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01:26 Introducing today’s guest and topic 03:16 Denise delves into her decision to opt for public school, specifically the factors that led her to choose the particular school she did over other available options 07:53 Denise shares her experiences related to rewards and punishments prompted her to discuss this episode 14:51 Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) is explored, with the discussion touching on concerns about potential humiliation and conflicting principles in behavior management systems 25:50 Behavior issues result from the coercive U.S. education system, where teachers may prioritize quiet classrooms over addressing problems, potentially hindering genuine student learning. 27:14 Ways to foster kids' intrinsic motivation in light of the prevalent use of extrinsic motivation in the classroom are explored 32:22 Self-determination theory and its application in this context is discussed 35:44 Strategies to prevent burnout for children are explored, considering their substantial time in school, with a focus on identifying warning signs of any diminishing effectiveness in current approach. 44:32 Addressing racialized parents' support of the system involves recognizing privilege and having delicate conversations to advocate for change 53:33 Identify and address barriers like childcare and transportation to make parental involvement more accessible and effective in the community. 55:03 Fostering a culture of autonomy, connectedness, and competence in the classroom requires understanding and meeting the diverse needs of students and teachers, building genuine connections, and addressing concerns to create a community of care and love in the learning environment. 01:04:32 Understanding individual needs and values is crucial when considering educational choices. 01:09:58 Wrapping upReferences
Adams, D. (2015). Implementation of school-wide Positive Behavior Supports in the Neoliberal Context in an Urban Elementary School. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University. Bornstein, J. (2017). Can PBIS build justice rather than merely restore order? In The School to Prison Pipeline: The Role of Culture and Discipline in School (p.135-167). Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S2051-231720160000004008 Bornstein, J. (2017). Entanglements of discipline, behavioral intervention, race, and disability. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 20(2), 131-144. Bornstein, J. (2015). “If they’re on Tier I, there are really no concerns that we can see:” PBIS medicalizes compliant behavior. Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research 9, 247-267. Calais, J., & Green, M. (2022). The racial pandemic: Positive Behavior Intervention Support as an asymptomatic carrier of racism. Perspectives on Early Childhood Psychology and Education 6(1), Article 4. Compise, Karin D. (2019). Student perceptions of the clip chart management system. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA. Kim, R.M., & Venet, A.S. (2023). Unsnarling PBIS and Trauma-Informed Education. Urban Education 1-29. DOI: 10.1177/00420859231175670 Kowalski, M.J., & Froiland, J.M. (2020). Parent perceptions of elementary classroom management systems and their children’s motivational and emotional responses. Social Psychology of Education 23, 433-448. Lewis, T. J., & Sugai, G. (1999). Effective behavior support: A systems approach to proactive School wide management. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31(6), 1-24. Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools. New York: Teacher’s College Press. Robbins, C.G., & Kovalchuk, S. (2012). Dangerous disciplines: Understanding pedagogies of punishment in the neoliberal states of America. Journal of Pedagogy 3, 198-218. Shalaby, C. (2017). Troublemakers: Lessons in freedom from young children at school. New York: The New Press. Williamson, B. (2017). Decoding ClassDojo: Psychopolicy, social-emotional learning, and persuasive educational technologies. Learning, Media and Technology 42(4), 440-453.Transcripts
Do you get tired of hearing the same old intros to podcast episodes? Me too. Hi, I'm not Jen. I'm Jessica. And I'm in rural East Panama. Jen has just created a new way for listeners to record the introductions to podcast episodes, and I got to test it out. There's no other resource out there quite like Your Parenting Mojo, which doesn't just tell you about the latest scientific research on parenting and child development, but puts it in context for you as well. So you can decide whether and how to use this new information. If you'd like to get new episodes in your inbox, along with a free infographic on 13 Reasons your child isn't listening to you (And what to do about each one), sign up at YourParentingMojo.com/subscribe, and come over to our free Facebook group to continue the conversation about this episode. You can also thank Jen for this episode by donating to keep the podcast ad-free by going to the page for this or any other episode on YourParentingMojo.com. If you'd like to start a conversation with someone about this episode, or know someone who would find it useful, please vote it to them. Over time, you're gonna get sick of hearing me read this intro as well. So come and record one yourself. You can read from a script she's provided or have some real fun with it and write your own. Just go to YourParentingMojo.com and click Read the Intro. I can't wait to hear yours.
Jen Lumanlan:
Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. And today we are going to be talking about reward and punishment systems in school. And we're here with Denise who is actually the community manager for Your Parenting Mojo. Welcome, Denise. It's great to see you.
Denise:
Hello. It's nice to be here.
Jen Lumanlan:
So this interview came out sorry interview/slash episode, I guess, a bit of a different way than they usually do. I had decided to tackle this topic. And I mentioned to you on one of our weekly calls that I was thinking about doing it and you said, "Let me tell you about my experience." And so I said, "Oh, that sounds like a more fun and interesting way of doing it to have it be a conversation rather than have it be an episode." And so Denise is going to share a little bit about some of the things that she has seen in her children's schools related to rewards And punishments. And I'm gonna share a bit on the research that I've done. And then Denise has some questions, some of which, frankly, are not really answered. But we're going to do the best that we can to get to some answers that will help parents to figure out how to address these rewards and punishments systems in school.
Jen Lumanlan:
And I also just want to make sure that I share before we get started that I've actually produced a one-page resource for you to learn more about these systems to share about them with other parents, to share about them with teachers, that is research-based so every statement in it is grounded in research. And so you can download that off the episode page and that's available at YourParentingMojo.com/rewardandpunishment. So. So Denise, why don't you kick us off, and maybe you can tell us about your decision to go into public school in general. And this particular school, you know, what, why did you pick this school rather than other schools that were available to you?
Denise:
Okay, well, so public school, in general, was actually I don't remember if you would remember this, but I did reach out to you years ago about homeschooling, because I was thinking about doing that for my daughter. The thing is in Spain where I live, it's not illegal, but it's unconstitutional. So there's kind of like this weird thing about it. And we live in the center. And most of the homeschooling family groups I know of are outside of the city. And if I were to homeschool, I would have been very, like I would have been by myself. And my daughter is very social like, so it wouldn't, that she would have been very sad about homeschooling.
Denise:
So we didn't homeschool, and the reason why I chose to bring them to a public school, well, the number one reason was honestly because for me, (and you know, if you speak to my husband, he'll have a different reason) but for me, it's that we couldn't afford it. And, you know, if I wanted to bring them to a private school, it would mean me working full time. And it just like it just didn't make sense to me to be working all these hours so that they go to a private school, when, technically supposedly, they're perfectly good public schools, in our neighborhood, as well. And it just, you know, it's just, it's just the choice that we made where like I wanted to be with my kids. I didn't want to be working so that they could go to like a nice fancy school. So that's why public school.
