Nov 23, 2016 By Harry Funk 3 min read

Say you have a surname that lends itself to all kinds of puns, rhymes and double entendres. It doesn’t take long for your classmates to figure out what gets your goat and run with it for the next, oh, 12 years.

Kids can be nasty. It’s in their nature. But it doesn’t have to be.

Meet Dennis Embry, founder of the PAXIS Institute, a Tucson, Ariz., organization that develops intellectual properties and training to promote improvements in the lives of people of all ages.

For those of younger ages, the institute has developed the PAX Good Behavior Game as a strategy to help promote positivity in the classroom.

“We are limiting their exposure to problematic behavior, mostly from other peers. That’s what bullying is about,” Embry explained during a recent visit to train area educators on implementing the game.

Two Upper St. Clair-based organizations, Wesley Spectrum and InterCare Solutions, partnered to provide the training, which was held at Crowne Plaza Suites Pittsburgh South in Bethel Park.

The Good Behavior Game, which can take place during any normal school activity, is designed to provide rewards for students in place of consequences and punishments. In turn, problematic behavior among students can drop precipitousl, by as much as 75 to 85 percent during 12 weeks of effective implementation, according to studies involving direct classroom observation.

Research has shown other encouraging outcomes that emerge.

“In about three to six months, typically, we see significant reductions in easily detected psychiatric disorders: anxiety, ADHD, peer problems that are depression-correlated,” Embry said. “A little longer time, we start to see reductions in bullying and serious anti-social behavior.”

Last year, 8,000 teachers throughout the United States, Canada and beyond, participated in Good Behavior Game training, eventually reaching some 250,000 children. Locally, InterCare Solutions – headed by Dr. Alan Axelson, a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry since 1972 – is supporting implementation of the strategy in Clairton City School District and Wesley Spectrum’s K-8 School in Upper St. Clair.

Debra Maurizio, elementary school principal and director of federal programs for Clairton, said she had attended a session in the spring to learn more about the concept.

“Everything just made sense and seemed like a good fit,” she said. “We’re looking at the school to be able to increase student achievement, increase student engagement and decrease instances of off-task behavior. This program is a perfect fit for that, really.”

A notable element of the game is the awarding of “Granny’s Wacky Prizes” for good behavior.

“Those are things that normally they would be forbidden to do,” Embry said. “They would get you in trouble, actually. So it might be, you get to sit backward on your chair. You get to wear your hat. You get to do your homework under your desk. We have hundreds of those.”

Maurizio told of her experience when a teacher in her school gave the Good Behavior Game a try with her students.

“One prize they had won was throwing paper at the teacher,” she recalled. “And they could not wait to tell me what they had done, to tattle on themselves. One of the little boys said, ‘Mrs. Maurizio, yesterday was the best day of my life.'”

She asked him why.

“He said, ‘We learned, but we had fun.’ That said everything.”