Junior High Rewards Students With Games

Daily Press

Mason Goeddel, 13, spent his Tuesday lunchtime skeet shooting and enduring long table tennis rallies as a virtual Olympian on a Mario video game.

He wasn't home sick or on break from school, but one of a few select students who earned a spot in an increasingly popular classroom at Hook Junior High: the Wii room.

In an effort to boost attitudes and student success, Hook Junior High officials have for the first time created a video game room to reward positive behavior. The goal is to lower disciplinary problems not just by punishing students with referrals and suspensions, but by "catching them doing something good," said Hook Principal James Nason.

"We focus on the negative too much," Nason said. "Sometimes it's just the smallest rewards that the kids strive for."

Students get a bid in the Wii room by earning tickets from teachers, security or support staff for demonstrating positive performance -- from significantly improving in class to a random act of kindness.

"I got 100 percent on a math test," said Goeddel, adding the tickets have motivated him to spend more time on his homework.

Teachers each received an initial 10 raffle tickets and can request up to five more at a time, but they're advised to hand them out carefully to students who deserve them. Each day school officials draw four names out of the raffle and reveal the winners -- who get to spend lunchtime eating pizza and playing Wii -- on the morning announcements.

And each winner gets to bring along one friend.

Davida Robinson, 12, earned a lunch in the Wii room on Tuesday for helping a peer with a math assignment. She brought along her friend Jocelyne Reyes, 13, who said she likes the Wii room but isn't sure how big of an impact it will have on students.

"It just depends on the student," said Reyes, pointing out some students will act badly no matter what rewards they're offered for good behavior.

Though it's hard to quantify the reward's effect so far, Nason said he and teachers are observing students striving to get a ticket and asking what they can do to get more. He said he's already seen one boy who had several disciplinary problems last year earn a spot in the Wii room twice.

The school equipped the game room with help from local nonprofit One 2 One Mentors, which also uses the game room as an incentive to attract students to after-school tutoring programs on the school site. One 2 One and Hook are splitting the $20,000 expense of the four game consoles and controllers, 12 games and four flat-screen televisions. They chose Wii for its physically active games, Nason said.

School officials are working on thinking up more uses for the room. Last week every student who earned all A's in the spring 2009 celebrated with In 'N Out and playtime in the Wii room.

And in the future, Nason said the school may host a Wii tournament.

"We're really trying to get kids excited in school," Nason said. "We want them to have fun."

----

More game news

Game reviews

Copyright 2012 by Daily Press