arranging a little of your routine!

 

Try not to let students’ ungraded work sit out on your desk: until you’re ready to grade, leave it in the file trays where kids turned it in. Messy piles accumulate so quickly! If you have a good filing system, it should take less than ten seconds to find any stack of ungraded student work in your filing trays. Avoid the paper trap, so there will be no more confusion about what’s already been entered into your electronic grade book, or what’s been graded and what hasn’t, etc. And, whenever the papers are taken home to be graded, have an organized file folder system for transporting and keeping track of papers. There can various folders that would help in sorting the papers like, class work, homework, and tests. Additional folders also can be helpful, for example: already graded—to be entered in your grade book, or what’s already been graded—to be filed, to review/redo with class, incomplete, make-up work, or to go home for that matter.

Don’t let papers go ungraded for more than a week, tops. This is easier said than done! However, more than once I have been in the middle of grading a tedious math worksheet when I realized I had already tested the kids on the material. What’s the point of grading the practice class work at that point?  It was too late for me to assess whether or not the kids were getting it, and because I never provided them feedback on how they did, it’s possible that a

number of them had used the assignment to practice incorrect strategies. It was a waste of time for me and for them.

I want to talk briefly about when to actually find the time to grade. For me personally, I’ve always made it a point to get to work early and I used that time to do some grading, also used my planning time, or some time after school to complete grading. Now staying a while after school may not be an viable option for some teachers because of picking up your children at daycare or attending other priorities. Another strategy that may also be of help to you is have certain days of the week that you dedicate just to grading—and then knock it out! My point I want to make here is that first year teachers, and those just fresh out of college need to strike a balance of teaching as well as your own hobbies, etc. Try to keep your grading papers at school. I have to admit I sometimes didn’t follow my own advice. But overall, taking papers home to grade should be in my opinion the exception and not the rule. Because you have a life outside of teaching, and I don’t want you to get burned out!

 

Everything that we have said and what we are expected to do, is to help our students. Grading is complicated and full of grey areas. Ultimately, when it comes down to brass tacks, there is no right or wrong way to grade your students as long as you hold them all to the same standards and use grades to foster growth.

While grades do not define your students or their abilities, they do have a direct impact on their lives. They can discourage them and lead to unwanted competitiveness in the classroom.

It is clear that grading does not have to be an issue that makes teachers dread it!

Teachers know the definition of busy better than most. Like I mentioned earlier, if you can report to work earlier and grade some, or during your planning time, or dedicate a certain day or days to stay after school to get it done that would be the thing to do, so that you can avoid taking a stack of papers home over the weekend.

To recap, every piece of paper does not need to be graded. I’d focus grading more on Summative Assessments—for example, like  end of a chapter or a unit tests, or quizzes (after a skill has been taught), and Cooperative learning or STEM projects. What need not be graded would be formative assessments, practice work, morning work, and of course homework—things along those lines. As far as homework goes, you don’t know if the child did it or the child received help. I hope that this has been helpful to you, and that you got some value out of this.  This is one of those topics that I wish was addressed in college.