Denise:
And the reason why we chose the particular public school that they're in right now is because it's a seven minute walk from our folks that is very convenient in the mornings. And that's really the main reason because it was it kind of ticked the boxes. It was a public school. It wasn't bilingual, which I didn't want, because that's a whole nother thing. And it was close to our house. The thing about this public school is that most of the families that I know most of the families, who are mostly Spanish, they choose not to bring their kids to that school where we have a family who live right beside the school, and bring the kids to another school, because of kind of like the, I guess, stigma the right word for it that the school has, because the school is full of families from the Philippines like me, oh, you're from South America. So we it was actually I don't, I don't know, Jen, but it was like a realization for my husband, when he realized that the reason why he didn't want to go to that school was because of that fear that he had, because of the families that were there. And he was like, oh, that's racist. And I was like, yes.
Jen Lumanlan:
Well, that's quite a moment.
Denise:
It really was a moment. Because, you know, he was, he's very much in the there's no racism in Spain. I'm just like, sure. Yeah. So yeah, that is why we, we very consciously chose that school. And also to kind of alleviate the fear of like, what are we doing, bringing our kids to that school where we don't really know anyone else there. Luckily, there were other families that we know who also decided to bring their kids to that school.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, yeah. And I remember this decision, because you weren't our community manager at that point, right. You were a member in the Parenting Membership and the Learning Membership. And you reached out to me, and you outlined some of the factors that were going into this decision. And I remember how clearly this decision that you made is aligned with your values, but there's partly your values about spending time with your kids, rather than working. And that's not to say that everybody should make the same decision, but that that's the decision that you decided to make that fits with your family's values. And the other aspect of it was making a deliberate choice not to send your kids to the school that all the other Spanish families send their kids to, and to to be present in your local neighborhood school, even though it is we could say "not a good school." Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, so, how long has your daughter been in that school? At this point?
Denise:
Um, it's their second year. So both my kids are in that school.
Jen Lumanlan:
Okay. And so tell us about how it's been going. specifically related to rewards and punishments. What kind of things? Have you seen that made you want to do this episode with us?
Denise:
Yeah, well, I think when we had that meeting, I had, it was like that same week that I had just gone to like the class meeting with the Diego's teacher. So Diego is a he's five, so he's in kindergarten, I don't know if that's what translates in the American system. And I had already known coming into the class, you know, he was he was getting out of school every day with like, a very proud with a stamp on his hand. Or if it was Friday, it was like a sticker. So I kind of already knew like, Okay, this is this is what the teacher does. What I wasn't expecting was when I entered the classroom, the very first thing I saw on the blackboard was a list of names with sad faces beside it. And you know, a very generous friend wanting to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt said, "Well, maybe those kids were just sick that day." And that's why their names were on the board. And, you know, I don't know why their names were on the board, like I didn't ask. So that could be the reason. Obviously, my assumption is that they weren't behaving. And that's why they have the names on the board and beside the sad face. Another thing that the teacher actually pointed out during the meeting, but I chose not to see was a list of the kids' names kind of showing how they've been behaving, like on the wall so that they could all see at any given moment what was what I guess what their status was. That's on one end. With one child.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah. And what about Paula, what's going on in here?
Denise:
So what's going on in Paula's classroom is that they get punished, and I spoke. So this is what Paula told me. She said that sometimes, and it's happened to her maybe once or twice where they were punished without recess. And then, and I asked her, it's like, well, what does it mean when you're punished without recess? And she's like, well, that means that they still go outside. But instead of playing, they just have to sit beside the teacher. But then I asked her teacher about it. And she very clearly said, that's not like she doesn't do that in her classroom, like with her in her classes. But there are other teachers who do work with Paula who do that. And then another thing that the teacher might I just found out this week was and I don't know if it's maybe this week because it's almost Halloween, I have no idea. But she said that at the end of the week, they'll give them she'll give them all a piece of candy. And when I when I pressed Paula, a bit more about that, like, why would she give you candy, like in some of these explained to me, she said she didn't know. She just knew that at the end of the week that she would get a piece of candy. And then, so that's like, with her homeroom teacher, I guess that would be the American way. And in with her English teacher, her English teacher said, if you are good, I guess they meet like twice a week. So if you are good, the whole week, you get a sticker. And, you know, here I was thinking by good, she meant like, you know, you have like a high level of English. And I was like, okay, that's not going to be a problem for Paula. But no, that's not what she meant didn't good. She meant she met you know, be quiet, do your work, finish your work. Don't bother your classmates. That's what she meant.
Jen Lumanlan:
Okay. And we were just talking before, this call is probably going to have a doctor's appointment tomorrow that you weren't anticipating. That means
Denise:
That she doesn't get her piece of candy. And we had this whole moment where she was crying And, and it was also because we had a doctor's appointment today. And so she arrived late for English class. And so she didn't get to finish the worksheet that she was supposed to do. So she didn't get the sticker today. And then tomorrow, because she'll probably miss school or be late for school, she's worried she's not gonna get the piece of candy tomorrow. And so it was like this whole thing where I looked at my husband, I was like, oh my god, we're terrible parents, like, you know, if you base it off of how she was crying, and just very upset about this piece of candy that she wouldn't she might not get. It's like, yeah, I don't even care. Okay.
Jen Lumanlan:
And you also mentioned that the teacher last year yelled a lot. Is that right?
Denise:
Yeah, yeah, so So the issue that we had last year was, but to the point where she wasn't only yelling at the kids, she will also yell at the parents, like she had like several cases open. But somehow she finished the whole school year. And so that meant also that at the end of the day, when I picked up our I would be greeted with a lot of shouting. Because she, she's like, cute, she's a good student. So she doesn't give the teacher any problems. But she basically just like, absorbs everything that was going on in the classroom, because there were kids who were, you know, like hitting or throwing chairs, or, you know, that type of thing. And it never directly affected her. But at the end of the day, when I'm with her, it's like, Oh, great. I get to carry this. I get all of this.
Jen Lumanlan:
And probably was probably dysregulated. Right? About having having witnessed that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. So let's, let's shift gears a little bit, thank you for the background and the why we are here. So, I mean, obviously, my daughter Carys is not in school so I don't have direct experience with any of these systems. The experience that I have is through working with parents like you through having attended school and myself as a child and to having done research on this topic. So so I just wanted to sort of share a little bit of the research that I have found kind of generally on these behavior management systems to sort of ground us and help us understand what we're talking about. And then you have some questions for me about how can we exist within the system, if this is the system we've decided to exist within?
Jen Lumanlan:
So so I'll say a little bit about what I found. And the gist of it is that behavior management is sort of considered a massive challenge in schools. Because I mean, on the on the children's side, the children who have these disciplinary issues tend to drop drop out, right, or they're essentially forced out through suspensions, expulsions, at much higher rates than their peers. And that's also correlated with really negative behavioral social outcomes. disciplinary problems are also a massive driver of teacher burnout. And so when you survey new teachers who leave the field, the number one issue that they report is disciplinary issues in the classroom. And so we're seeing an increasing trend toward these positive rewards, because they make students want to willingly conform to the rules and that really reduces the disciplinary action which is contributing to the teacher burnout.
