The basic concept behind Brag Tags isn't something new. I remember making my own "Caught Being Good" tickets when I was student teaching 15 plus years ago. A couple of years later, I made "Coventry Compliment" tickets for our whole school to use to recognize positive behavior. I think many teachers have been using a version of these for years. Why? Because it works! The way I use my Brag Tags is definitely more intentional and thoughtful than when I used other tickets in the past. And I think the way I implement them into my classroom is deeper and more meaningful than just another reward for a student that is doing what is expected. That's really not where they have their power at all.
I have never been comfortable with rewarding kids for doing what is expected. Just like at my own home, I expect certain things from my kids without me having to reward them or give them allowance. They are expected to help clean up, set the table, or help watch their baby brother for a few minutes while I finish cooking dinner or help someone with their homework. I don't reward them for that. It's just expected that when I ask for their help, they do because they are part of the family.
And I think the same is mostly true in the classroom. Students should follow the routines and expectations and not need a reward. (I definitely have an exception to this though. Students that need individual behavior plans I think do sometimes need to be rewarded for meeting the classroom expectations. You can read more about how I work with more challenging students in my previous post Rethinking How to Handle Our Toughest Students here.)
I see the pendulum swinging the other way in sports as well. Where it used to be everybody gets a trophy just for participating, things are shifting to kids earning trophies. The non-winning competitors are left to deal with the disappointment of not winning. As hard as this can be to watch as a parent, I think it is good for kids to experience disappointment. It gives us the opportunity to support our children as they learn how to deal with disappointment, failure, and sadness. If we shelter them completely from negative emotions, then they won't develop the skills when they are faced with the difficulties life brings as adults. We can guide them and teach them to navigate through the tough times so eventually they have skills to do this by themselves.
In fact I just had this experience two weeks ago when my son lost the championship basketball game for the rec league he was playing in. We even had to drive home one of his friends from the winning team-trophy and all. There was part of me that ached too when I saw his sadness. But there was a part of me that knew this was a chance to strengthen his character. I supported him as he learned how to lose with grace and deal with his disappointment. It wasn't easy, but those growing moments often aren't easy. As we talked after dropping his friend off, I was more proud of him than if he had won that trophy.
I say all this because I've realized that some may view something like Brag Tags as just another way we are creating a sense of entitlement in kids these days by over-rewarding them. And I couldn't disagree more.
Brag Tags to me are not a reward. They are a way for me to recognize the positive in my students. When I'm pointing out the good things going on my classroom (rather than focusing on the negative and what not to do), the environment becomes more positive. It focuses my attention and the attention of all my students on the positive. This is important to me because I strive to create an environment where each of one of my students feels safe and valued.
Once they earn a Brag Tag, it is theirs to keep. Mistakes that they make later don't take away from their earlier successes. This is one of the issues I have with the clip up charts that are so popular. (You can read my post here for more details about why I don't use those charts.)
Brag Tags are, most importantly, a teaching opportunity. When I hand out a Brag Tag, I have an opportunity to teach all of my students. I can decide to spend 5 seconds and just state a simple sentence or I can spend 15 minutes in a class discussion. In this way I am supporting students as they learn and develop positive character traits. We can't just expect students to meet our expectations because we told them during the first week of school. We have to model. We have to discuss. We have to praise them as they are strengthening their "character muscles." (And some students are going to need more support than others.)
One of the character traits that our district focuses on is integrity. So, I made a brag tag for it. This was a word that none of my little firsties were familiar with. Reading a story and discussing the meaning of the word is a good start, but for most of my students, it takes much more than that. If I want my students to truly understand and then work to have integrity, it needs to be integrated into our day. By recognizing when my students are demonstrating integrity and pointing it out to my entire class, I'm helping support the work of building integrity in each of them.
I love using Brag Tags because there is so much flexibility in how they are used. I'm committing to encouraging and giving positive recognition without a the commitment of a complicated system. It becomes just a natural part of our day. One of the best effects of this is that the students begin to recognize each other's accomplishments and show that they genuinely care about one another. A positive learning environment...Celebrating character growth and academic progress...Sincere interest in others' success? What more could a teacher ask for?
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