This summer Montana received over $2 million dollars in federal grant money to train more teachers in the state in the PAX Good Behavior Game. Currently some 11-hundred teachers have been trained in this strategy to help elementary students learn skills that can help them intellectually and emotionally throughout their lives.
"You are the best fifth grade class I've ever seen," Montana Governer Steve Bullock said on his Wednesday visit to Billings' Ponderosa School to see PAX Good Behavior Game in action.
"We're a second grade class!" the students exclaim.
"You're only second graders? You act like you're fifth graders, you're so well behaved," Bullock says.
Karissa Gordon, the teacher of the exuberant second graders, explains that PAX focuses on the positive and it focuses on building relationships.
"It’s not punitive, which is often different than some of the other models we see in classroom today. What this does is allow kids the space to make mistakes, as they will for the rest of their life, and to learn from them in a very safe and nurturing environment," Gordon said.
"A child walks into a school building, and they are already carrying with them what can be five years of some really challenging situations. And part of it as educators, and as folks in government and others, is to say, 'How do we make sure that no matter what, a child walks into a school building with we can help both unwind some of that and build the possibilities moving forward,'" Bullock said.
School districts large and small across Montana are using this program, including the 22 elementary schools in Billings, says the district’s Superintendent Greg Upham.
"This is an extremely proactive approach of a reactive issues that we’ve been dealing with and it is exciting to be on the front end of this" Upham said.
The PAX Good Behavior Game has been in Billings since 2015, while some schools in the state have been utilizing it for nearly a decade. This influx of federal dollars will help to bring it to more school district both large and small.
