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The PAX Good Behavior Game, commonly referred to simply as PAX, is an evidence-based practice that includes instructional and behavior strategies used in schools. PAX's preventative approach is designed to assist students inside the school system and long-term in their future lives. It focuses on self-regulation and co-regulation with peers to improve academics and social interaction.

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Funding for PAX Good Behavior Game and PAX Tools

As a worldwide leader in prevention science programming, PAXIS institute is proud to partner in local, regional, and federal initiatives to improve lifetime outcomes for all children.

PAXIS Institute supports the Youth System of Care by providing evidence-based programming for individuals who support children in a number of environments including school-based, professional, out-of-school, and in the home.

PAX evidence-based programming provides a foundation of universal prevention for all stakeholders who interact with children including those in the system of care. This ensures youth-serving adults have trauma-informed evidence-based strategies to use as part of a community- and strengths-based approach to supporting young people. These programs have proven to provide optimal outcomes for children while meeting the unique needs of families and communities anywhere.

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As a worldwide leader in prevention science programming, PAXIS institute is proud to partner in local, regional, and federal initiatives to improve lifetime outcomes for all children. PAXIS Institute supports the Youth System of Care by providing evidence-based programming for individuals who support children in a number of environments including school-based, professional, out-of-school, and in the home.

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The PAX Good Behavior Game is the chosen behavior management program for Marshall Elementary, my host site. The program has been slowly introduced to the school, with this year being the first year using PAX full time as the only behavior program in place.

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In this video, the president of PAXIS Institute introduces the PAX Good Behavior Game.

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PAX relies heavily on teaching and supporting self-regulation with students. It utilizes trauma-informed care and a tiered intervention approach. While obviously focusing on academic success, PAX works to support social and emotional development and learning.

A study published in the Frontiers of Psychology journal looked at the effects of self-regulation on school achievement. The 2018 study conducted by Van Tetering, Groot, and Jolles showed that their is a positive correlation between self-regulation and academic success. They also looked at the influence of parent background and its impacts on academic success.

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A PAX Partner is an individual who works in the school and is a support for teachers and staff in implementing PAX. Marshall Elementary has hired one of the part-time guidance counselors to be a PAX Partner when she is not in her guidance counselor role. The PAX Partner is responsible for supporting and seeing the school's PAX Vision out throughout the year and beyond. PAX Partners can also collect behavioral data and work with teachers to best implement PAX with their group of students.

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This site is a resource for PAX Partners. Use your PAX Partner password to access Partner Materials and videos for each Kernel, Cue, and the PAX Game on partnering, implementation and Kernel rationale.

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PAX Quiet - students are silent and raise two fingers in the air and one finger over their mouth to indicate that the speaker has their attention

More / Less - a class created list of things that they would like to have more or less of in their school, organized by the senses (i.e. hear, see, feel, etc.)

The harmonica - believed to be the only sound that has no traumatic connections, used to gain attention

Granny's Wacky Prizes - brief prizes that students can earn once they have mastered the baseline behaviors

Tootles - positive notes that can be written to each other

Spleems - a word used to indicate the presences of negative behaviors

PAX Leader Pledge - students recite the pledge each morning to start their day

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One key to the PAX Good Behavior Game that is not explicitly mentioned on any website or training manual is the role, and importance, of consistency. Whether the program is good or bad, it will not reach the full potential and outcomes if it is not consistently implemented. I have seen this first hand at Marshall as the program has been used for two years and not all of the staff is using it in their classrooms. Consistency is crucial in any aspect of schooling for children but especially in behavior management. Robert Hart (2010) emphasizes the importance of consistency, especially in respects to positive interventions, in the success of any behavior management plan in an article he authored for the Warwickshire Educational Psychology Service in the United Kingdom.

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W.O.W
Each week, one of the classrooms at Marshall hosts the WOW presentation. The class plans their presentation during their classroom lessons with the guidance counselor, which happens once a month. Most presentations are examples of key PAX behaviors in different settings within the school. For example, my class presented on PAX on the playground with skits of how to show PAX Leader qualities during recess.

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PAX and Privilege: What is a "good" student?

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PAX and Privilege: What is a "good" student?

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While PAX attempts to create a routine of self-regulation which could be a positive experience, the self-regulation that students are expected to model is a replica of the "ideal" or "good student. Privilege, especially in terms of race, socioeconomic status, and culture, has created the image of what students should be self-regulating into. There is no consideration for the fact that what might be the best an individual child can be and need to be might look different for every child in the classroom. Students do have a part in creating the expectations for the year as a class and school but those conversations have become a continuous cycle of the "good student": existing in the school setting quietly and calmly in a way determined by the privileged perspective. I believe there is a large discrepancy between individual needs of students and the "self regulation" that PAX aims to create.

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In my use of the phrase, a "good student" is what most of us, as educators, were as students and what many see as the ideal student. The "good student" is calm, quiet, a bit reserved, from a supportive family. They can sit, listen, and complete their work without struggle or complaint.

I will admit to often wanting the "good student" in my class. Or when a student is struggling in my class, I sometimes think "why can't you be a good student" or "if you were just like me you could get it..". But that isn't fair because I am only one person and one success in the school system. That doesn't make myself or the image of the "good student" the only way to success.

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PAX, in its purest intentions, is for the students as is most behavior management programs. However, PAX has become yet another program that sets the expectations and desires of the administration or, for lack of a better word, adults of the school system for students to follow without question.  It has become a continuation of the push for making the "good student" out of every child in our classrooms. PAX does not work for the many students who do not align with the traditional image of "good". Students who prefer to stand during class, do not return their weekly homework signed by a parent, or need to talk through their work are prevalent in my classroom and many others that I have seen and do not align with the "good student" image.

PAX does work for the "good student" or in other words, in reality, the student who does not need a behavior program in most cases

Another group of students who do not benefit from PAX are the students who have Tier 3 behavior intervention needs. There are no practical consequences or plans for behaviors that cannot be self-regulated by the student after many trials with the PAX process. For most students in the third tier of behavior intervention, the process of self-regulation that is prompted by the word "spleem" being called out. They need a program that teaches them positive behaviors and behavioral skills that work for them.

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PAX, in its purest intentions, supports each child in becoming a self-regulated individual with positive social, emotional, and academic skills. Expectations are established by the students at the beginning of the year or program-set details are introduced from the beginning and students decide what that looks and sounds like for them in different settings and scenarios. The expectations and procedures are universal for the most part with PAX Quiet procedures being one of the only school specific routines. Ideally, the self-regulation and social emotional skills established with PAX will translate and continue into their lives outside of school.

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Does Pax have a place for Social Justice?

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Does Pax have a place for Social Justice?

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Social justice has unfortunately not found its way into the PAX program at Marshall. I cannot speak for other schools that utilize the program as they may have found a way to do so. There is a single way to act and there is a lack of opportunity to question any part of the program on the side of both the teachers and the students. Both of these aspects shows me that social justice does not have a place in PAX.

In today's world, both general society and the school setting, without questioning of the status quo nothing will change for the better. We need to be able to ask things like "why is this the 'right' way to act for all students?". Without this practice, the systemic norms will continue regardless of what program is implemented in the school setting.