Jen Lumanlan:
So there are three kind of major systems that I have found in that are broadly in use and one of these is called Positive Behavior Interventions and Support, and that's called PBIS. And I think that's probably not the one that's in use at your school. It's a very American system. And of course, colonization ideas tend to spread. I think it's in use at like 25,000 schools in the US. It's federally funded. The state of Ohio requires its implementation on a statewide basis. And I think it's really important to know that positive doesn't mean sort of positive feelings and optimism and good behavior. It means these approaches to changing behavior are based on rewards, rather than diversity practices and discipline removing kids from the classroom. And so there's sort of some key components of a PBIS system and the the first thing that happens is this leadership team of a few staff members work together to define these three to five school-wide expectations of appropriate behavior, that, that basically say, what is an ideal student. And very often it's some variation on be safe, be respectful, be responsible. And so of course, this is adult defined, there's never any student input into what these expectations are. And it's really basically designed to create passive students. It's socializing students into what is seen as a successful way of being in school, as defined by majority White staff and as based on sort of White ways of being in the world.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so once those expectations are defined, then the teachers actively teach those expectations to the students. And there's never any sort of evaluation of the adults' role in this, the adults' conduct and actions are always taken to be inherently reasonable. It's only the students actions that are taken to be something that needs modification. And then so once we've taught the students what is appropriate behavior, then we're monitoring them and acknowledging either verbally or with a token economy, for students who are engaging in these behavioral expectations. And so you know, there are videos available online that I will link to, in the episode page where you can see teachers doing this. And basically what they're doing is they're walking around the classroom saying, "Oh, thank you got your piece of paper out. Okay, who has an answer to this question? Oh, thank you for putting your hand up." Right. And what they're trying to do is to do like five thank yous and positive reinforcements for every infraction that they're catching. And so you know, it sounds sounds kind of okay. Right? It's, it's thanking them, it's positive. But again, what we're doing is we are monitoring students' behavior. We're generating a lot of data as well, to mold students behavior to comply with these norms that the adults have defined as the right ones. And when problem behaviors arise, we're going to correct those using behavioral consequences. And there's start sort of small scale in the classroom, where we're sort of filling out an incident report.
Jen Lumanlan:
And, you know, the most common ones are given there are things like, you know, chronic refusal to follow directions. And then the irony to me is that the next step on the forum is we look for a possible motivation. Why is the student doing this? And then the next thing we do is issue the consequence. And it's like, if we understood why the child is doing this, why is the next step to issue a consequence? Why are we not using this information that we generate to say, how can we support you in being successful in the classroom, rather than saying, "Go to the reflection room for 15 minutes and think about it," right. It's like a timeout, we know that no kid sits in timeout thinking how much better they can do when they come back. They sit in timeout, thinking how unjust it is. And teachers will also sort of manipulate this process as well, based on what they've been told by the superiors and what support they want in their classroom, right. So they might generate more incidents for a child, if they think that they can then get a support person in the classroom for that child. They may generate fewer reports, if they think that they're gonna get punished for generating reports, because the school has a goal to reduce the number of reports.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so you know, there's very little interaction with parents and guardians who don't receive any training. And, you know, I've seen where where parents are involved in this process, particularly racialized parents, right. Parents who who don't come from a Eurocentric background. Their concerns kind of tend to be overridden by the White parents, the White staff who say, but you know, this is data-driven. We're generating data on this. This is real. We are seeing these things happening. And, and it also kind of pushes us into well, if there's data showing that this child is struggling, then we're moving into, you know, went away from this sort of disorderly behavior label into a disordered behavior label, right? So it's the child who is disordered. So now we start consider and diagnoses, and sort of medicalizing the child's responses.
Jen Lumanlan:
So that's sort of you know how PBIS works. And that's kind of a big one. And then the two other systems, which I'll describe in much, much less depth. The first is clip charts, which I think is what you saw in your classroom, Diego's classroom. And basically, where it's a vertical chart, And we start out, every child starts out with a little code peg, and their name written on it and ready to learn and raise your own instead of the middle point on that chart. And so everybody's name is clipped at that point on the chart. And if you get caught doing something good, you move up into good day to great job to outstanding to those kinds of things. And if you do something the teacher disapproves of, you're moving down into think about it and teacher's choice and parent contact. And I've also heard of some systems where teachers will wear necklaces of pins around their next of belonging to students who were so good, they went off the charts. And if you, you can even get off the necklace and go up into a hairpin.
Jen Lumanlan:
Some teachers will have like little sticky jewels that people that the students can put on their pin to indicate that they ended up on the necklace or in the hair so that you can keep track longer term of how many times you went off the chart. And so you can use these systems as part of a PBIS system. And I think one of the things that I saw coming up over and over again, is what students and parents call the walk of shame, which is when the teacher says, "Okay, go and clip yourself down." And it's not the teacher that moves the clip; it's the student who has to walk from their seat to the board, and remove their clip and move it down to the next level. And that that Walk of Shame is so humiliating, because it calls attention to the thing that the child has done. And I will say on the flip side of that, that sometimes kids don't want to be recognized for the quote unquote, good things that they've done either. Because they might get beaten up on the playground for that too, right? Sometimes calling positive attention to yourself marks you as sort of the you know, the class goody goody. And, and that doesn't always come with with good attention either. So so that's one of the flip charts that I think you saw.
Jen Lumanlan:
And then in the US, I'm not sure if this is elsewhere yet, but there's a system called Class Dojo, which is basically like, online. Yeah. And so you, the teacher can do all of this. And it can be done in a private way, right, so that only the teacher and the student and the students parents are seeing that the clipping and the rewards and punishments. I think it can also be done in a public way. And then Class Dojo also has this sort of parent communication aspect that can't be separated, right. And I don't see a problem with that. There's no problem with using it as sort of a just a way of communicating with parents about what's going on. Of course, there are other ways of doing that, too. But the problematic aspect, of course, is the you know, clipping out clipping down the rewards, and the punishments as well.
Jen Lumanlan:
And of course, there's a lot of criticism of the ideas of these systems are based in I mean, if we think about growth mindset, we're actively working against that everything Alfie Kohn has written ever goes against all of this stuff, self-determination theory, or say that rewards destroy motivation to learn. And the vast majority of the studies that show that these systems are "successful" are looking at the teachers' perspective, the school's perspective. Are we reducing the number of times students are referred to the office? Are we reducing suspensions, expulsions, those kinds of things? Very, very few studies ever asked children or parents how they feel about these systems. And so I did find a doctoral dissertation studying six children who basically had the same response that Diego had. They were completely confused about how the flip charts work that the charts determine. They are actually the one, the one thing that they sit, they seem to understand about it, is that the charts say, Well, this child is good, and this child is bad. Right? So we're not just saying what they did was good or bad. But the students from the students' perception. The chart is saying this child is good, this child is bad. And the teachers can be super inconsistent with how they use the charts, right? They might forget to clip somebody up or down, especially at the end of the day. And then they the students reported that the clip charts really sort of reports they I mean, they reported false accusations. It's good times when the teacher thought that they had done something wrong. And actually their friend had done it and the teacher was just insistent, I don't care go and put yourself down, no room for self-advocacy, these feelings of shame and embarrassment, not being able to concentrate on learning because they're so terrified of getting flipped down, feeling like failures, if they can't clip up. There's just constant social comparison of how am I doing, how's everybody else doing, kind of looking for people who are doing worse than I am so I can feel better about myself. And really this sense of hopelessness when they're clipped down.
