What is PBIS?
PBIS, which stands
for positive behavioral intervention & support, is a flexible
framework of behavior management techniques designed to do what it
describes: support positive behavior and intervene to recover it if
students don't have it. PBIS is a framework that is supported by the US
department of education and you can read a lot about it at PBIS.org.
There are many aspects of PBIS, but some of the key ones are listed below:
-
Define, talk about, acknowledge, and reward positive behavior. The key
idea here is that people respond better to encouragement and praise than
they do to criticism and punishment.
- The
bigger the group implementing PBIS, the better. In other words, multiple
teachers and classrooms works better than one teacher. A whole school
works better than just some of the teachers. A whole district works
better than just one school. The more that students can hear the same
message and get the same principles reinforced, the more effective the
whole program will be.
- Every student will receive some level of "support." All students receive the general positive behavior acknowledgements and rewards (this is known as Tier 1 support). Some students with
more problem behaviors will also get Tier 2 support, which could be
behavioral plans, special groups to talk about behavior and goals, or
special classes. A few students with severe behavior problems and
high risk behaviors will also get Tier 3 support, which is individual
intervention from behavior specialists or administrators. This could
include a personal behavioral change plan and weekly meetings with their
specialist. Thus, these are overlapping categories. Students with tier 3
support also get tier 2 and tier 1 support. Students with tier 2
support also get tier 1 support.
- PBIS requires consistent application in order to be successful.
I put an infographic about PBIS together which you can find here: https://infogram.com/step-by-step-charts-1h706eo88rwq25y
Much
more information about PBIS can be found at http://www.pbis.org/, which
is put out by the
U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.
However, I have found that the most understandable explanation of PBIS
can be found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Behavior_Interventions_and_Supports .
- - - - - - - - - -
Is PBIS useful?
PBIS
is being widely adopted and has a lot of supporters, but there are also
a lot of people pointing out problems with it. These are some of the
problems or potential problems that have been identified:
- Inconsistent giving of rewards can lead to students believing that they are being treated unfairly (perhaps correctly).
-
Tying so many positive behaviors to rewards can lead to students only
wanting to do something good if they believe it will be seen and
rewarded.
- Tying class or school-wide rewards to the
behavior of every student can lead to students punishing other students
if they endanger the group rewards.
Let's take a look at these problems one at a time:
Inconsistent rewards:
As Michael Ryan Hunsaker notes in his blog: "It is far too easy for any of us to reward one student for a given
behavior and not another student for the exact same behavior; we do it
all the time as teachers. This inconsistency and violation of
expectation justifiably cause distrust, frustration, and anger. Unfortunately, this type of asymmetrical reward is a feature,
not a bug, of PBIS. PBIS uses asymmetrical reward as a motivational
tool, to the detriment of the students that struggle with their
comportment."
Extrinsic motivation:
Ideally,
we want people to do good things because they personally want to do
those good things (intrinsic motivation). But tying most good behaviors
to rewards easily leads to extrinsic motivation (and exhausted teachers,
who are responsible for handing out rewards--as fairly as possible).
Several teachers have mentioned this problem. For example, in a forum on
Proteacher.net, one said, "If I hear, 'What are we
gonna get or what am I gonna get,' one more time after giving a student
a complement, I'm going to scream. I just might scream, 'PBIS sucks and
feeds right into the cycle of poverty by teaching kids to always have
their hand out for something!' " (Daphne333). This might be an
individual perspective, but other teachers have similar perspectives as
well.
School-wide or class-wide rewards leading to antisocial behavior
Here's
an example of the kind of downstream effect which is unexpected but
quite probably for this kind of reward: "I have had teachers look at a
line of students in the hallway and say to
their teacher, “I would have loved to give you [a class] dollar, but
Student X was out of line. Too bad.” Then the two teachers would passive
aggressively talk about how they were 1 student away from getting a
class dollar and just how sad that was because those dollars add up to a
class party. Can anyone guess what the response from the group was at
Student X? It certainly was not kind. In this case the whole class went
into an loud uproar (in the hall no less) and started threatening this
student for losing them class cash. Did I mention this student was
autistic and overloaded with sensory stimulus and had their fingers
jammed in their ears? They were. They were just trying to maintain."
(Hunsaker, 2016, "We Need to Re-Evaluate School-Wide PBIS")
Overall,
PBIS has been getting a fair amount of push-back. As was summarized by
the Bakersfield Californian at bakersfield.com, "Opinions on the
effectiveness of the approach known as Positive Behavior
Interventions and Support are a mixed bag of high hopes, praise,
reservations and fervent opposition." Likewise, advocates of other
systems for promoting positive behavior feel like they are being pushed
aside for the sake of a Federally sanctioned program (see Education
Week, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/28/2pbis_ep.h33.html ).
PBIS
seems to have some good and useful aspects of it, but if I were an
administrator, I would not recommend it as it is usually practiced. The Wikipedia article on PBIS
lists some alternatives to PBIS, including one called "Responsive
Classroom." This system is similar to PBIS, except that it emphasizes
intrinsic motivation over external rewards. Considering that most of the
identified problems of PBIS come from the reward aspect, I believe that
the Responsive Classroom system is much more likely to be an effective
program for all parties involved.
REFERENCES:
PBIS.org . Retrieved May 20, 2018. US Department of Education resource on PBIS.
Wikipedia. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. (2018, February 17).
Retrieved May 20, 2018, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Behavior_Interventions_and_Supports
Hunsaker, M. R., Ph.D. (2018, April 16). PBIS is Broken: How Do We Fix
It? Retrieved from
https://whyhaventtheydonethatyet.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/pbis-is-broken-how-do-we-fix-it/
Daphne333. (2013, December 10). The problem with PBIS - ProTeacher Community.
Retrieved May 20, 2018, from
http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=477703 . Discussion forum for teachers.
HappyTexan. (2012, December 16). PBIS - Why this program should be cut
(university, high school, paying) - Education -universities, high
schools, elementary schools, teachers... - City-Data Forum. Retrieved
May 20, 2018, from
http://www.city-data.com/forum/education/1753263-pbis-why-program-should-cut.html#ixzz5G0qwd34x . city-data.com education discussion forum.
Hunsaker, M. R. (2018, April 18). We Need to Re-Evaluate School-Wide
PBIS. Retrieved from
https://whyhaventtheydonethatyet.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/we-need-to-re-evaluate-school-wide-pbis/
Foreman, L. (2016, September 13). PBIS program gets mixed reviews.
Retrieved from
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/pbis-program-gets-mixed-reviews/article_03b68ada-464c-5a70-8b2a-04b08a2fca1a.html
Samuels, C. A. (2018, February 28). Tensions Accompany Growth of PBIS
Discipline Model. Retrieved from
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/28/2pbis_ep.h33.html
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