Posted on 12/23/2021 3:22:11 AM PST by blueplum
At Mosaic Preparatory Academy in Harlem, New York, reading, writing and arithmetic are not the only subjects on the curriculum — so is being nice....
...When 5-year-old King Ortiz was pulled out of class one day, he knew he'd earned something special — coupons for nice behavior that can be redeemed for tokens.
"I learned to be nice," King said.
Twenty-five coupons score students a shiny token for the vending machine. Tokens go in, but no chips or candy come out — only books drop....
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
New York City and the black urban world have so many problems that I realize this is like applying a bandaid to a broken dam. But still it’s a positive. I also know that the books are probably not “FR approved” but illiteracy is a dark hole. Books by Thomas Sowell do no good to an illiterate. All in all I consider this a good move by this school.
If its a prep school, odds are good that the parents give a darn and kids more or less are there to learn and are academically inclined. Yes, this is a good idea, reading is a joy that should be encouraged.
I am very pleased to see that this is not the bee, which was my first guess.
A good news story, though I very much agree that this is like applying a Band-Aid to a dam. Still, better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
The school I worked at in NV has this machine. The kids love it!
A program to reward good behavior. I'm surprised that there haven't been demands to shut it down because it is racist.
What books did it dispense?
Books should be free and easily available. In 1st grade, we had a contest to see who could read the most books. I worked so hard, read 12 and won 1st place. I got a lollipop with a blue ribbon glued to the front and it was promptly stolen by one of my classmates in the school that I was bussed to in the early 70’s.
Regular children’s books for different grade levels. This is conservative Nevada. No CRT or ‘Daddy is really Mommy’ type books.
I think this is a decent idea but let me ask. What ever happened to libraries on campus and the incentive to use them.
When I was a young lad library books were one of our major forms of entertainment next to playing in the cow pastures and hunting. There was no tv, computer internet or a bedroom full of toys.
School libraries have pretty much been replaced by ‘learning centers’, a bank of computers.
I slipped into being a voracious reader towards 5th grade or so. The book fair with cheap paperback fiction hooked me in then I graduated to the town library that I rode my bicycle to. Pirates, space aliens and cowboys are still my favorite recreational reading. Lol!
Fast forward to college and reading most anything was not a problem for me wrt to mechanics so to speak. I could focus on understanding, learning the content.
In my 1st semester of college in 1971, I had my first exposure to a computer “learning center”. It was a fiasco math class. 1 hour a week in class and 3-6 hours a week sitting at a computer terminal. I learned practically nothing. I was so frustrated that I enrolled in a different university. When in the Arts & Sciences college at university 2, a computer learning center was used for the Spanish classes for reading comprehension and pronunciation. This worked for me.
This reminds me…. I just moved to a new town in a new state. I need to visit the county library to check out their fiction section and get a library card.
Unfortunately, NY City doesn’t require that children learn to read.
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