Jen Lumanlan:
So Oh, you know, the few studies that I found that looked at what how parents were thinking about it, what they've seen in their children, and directly asking children themselves, by and large, did not find a very positive outcome. So I'm curious about how all that's landing for you and what you've seen a how you're feeling about it with that new information.
Denise:
Yeah. I'm just kind of trying to wrap my head around everything. But what I what I noticed with like the PBIS, one that you share, it kind of seemed like the teachers themselves are in rewards and punishments to where they you know, the reward as you get support in the classroom, the punishment is, I don't know what happens with teachers when they, you know. So it's, it's like, not only is it on to the students, but it's on to the teacher as well, and probably on to the schools.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yes. And that, to me, is sort of a big part of the challenge of these systems, right? It seems like the reward and punishment system that the teacher is using with the child is the problem, right? And if I could just get the teacher to use a different system, then my kid would have a better experience in school, when actually the entire system is coercive in the US. Teachers are if their kids don't meet the required benchmarks, the in standardized testing, the teacher's job is at risk for sure. And so if the teacher is unable to get their kids to to pass those tests, then yeah, the punishment might be they don't have a job. And so when you look at it from that perspective, keeping the kids quiet in the classroom gives you a much better chance of getting the kids to learn something. I mean, if that's what it seems like, right? How can they be learning something, if they're rowdy, and all over the place, they're going to learn something, if they're quiet, ignoring the idea that maybe they're just sitting there terrified that they're gonna get clipped down? And so the teacher is probably thinking, Okay, I have a better chance of keeping my job, if I can keep keep the kids quiet. And this is the best tool. I know what to do that.
Denise:
So I guess my from here, I'm just wondering, how do I foster my kids' intrinsic motivation, considering all these extrinsic motivation that's happening in the classroom?
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, I don't have an easy answer to that. That study that I found that looked at what parents thought of these behavior management systems. It was reasonably large, 90 parents, right. Some of these more ethnographic studies look at just six kids, something like that. So 90 parents is a slightly bigger sample size, the parents were filling out a series of questionnaires. And it was really teacher support, if children's autonomy that was the strongest predictor of children's autonomous motivation to learn, which can make sense, right, so if the if the teachers are saying you have some real choice in this, then the children are more motivated to learn to make choices to learn. And on the flip side of that, the behavior charts and user behavior charts were really significantly and negatively associated with this autonomous motivation to learn.
Jen Lumanlan:
And the other very significant aspect was the parent school relationships. And this idea that when parents trust the teacher in the school more, they find that the teachers are more supportive of autonomy, more supportive of relatedness, meaning, like real connection with the children, and that the child was really benefiting from that. So this idea of, of supporting autonomy, which we have to acknowledge is really, really difficult in a system where the teacher doesn't have very much autonomy, where the teacher is told this is what you teach. And this is how you teach it, and you're gonna make the kids pass the standardized test, right, the teacher has very little autonomy in the system. And so for a teacher to be able to somehow find space to grandchildren autonomy is really hard.
Jen Lumanlan:
Another aspect that came out was that rewards that were not logically related to learning were the most likely to decrease intrinsic motivation. There is one quote from a parent in that study who was talking about her child, she was just saying, "He's motivated by feathers, I guess the teacher was giving out feathers as a reward." And so those kinds of completely unrelated, and I would probably put candy in that in that bucket as well, right, there's really no connection between candy and learning, are really the most likely to decrease children's intrinsic motivation to learn.
Jen Lumanlan:
And on the flip side of that, and I think this is particularly relevant to Paula, right, sometimes we see as a parent reporting, well, this system works well for my child. And the researcher was saying, well, actually, this could be an example of introjection. And I didn't know what that word meant, so I looked it up. And it's the unconscious adoption of other people's ideas, right. So we're kind of taking on the teachers' ideas about what motivation is about what It means to learn without actually thinking about them. And then it also can reflect this performance, avoid goal orientation, which is a way of saying, I'm going to do well, because I don't want the negative consequences that might come if I don't do well.
Jen Lumanlan:
And these are really not associated with the kinds of learning that we want children to be doing. And much more associated with anxiety with a really superficial processing of information. What we do know is that meeting needs, fosters intrinsic motivation, especially autonomy, especially competence, especially relatedness, right, thinking about self-determination theory. And so so the, so the extent that we can really make genuine choices in the classroom, we really foster children's ability to do work to do it well. And to have genuine connections between the teacher and the student, the better off we're going to be. And if those factors are lacking, then I would be looking at this idea that that came up in the no self no problem episode, where we're kind of teaching the child what it's like to play the game, right? We're in the system, we're playing this game, we're invested enough so that we can get what we want out of it, while knowing that it's still a game. And our real interests and passions and work And the things that we really care about may lie outside of that system. And we can follow those and learn about those as well.
Denise:
So you mentioned playing the game, a kind of reminded me of something that happened, or happens is happening with my son, so he was he went to school in a dress, I think he's gone twice. But ever since then, he said that he doesn't want to go to school on a dress anymore, because these people don't know that boys can wear dresses. And so it's not, you know, it's kind of like playing the game in the sense of like, like he's working with a system, but he also knows that that's not how things are. Or should be or can be Yeah. Yeah, right.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah. And that he can wear dresses outside of school to the playground in other places. Right. And, a it sucks that school is not a place where he feels comfortable wearing a dress. And also, that's the system you're in.
Denise:
Yeah. What I wanted to I kind of I was like debating whether or not to interrupt you. You mentioned self- determination theory, when you mentioned all the different needs. Could you say more about what that is? And how that would apply here?
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's basically the idea that these these needs for autonomy, right to make decisions that feel really important to us, for competence to be able to do something well, and relatedness to have connection with other people are super important needs for many of us. And that the more those needs are met, the happier we are. And of course, you know, in our work, we talked about a lot of other needs as well. And for some kids, there may be other needs that are even more important, right? Some kids have real sensory issues. And if those sensory needs are not met, then it doesn't matter what's going on with the other things, those are overriding, right ? And Parenting Beyond Power and talked about the 'cherry' needs. And very often autonomy competence, relatedness are 'cherry' needs, that sometimes other things are there on the top of the cupcake too. And then some of those, you know, get pushed down into the frosting. And then there's all the other needs that we might be trying to meet in the cupcake.
Jen Lumanlan:
So it's really can we see those happening on a regular basis and the environments that are that our child is spending time in homeschool in other places. And the more that they are, the more the child probably is getting a sense that I actually have agency in my life, I get to make decisions that feel really important to me. I get to really say what happens to me. And I feel really connected to other people. And I'm enjoying and I can do and I'm good at the things that I'm that I'm doing on a regular basis. And we all tend to feel better when those when those things are in place. But of course, that's really hard in an environment where the teacher doesn't get to control very much, right, the teacher has very little autonomy, and where the teacher may feel so much pressure to meet the standardized testing requirements that it may seem like there's no time for connection for relatedness. And don't have time to see who you really are as a person because you got to learn this math fact. And so we're pushing really hard on competence on a particular kind of competence at the expense of the other two, by and large.
