1. Rationale
A short glance into many American schools would reveal an overwhelming number of students disenfranchised, bored, unengaged and unvested. These are learners who no longer are stakeholders in their own education, with few intrinsic reasons to learn, perform, get involved, take control, or even care. School is a forced, necessary activity to get through, around, under, over and finally out of their lives. Much of this is brought on by the assembly line model of education, by curricular goals set by individuals far removed from the classroom, by rules of conduct designed to serve administrations more than students, and by teachers faced with the most daunting task of any profession on the planet: teaching.
There are, however, ways to engage students, to energize them, to resuscitate them from the educational malaise they face for what ever reason. The system described in this booklet is one of those solutions, and it can work wonders and create a renaissance of classroom climate for your teaching and your students’ learning.
Implementing such a system can have many challenges, not the least of which is that it requires you to reexamine (or examine, as the case may be) your classroom climate, procedures, paradigms and models, and largely change all of them. A point system in a classroom is, quite frankly, a departure from how “things are done” in most every classroom in the country. The table below summarizes some of the polar opposites of typical classrooms and Point-system classrooms.
Typical Classroom
Point-system Classroom
Teacher-based Student-based
Focus on Content Focus on Performance
Stress on Control Stress on Learning
Emphasis on Rules Emphasis on Positive Acknowledgement
The system described in this booklet came about from real-world experience and frustration with the classes we were teaching in Middle and High School. One of the authors (Frederick) was teaching High School Biology, General Science and Advanced Biology; the other author (Karen) was teaching the full spectrum of students in 8th grade science. We both felt that we weren’t reaching the students; that they were going through the motions, but weren’t a part of a learning community. Over several years, we introduced point systems to our classes, first with poker chips and later with paper tickets. As we learned more about the potential of class points, we refined the process with every class through every level---from low-level to accelerated learners. After only the first year with points we both agreed that we could never go back to the old models we used. Our students were active learners, interested and self-motivated. Their performance and learning increased; behavior problems waned. We had brighter, happier classroom cultures. We looked forward to going to work, and our students seemed to look forward to being in our classes.
The most intimidating part of implementing a point system, however, is in getting started. If you’ve never used such a system, it can be a little scary: will it work? will the students take it seriously? can I pull if off? These are all valid questions. And yet, in our cases, and in the teachers we’ve worked with to implement this kind of system, most students have embraced the point system. This is especially true of those students for whom education has had little meaning, for whom a “C” is a struggle. To them, the point system represents a new door opening. We invite you to open this door for them....
