Schools - Rewarding bad behaviour

An interesting conversation I recently had with schoolchildren focussed on the incentive and reward schemes that some of the schools are employing.

There are prizes to be won and winning is achieved by the accrual of points which are awarded for 'improved' behaviour. The problem is that the well-behaved are excluded from effectively gaining points because there is no room for improvement and so those who are badly behaved are the beneficiaries, which is (of course) the intent!

One of the pupil bemoaned the fact that a fello pupil who punches someone on Monday can find themselves in 'internal exclusion' for the act and by not punching someone in the next lesson they attend, a point is awarded. In the next lesson the same child might be disruptive but when they next attend that teacher's class, if they behave well, they can achieve another point.

One child who has no absences told me that this meant a maximum of some thirty points but the lottery that yields ipods and other goodies requires something in excess of fifty points, a number that is generally outside the reach of the well-behaved.

Obviously the idea is that of controlling the more unruly elements with the promise of prizes but the real effect is to make these self same children benefit from their attitudes and actions. The problem is that this also penalises the well-behaved and leaves them feeling marginalised, disregarded, especially when the major time and focus of the teaching staff is the unruly element whilst the well-behaved are left to just 'get on with it', and, in the main, ignored.

Beggars belief, doesn't it?