Denise:
Yeah. Well, I'm glad also you mentioned like meeting those three needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness outside of school. Because when I was listening to you initially, I was like, in that I was just thinking like, how am I going to tell the teacher that she has to do this? It's helpful to know like, you know, that I can do or I can support her in meeting all those things outside of school.
Jen Lumanlan:
When you say how are you mean, Paula?
Denise:
Yeah,
Jen Lumanlan:
Yes, yeah. Really. Ideally, our homes are going to be up place where children can have, you know, this this sense a have more of their needs met. And of course, this is not at the expense of your needs, right, that your needs matter too. And that we're continually having these conversations with our children when we're meeting both of our needs.
Denise:
Yeah, yeah. But keeping in mind that, you know, they are in school for a big chunk of their day so even if I am meeting all their needs outside of school, how do I know or how do I even ensure that they then don't get burnt out?
Jen Lumanlan:
And how do I ensure that my child, no charge, no harm comes to my child?
Denise:
Like, what would be like the warning signs for me to be like, okay, that's not working anymore for us?
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So taking the you know, how do I ensure my child doesn't get burnt out? Obviously, the the ensuring part is really hard there. And I think it goes back to the a point that I mentioned earlier, which it seems like rewards a punishments are the problem, but they're not the real problem. The real problem is the power over dynamic of school, where we're essentially training children that their ideas don't matter. And their only role is to memorize what they're told as fast as possible without causing any trouble for a teacher and for anyone else. And that if you deviate from that in any way, it is not the system's fault-- it is your fault. It is you that has to change your behavior, because the idea that there could be anything wrong with the system is just inconceivable.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so we're only looking at these observable behaviors. If a child is, you know, throwing something at another, another child, if the child is refusing to do the work that they've been assigned, right, these are observable behaviors. And we're neglecting all of the cognitive, the emotional, the social capacities this child might have, as well as you know, any racial class poverty related issues, we're essentially working within an ableist framework that says there's this really narrow set of behaviors that you have to comply with to be considered normal. And of course, these are normal by white cultural standards. And we're kind of pathologizing this unwanted behavior. And of course, unwanted by whom it's kind of, you know, unstated, it's just this neutral, unwanted behavior. It's not the child who doesn't want this behavior, right. It's the adults who we're seeing this unwanted behavior in tier one or tier one of PBIS. When we move up to tier two, where it's like gay things are getting bad, we call it problem behavior. And then it becomes sort of this behavioral disability, and over-representing boys and children of color, sometimes calling them tier two kids, special ed kids, trauma kids.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so, you know, when we're, we're thinking about how do I prevent my kid from getting burned out? I don't know that we can prevent that. Yes, there are warning signs that we can look out for. And I would say, you know, some of those warning signs would be when you see the kinds of behaviors that students are getting punished for doing. So your child starts to act out, as well. And because these these kinds of behaviors are very often protesting behaviors from students that right they don't have the language to be able to say, this feels unjust, this doesn't feel right. For me this is this is a protest behavior, but it's perceived as unwanted behavior as problematic behavior.
Jen Lumanlan:
So so if we're seeing that kind of behavior that we know, the system is not working for the child. And Dr. Carl Shelby talks about how this is sort of the canary in the coal mine, right? We can see these misbehaving students as the canary who's saying, hey, this system isn't working for anyone, And we're all gonna get poisoned. Eventually, I'm just the one who's getting shoved down there first into the mind, And I'm the one who's feeling the effects first. So there's that aspect, I would say, another aspect is when your child stops protesting systems that they perceive as unjust in other places, so maybe when they were a child, they might have protested when you kind of steamrolled them mentioned doing something that you wanted them to do.
Jen Lumanlan:
And then eventually, over time, they stopped doing that, right. And I can imagine that can sort of look like success. It's like, Oh, thank goodness, that is easier now. My child doesn't protest this anymore. But is it, are they not protesting because their need is met? Or are they not protesting because they've given up right? That's a really, really important distinction to make. And so I would definitely be looking for okay, you're you're doing this and you're, you know, you're you're doing it but are you doing it willingly. And I think back to a time a couple of years ago when I asked Carys to go and take a shower, and she she said okay, and she walked off to the work towards the shower and her head is down and her shoulder just slumped and she's walking really slowly. And I called her back and I said, "Hey, Carys, can you come here." and she sat on my lap, and I said, you know, I asked you to take a shower and you were going to do it, but it doesn't seem as though you really wanted to what’s…can you tell me what's going on?
Jen Lumanlan:
She said "I wanted you to wash my hair," right? She had a need for connection. And she, I guess, didn't think that he could articulate that And didn't think that I would meet that need of hers. So she was going to walk off towards the shower unwillingly, right against what she really wanted. And I said, you know, it's always okay to ask some, sometimes I may say no, right, I may set a boundary and say, I have a need for rest right now. And I'm going to prioritize that, and I'm not available to help you wash. But whenever I can, I will, I will do that for you. And I always want you to to ask, and so looking out for those signs that our child is feeling steamrolled into doing something right, that we're just kind of running roughshod over what their needs are, is another thing I would be looking out for.
Jen Lumanlan:
And then, from the research, I mean, I really saw it as a red flag when the the children seem to be more focused on the behavior management system, then on the learning, right, when you ask how was school today, and they say, oh, yeah, so and so got picked up, and so and so got clicked down, we all lost recess, and, and I got a candy. And if all of what you're hearing about from school is the behavior management system, there and nothing about what they're actually supposed to be learning, then I would consider that to be a red flag. But I will also say that that seems to be incredibly common. So how red flagging that is, right is sort of, like maybe when you stop hearing anything about learning. And they seem to be very much ruminating on how things are doing. And then behavior management system is when it's it's very, very, very big, big red flag, I would even consider a big focus on the reward and punishment system rather than learning even if it doesn't feel very, like you know, it's not anxiety inducing to the child, I would personally consider that a red flag. But of course, if they're feeling anxious about it, then that's a big red flag.
Denise:
Yeah. Okay. So what I'm kind of hearing, because I was thinking like, Okay, I'll know like when they don't want to go to school, or when they always have stomach aches, will be a very easy warning sign. But it sounds like it can like that would be like a very, kind of not late, but like, you know, there would have been other warning signs before that. But listening to you it's like, well, that I would say most of the conversation when I asked them about school, most of the things I get are that are I got a sticker. I got more gonna get candy. I didn't get a sticker. From from Diego, I have heard at least some things that he's learning about the universe. But from about I have no idea what's going on in Paula's classroom aside from.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, because he is not as far into it as Paula is. Yeah, right. He's a year behind. And so for two. Yeah. So isn't as deep into the system yet. And yet, it's school refusal, obviously is a is a very major red flag of something is not working. And having at that point, it just seems like the challenge is how do I get my kids who want to go to school, or at least to stop protesting, going to school? And in my mind, the real challenge is, why is the child resisting going to school? What aspect of their property autonomy competence relatedness is not being met? Or as well, potentially some of their other needs as well? And we tend not to think about that, because it just challenged seems to be, you know, just how do I get my kid to stop protesting this thing? When, of course, they're protesting, because this system is not meeting their needs? Yeah.
