Behavioral Incentives through Literacy: A Gold Award
Troop 8072 Ambassador, Mila, recently earned her Gold Award. The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest achievement a Girl Scout can earn. Mila found that there were issues within the fields of Education and Childrens' Behavior, so she addressed these issues within her project.
The first issue Mila tackled was the increasing problem of negative student behaviors. These behaviors impact the performance and mental health of both students and teachers. She wanted to offer her school district an, "educational, sustainable way to positively affect the morale and behaviors of students," by implementing a positive behavioral incentive program.
The second issue she addressed was the declining literacy rate in the country. She found in her research that around 1.2 million high school students drop out of school every year due to illiteracy. Mila wanted to focus on this issue because, "most everything includes either reading or writing."
Starting in February of 2022, and ending in February of 2023, Mila dedicated 91 hours of hard work to solving this issue in her community.
First, Mila conducted research on the cause of these problems and how to potentially find a solution. Then, she started planning, running, and promoting a Read-a-Thon. After the event, she tallied results, prepared reports, and reported the results to social media. Next, Mila contacted the school administration to present her idea, a book vending machine where students get tokens for good behavior, and schedule a session to meet with the school board. Meeting with the superintendent, her ideas were discussed and approved. She then presented to the school board.
Mila used her art skills to design a custom wrap for her project. She decided to fully hand draw her design and then import it to her computer.
The next step in Mila's project was a book fair. Mila planned the fair and enlisted others to help. She set up the book fair and decorations, as well as set up book fair promotions. She compiled advertisements, set up hall displays, decorated the library, and worked the book fair.
Mila had many meetings with discussing finalizations for her project and the wrap for her vending machine. She had her final school board meeting and presentation in January of 2023.
Mila found that she wanted to approach behavioral issues in the classroom through positivity instead of punishments. She wanted to provide teachers with an opportunity to reward those who are trying to improve at school. She also wanted to recognize students that had positive behavior, encouraging them to continue that behavior. She found this idea to be helpful in order to reward kids that do not traditionally perform well. She wanted to give them a tangible reward and something to work towards. This system of reinforcement for positive behaviors also encourages literacy, because the prize is a book. Her target audience was a little more than 200 students and around 15 teachers and specialists in her community.
Improving her project management, public speaking, decision making, and time management skills were a big part of Mila's Gold Award journey. She used her leadership skills by creating motivation for her team and implementing adaptability. She was glad that the project was received with positivity by the school board and others she collaborated with. Through earning her Gold Award, Mila demonstrated the Girl Scout Leadership outcome of Postive Values.
