Ben Guest Assignment: Write about one thing you will do differently in your classroom next year.
Because I have struggled with maintaining my current reward system since its inception on the very first day of school, it will be experiencing a complete and total overhaul for the next school year. At the beginning of the year I had intended to use the Mississippi Teacher Corps reward standard, otherwise known as the ticket economy. A ticket economy entails giving the students tickets for various good acts, such as answering questions, following procedures, or doing something exemplarily without having been told, and allowing them to redeem those tickets for snacks on specified dates. It seemed like it would be easy enough to do, but within a very short period of time my system quickly went from tickets being given out every day to tickets being given out only on "Ticket Tuesdays" to hardly any of my students even remembering tickets existed in the first place. When I think back on it, I'm pretty sure I've only held three ticket redemptions.
The ticket economy reward system does not work for me for a number of reasons. The first is the ambiguity of the system. Should I give tickets for every correct answer, or should I only give tickets for insightful or higher caliber answers? And if I'm only selectively giving tickets, do I not then have to consider the relative performance of each student? It seems unfair to give a million tickets to the naturally gifted student, while denying the quiet, lower-achieving student who never participates a ticket because they got the question wrong, and in so doing so completely ignoring the fact that they mustered up the courage to raise their hand.
Secondly, there is the issue of ticket theft and misuse of foreign currency. It is almost unbelievable the extent to which our students love their snacks, and the lengths to which they will go to obtain them. Tickets being stolen, both from other students as well as from the teachers providing them, is a serious problem. An economy cannot be sustained if the currency of that economy does not actually need to be earned through hard work. Similar to theft, although not as big of an issue, is the fact that many teachers use the same type of ticket, making it possible to utilize tickets between classrooms. The value of a ticket is dictated by the willingness of a teacher to give them, but without being able to tell them apart between classrooms, the value of all of the tickets is diminished as they become universal currency.
Finally, plain and simple, it is a cost issue. To properly maintain an effective ticket economy one must be willing to open up a tab at the local Wal-Mart and to keep an endless supply of Flamin' Hot Cheetos on hand. For some teachers the ticket economy is hugely beneficial and well worth the dip into our already small salaries, while for others it is nothing more than a financial loss.
To remedy these problems I've decided that next school year I'm going to go with a ticket raffle rewards system, as opposed to the ticket economy. Tickets will be given for anything and everything done correctly, which should result in a huge boost in participation and a removal of the ambiguity of the original system. When a student gets a ticket they will then put their name on the back, and it will be their responsibility to ensure that it is put in a designated box before the next ticket drawing is performed. Then on specified dates, tickets will be drawn for prizes. Since it is no longer an economy with goods available for purchase, the amount spent on prizes will be entirely left to the teacher's discretion, eliminating the possibility of breaking the bank that one must fear in a ticket economy. If all goes as planned, it should be a much easier system for me to maintain, and my hopes are that it will provide a greater incentive for students to participate and follow procedures than the nonexistent system that is currently in place.
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