Denise:
But then the question then, would be, like, if, if I'm seeing it with them, but like no one else seems to mind. And like, the teacher thinks, an incredible job by promoting like India, girls, with the other teacher, he was telling the parents like, you know, when they come And they have the sticker, you should really tell them how happy you are. And you know, like, let's, let's really continue this reward. We're not only did you get the teacher praising you, but that's have all the parents like, do a happy dance for you as well. And, you know, no one said, anything. I don't know what they're thinking, because I also didn't say anything. And I was definitely not in agreement. But from the experience that I've had with other parents with things about this. They're like, Oh, I don't see. I don't see I get I don't think it's so bad, because it helps them learn.
Jen Lumanlan:
Right? And I'm thinking about a post that you put up in our circle community a few weeks ago and member Anne responded with a really beautiful, elegant response. And one of her points was, you've told us that a lot of the parents in the school are immigrant parents, right. And the idea of giving them the benefit of the doubt in terms of why they're supporting the current approach, because racialized people are almost never given the benefit of the doubt. And so just do doing that is an anti-racist act. And so maybe these parents are saying, well, if the system wasn't in place, then perhaps my student wouldn't, you know, my child wouldn't know what are the parameters for good behavior and bad behavior. And the teacher might be arbitrarily handing out rewards and punishments. And my student, my child would get punished more often under that system than they do under this system.
Jen Lumanlan:
We can also acknowledge that maybe this system in a way could serve to restrain the teacher, right? I've been doing a lot of workshops over the last few weeks, both with parents and with teachers and preschools. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard the idea that many teachers go into teaching to try to heal from trauma that they have experienced as children. And so if we've got teachers who are basically teaching from a place of the trauma that they've experienced, without a framework around it, it's possible that the punishments could end up being more severe than they are right now with this framework. So that's another aspect of it. It also with many cultures around the world, there's a value of listening to your elders, right? If paying attention, just this cultural value of if a person is older than you, then we respect them. Also, a culture of doing well in school is a ticket to success as a ticket out of the hardship that we have faced. And so I think all of those can be in play. There are some researchers who argue and this is the most research on PBIS.
Jen Lumanlan:
Actually, it's it's bizarre that there is no research whatsoever on the flip chart systems. It was developed randomly by some guy who decided that this would be a cool way of motivating kids who didn't do any research himself. And there's been no research done in it since they were actually saw an email from him to a researcher saying, Yeah, I'm not aware of any research. And that was a few years ago, when I did some, some looking myself and couldn't find any either. So most of the research is on PBIS. And what the some of these researchers are arguing is essentially, that we're kind of inculcating these racialized students into white ways of being in the world, which in some ways is what these some of these parents want, right? They want their children to be successful in a white supremacist culture. But we're kind of doing it under this veneer of it's being scientifically validated, because it is it scientifically validated at reducing the number of, you know, office referrals and that kind of thing, which the parents may see as success, right?
Jen Lumanlan:
If there's less disciplinary action, that means my child must be learning something, and it makes PBIS look really neutral because it seems like there's these criteria that are used to justify a teacher's action. But actually, the teacher can turn a blind eye to one thing. And for other kids, they, you know, I've seen it described as I have the paperwork ready. Right, I'm already ready to refer this child to to the next level. And the teachers very often are not taking cultural factors into account. So in one paper, I read that, you know, black black students may try to what's called gain the floor right to enter the conversation through personal assertiveness, rather than waiting for the teacher or the authority figure to grant them permission. And this is culturally appropriate, but perceived as disrespectful by a white teacher.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so I think we have to come back to your question of what should I do if it seems like everybody else is on board with this system is to to recognize our place and systems of power? Right? And I know that you are, you're an immigrant from the Philippines, you also speak obviously excellent English, you grew up going to private schools. And so your privilege is much different from people who have just come over here who are working five jobs, right for a better life. And so your place of privilege and your filters more in Spanish culture is more similar to mine in the US. And I think that there is a real danger that we can go in and say, well, you know, this is a crummy system, and we're going to stop using it because I think it's terrible for my child, and it's terrible for your children. And I know what's best for you.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so it is possible that, that that could result in unintended outcomes, unintended negative outcomes for, for these racialized students. And so I guess I would be trying and I know you have tried to have conversations with other parents about this, and that you don't seem to be making much headway. And also trying to have conversations with the teacher. And I think there's a real knack to doing that. And it's, it's not easy, and it's not a core skill of mine, to to have these really delicate conversations with other people to say, you know, I'm I'm seeing that this doesn't fit with my values. And I understand that you have different values. And you know, are you interested in trying to change this system that seems to be hurting our children, but I know that you can use it in a different way. How does that resonate with what you've been trying to do and where you might go?
Denise:
Yeah, it's they're very difficult conversations. So it's the fact of like, not even being able to explain it myself in English, and then having to then talk about it in Spanish. Or in the case of other Filipinos, whether Spanish isn't so good, and their English isn't so good so we're there trying to, like, communicate with three languages, because my Tagalog isn't very good. So it's hard. Yeah. And what we're also seeing, at least in this particular school, where it's hard to just even get the parents involved, like, it's hard, not only to have the conversation like to actually make the conversation happen, but it's hard to be to have the opportunity to do so.
Jen Lumanlan:
Okay, I'm gonna push back on that a little bit, this idea of getting the parents involved that a lot, particularly it's sort of this idea that White parents and White teachers in the US say a lot about racialized parents. And I think what we're seeing is that they don't get involved in the ways that we think of as being involved, right.
Jen Lumanlan:
And I'm thinking about a case study of an immigrant family, working three jobs and supervising reading while like doing laundry at the end of the day, right and 10 o'clock at night, and you're listening to your kid read while you're doing laundry, trying to get ready for the next day, you've been working all day. And to the school, and to the White parents who are showing up volunteering the classroom that looks like not involved. And also right, for those parents who attended school, very often there is trauma, they experienced trauma in schools, every time they walk into their child's school, some of that comes back to them. And I read another case study of a school that put a display of students work in a supermarket, where the families from the school shopped really often. And this one family, I think it was an England, this family of Indian origin, took all their different family members five different times to go And see this display of their child's work in the supermarket. Because that felt really accessible, right, it was a place that they were comfortable, whereas the school is a place where they did not feel comfortable at all.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so I think we really need to sort of when we say, you know, the parents aren't involved, we need to be much more critical of how we're thinking about that and how we're perceiving involved. And that that is very much dependent on sort of dominant culture, Eurocentric standards of what it means to be involved at school.
Denise:
Yeah, no, that's very true, especially for the case of this school where, you know, you do have parents who have to kind of like, quickly drop off their kids, because then they have to go to work or like, you know, their, their concerns are basically like, what's the longest time I can have my kids here, because I need to work and I don't have anyone else to care for them. That being said, it's still also really hard. If you if like, for us, you know, like we started like a parents association last year. And it's just like, and we're very, we're very, like, mindful of what are the needs of the school, whether the needs of the families of the school not, you know, what do we want? Like, we're very mindful of that. And at the same time, I guess, instead of saying that they're not involved, I guess I should have said more like, I don't know how to reach them.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, yeah. So so I'd be looking at what are the kinds of barriers that are preventing them from right, being involved being reached? Is it that no childcare available at the way, you know, when when you're meeting, and so they can't come because they don't have anyone else to watch the kids? Is it because the buses stopped running at a certain time at night? And so they can't physically make it because they don't drive? Is it because they feel intimidated by stepping into the school and you could have it at a community center or somewhere else? Right. And so that that is is more accessible, really working to understand what are the real barriers to this And working to address those to the extent that you can, is sort of best practice for what I've seen for how to actually be able to work with people from from many different kinds of communities who really do care about their children's learning.
