(New Message)Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side
Mrs. Bliss at Sterling Elementary had a student getting in trouble during unstructured times, particularly in the bus room before and after school. He was saying "inappropriate comments" to peers. By investigating the situation (aka--talking!), the student informed Mrs. Bliss that he said these things to get his peers' attention. BINGO!!!!!!!!!! Kid (humans) behave (positively and negatively) to either GET SOMETHING OR GET AWAY FROM SOMETHING! Not most students will be as aware as this young man so we as the adults have to ask the right questions, gather more information, observe the problem behavior in the setting, and so on.
Then what to do??? REPLACE THE BEHAVIOR WHILE STILL PROVIDING THE SAME FUNCTION!
So Mrs. Bliss decided to use humor as a way for her student to get peer attention. She provided him a joke book and taught, modeled, reinforced how to tell jokes to his friends. What a clever way to teach a new skill!