Denise:
I mean, that that is not a question. I guess it's like listening to you and it's an it goes back to like my need for ease or it's like, okay, I'm doing this hard thing. Can I just have some things to be easy while I step out of my comfort zone in, you know, figuring out what are the needs of these families, how can I meet their needs? Like how can I encourage them into this group that we're making? And you know, one way that it would be really easy if, if when I pick up my kid from school, I'm not met with her letting every thing out.
Jen Lumanlan:
And I think that, you know, when I was thinking about, okay, where could we go from here? It would be easy to leave at this point and say yes, the system such. But where could we go from here. And to me, it's, it's fairly clear where we want to be. The path to getting to getting to that point is much less clear to me right. Where we want to be, is in a culture where we do have autonomy, connectedness and competence in the classroom on a regular basis. And I see that referred to in a couple of different ways. You know, creating a classroom culture of care is how Nel Noddings used to talk about it. Carla Shelby talks about, you know, a culture of love. And so that we're seeing these unwanted behaviors as a real symbol of unmet needs, right? And PBIS gets us so tantalizingly close, right? It's so frustrating to look at that form and see, you're identifying why the child might be doing this thing, and then you're doling out a consequence, instead of addressing that challenge.
Jen Lumanlan:
So you're looking at these consequences, or sorry, the the needs that are underlying the behavior, you are looking outside the classroom as well, right? What's happening in the child's community in the broader community, are they feeling afraid, because of things that are happening in the world. And all of that is affecting how they show up in the classroom. What kinds of feelings or needs are really behind these behaviors? And then working to meet those needs, right? And many times, it's not so difficult, right? It's a meet to move in the classroom that I can learn while I'm moving, or, you know, I've read of some autistic kids who'd like to lie on the floor, and they're not making eye contact.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so the teachers are like, they're not learning, well, actually, you know, for these kids, that that is how they learn best. So can we see that not as an act of defiance, but as a tool that can be used to promote learning. And so we're trying to meet the child's needs, because we care about them so much. And also we care about the teacher, right? You express this real desire for ease, right? You've just have a need for ease. So does the teacher. And I'm wondering, is there a way that you can work to understand the teachers need, right? How can we what are some of the ways that we can make the classroom an easier place for the teacher to be in, because it is possible that if that teachers need is met more of the time, that they will be able to then have the capacity to be with our children in a way that sees their needs as well.
Jen Lumanlan:
And so that's where I was thinking, you know, this isn't scientifically validated. There's no study of, you know, 50 families who have done this, and this is the most effective way. But if we truly believe that needs underlie our behavior, then working to understand other people's needs is and trying to meet those needs is always the path forward. So can we understand more about that teachers needs and get to know that teacher as a real person, right? Promoting that connectedness, supporting them in finding ease in the classroom and, you know, maybe there are financial concerns for many teachers in the US who buy their own supplies, right? Can Can we raise some money to buy some of the supplies that creates financial ease for the teacher, so that things like that, so that when that more of their needs are met, then maybe they have the capacity to see and meet more of our child's needs as well, which gets us towards at least heading in the direction of this community of cares, community of love in the classroom? Okay. What do you think?
Denise:
Well, I guess what I was hoping when I wrote when I wrote that question, I was like, just make it go away.
Jen Lumanlan:
Sorry.
Denise:
And surprisingly, it was not the answer I got.
Jen Lumanlan:
You didn't really have that? Did you? Really think that was the answer you're gonna get?
Denise:
Oh, well, I honestly would, I thought I would get was like have a problem conversation with your child. And then I was like, but the problem is not with my child.
Jen Lumanlan:
Which is what that can't be. Yep. Right. Forward. Yeah. Yeah.
Denise:
And so what I'm hearing is have a problem solving conversation with a teacher if, you know, the teacher is able and willing and open to do so.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah. And maybe that starts by, you know, just spending a little bit more time with them. And budgeting an extra five minutes or so at pickup time to be able to actually check in and as as well as talking about your child just off genuinely, how are you doing? Right? It's still hard at the moment, how can I help you? What can what kind of support do you need? And we have to acknowledge right, you are a person who has capacity to do this. And we are people of privilege and that I see is our role to take on right is to work to use our privilege and our capacity to be well to support folks so that they can then I mean, probably these systems are not well aligned with the teachers values either, right? By and large teachers want autonomy for themselves, they want autonomy for their students. I've met so many amazing teachers who are stuck within this system. So this is this is not the teachers fault, and the more that we can support the teacher in meeting their needs, probably the more they're gonna be able to come towards their child.
Denise:
Okay, and so let's say that I have left my comfort zone and made some chitchat with a teacher in the morning. To chat is not a strong point of mine. Yeah. So we, so we do have this kind of like rapport going on, where I am like, attempting to understand your needs and help her meet them. How do I then explain to the teacher, that what's going on in the classroom is affecting my children, even though what they might see are like perfectly behaved kids who get stickers and stamps and candy.
Jen Lumanlan:
Right? I don't know that you do explain it. I totally acknowledge that. Firstly, what your your child, your teacher may not see a problem with your child's behavior. And when I was doing some reading, I found an epigraph at the beginning of a paper by Dr. Joshua Bornstein and the epigraph said, if they're on tier one of the pyramid, right, which is the bottom of the pyramid, where they're basically just getting mostly rewards, very few punishments, they're behaving. They're getting the work done. There are really no concerns with a child that we can see. Right. And so I think that basically reflects Paula's experience, that as long as everything looks okay, from the outside, there is no problem here, as far as the school is concerned. And so I think we have to acknowledge that I'm wondering if maybe the some sort of journaling could help where, you know, you talk with the teacher about what problems day has been like, you're also obviously talking with Paula, and you are maybe keeping track of, you know, today, somebody was put down and policy was thinking really hard, and then had a meltdown, right. And sort of generating data in a way to say, you know, these are the connections that I'm seeing between some of these ideas.
Jen Lumanlan:
But ultimately, the teacher personally may not care. Secondly, may not be willing or able to do anything about this, right? Because if our primary goal is behavior management, then she's succeeding in powerless case, because power is, is doing the things that she's supposed to be doing. And so, so I explaining things to people almost never changes their mind. So, you know, the research on the handouts that that I have prepared that you can download from the episode page may help with this, right, it is a form of explaining. But ultimately, it really comes down to what are the teachers needs. And if the teachers needs are not being met, then they are probably going to keep using these systems. And the more that we can meet the teachers needs, the more they may be open to considering meeting other people's needs as well. And so you may decide that the easiest path is to do nothing. Right to not try to change the system. That is a legitimate choice.
Denise:
It is. I think, it's also like, what would be my definition of change the system? Like I'm not expecting big things here, like I'm not, you know, but it does, like I mentioned how this is not an experiment, but it does feel like an experiment, where were my family were going out of like the the path that you know, the easy path we could take of like, just bring them to a school that's a bit further away, where, you know, most of the families we know bring their school to where we would, you know, still be able to pat ourselves on the back for bringing our kids to public school where there are also other families from outside of Spain. And that have like this question of is this, this is a choice that we very consciously made that is aligned with their values at the same time, but I'm not as concerned now because they're younger, but like, let's say that they're towards the end of primary. How do I know that? Like, this wasn't a mistake? That does, you know, like, I didn't let them down?
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, I mean, you never, you never can that that's the central challenge. Parenting right is you can never know that decision you made is the right one, all you can do is make decisions that are best aligned with your values. I have a couple of sort of anecdata points. There's no data on this. And I have to say that the vast majority of Eurocentric parents would not make the decision that you made, right that that would just say I'm gonna go with the "better school." And so I have read in a book that I haven't home that I don't have with me right now, about a parent who put their child in a high school, it was very, you know, we could describe it very similarly, it was in the US to the school that you're in. And the children thank them for doing it, because they learned how to get on with people of many, many different backgrounds. And yes, they probably didn't learn as much, right, they didn't get to as many advanced placement classes.
Jen Lumanlan:
But when I talked to Dr. Peter Gray, who is a big advocate for self- directed learning, he was a psychology professor, he authored one of the seminal so called Intro to Psychology textbooks, which I think is how, you know, basically now pays him to, to do the work that he does. And he said, we just assume that everybody's coming in with basically no skills. We start from scratch, because we can't assume that people are coming in with, you know, with real skills. And so an absence of skills may not be the most terrible thing in the world, firstly, so there's, there's that aspect of it.
Jen Lumanlan:
On the flip side of that, I will say, I have heard more sort of anecdotal case studies, of children of the so called, you know, woke white parents who put their child in a school with, I mean, we know, in a US context, it was probably a White parent in a majority Black school, and the child saying, you know, I got beaten up all the time, and ended up as they grew up into adults really resenting their parents from putting them in this, you know, integrated environment. So, so, so I don't think there's a easy answer for either side of that perspective. But I guess what I will offer is that things may not be so terribly different in the school that you know, that you might go to instead. And so it's not the children are going to be controlled less is that the methods of control are going to be different, they're going to be more subtle, there's going to be yes, less yelling, and being told what to do, and more, you know, even more rewarding, and probably some shaming, some humiliation for not complying with what we're calling school values, right, which are neutral. They're determined by administrators, by teachers. And so so it's a more subtle way of basically right getting children to comply with what the adults want. But I will say, you know, we're, I'm, we're talking to you from Seattle right now.
Jen Lumanlan:
And Carys and I volunteered at a community garden here in Seattle a couple weeks ago. And it happens to share space with a private school. And there's a playground behind the school and Carys wanted to take a break from the volunteering and go and play on the playground. And it was a weekday. And the kids were cycling through their play times. And there was one set of kids that came out and one of the teachers like, basically took on the role of yelling at the kids for every single thing they were doing that wasn't, you know, according to school values. So start playing with that bike, that's not a school toy, you know, yelled across, how many times do I have to tell you that? And then there were other kids playing with a jump rope, And over and over and over again, the teacher is, you know, stop using that jump rope unless you're using it for jumping. We talked about this last week.
Jen Lumanlan:
And I said to Carys afterwards, right? What do you think she meant by that? You know, we talked about this last week, a she said, probably the teacher told the kids last week that it was not okay to do this. I'm guessing it wasn't a conversation. And I said, I think you're probably right. It's so so just because you're in this other school doesn't necessarily mean that things are going to be dramatically different, that the methods may be a bit different, but ultimately, they may not. And so I guess I would be kind of curious to hear whether you've talked with Paula, about your values and understood what her values are, and whether she has ideas about which school she wants to attend, and what she thinks about the school that she's at right now. And the school that that many of her peers went to.
Denise:
Yeah, well, I will say, before I answer your question about how I was, I was talking with a friend about this. So another friend who we brought our kids to the same school at the same time, and we're always kind of like checking with each other, like, how are you doing, you know, but you're gonna leave us. And I told her, because there's one other friend who was quite concerned about like, the low academic level of the school. And I told I told her, quite frankly, that what I would want for my kids is not going to be available in any public school or any or most schools period.
Jen Lumanlan:
And most private schools, right. The I mean, this private school that we were observing the volunteer coordinator said yeah, the parents here pay like 20 grand a year for for tuition. And what they're getting is somebody's yelling at their kids in a playground.
Denise:
Yeah, so I do when I when I kind of noticed my brain spiraling down that that I do also recognize like, okay, it's not it can be anywhere.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah. We can be paying a fortune. Yeah, same thing. Yeah.
Jen Lumanlan:
Anything else you want to ask your say, to feel complete in the conversation, which I know didn't end up where you were hoping?
Denise:
These this way it's free. Yes. Yes. But that that that goes into a whole nother conversation. So when it comes to talking with Paula, we have kind of mentioned that, like she has said how she hasn't gotten very good teachers. She has said that and we have talked about, you know, what does that mean? And and that whole thing we have mentioned, you know how we specifically chose the school for them. Because I don't remember what we said. But we have mentioned it. I haven't asked her, like what she thinks of it. I don't think I have. But I do know that she does like going to school, and that she doesn't want to change school. Diego, on the other hand, is what he's much better now he has gone through he has stopped his face. I don't want to go to school anymore. I've been to school so many days. I think he has formed. Yeah. I think he has formed an attachment with his teacher. So he has been he has been enjoying that more.
Denise:
No, I mean, it was, it was helpful, I think what I'm kind of gonna take away out of everything that we've talked about is really the needs part of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. To just keep that in mind.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah and I think that's really the key right? To everything. That is those needs as potentially sort of cherry on top of the cupcake needs, but also just seeing behavior as an expression of needs. And that when we can support a child in meeting that need, then they may stop doing the unwanted behavior, which also potentially has the effect of meeting the teachers need as well. So, so yeah, really advocating for our children from that place of I think my child has a need for this. And I can think of these five ways that we could meet that need with any of them also meet your need for ease, and for peace and harmony in the classroom and making sure the other children are learning. Then we actually start to move gently and slowly towards a culture of care. Yeah, so. So thank you for being willing to explore this with us in a very public way. I really appreciate it.
Denise:
Yeah, thank you for going through all my questions.
Jen Lumanlan:
Yeah, a so um, so listeners can find all of the resources that I dug into the papers that I looked at for this episode, as well as that one pager. That does kind of outline many of the issues that we talked about today in a simple format that's easy to digest, and also includes the peer references if you want to dig deeper and all of that is at YourParentingMojo.com/rewardandpunishment.
Jessica:
Hi, this is just from Verlis, Panama. I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan, and I hope you enjoy this show as much as I do. If you found this episode, especially enlightening or useful, you can also donate to help Jen produce more content like this and also save us from those interminable mattress ads. Then you can do that and also subscribe in the link that Jen just mentioned. And don't forget to head to YourParentingMojo.com to record your own message for the show.