3 reasons to stop rewarding and punishing children

Teachers and schools make thousands of decisions, big and small, everyday. Just as we would hope that our doctors and hospitals are making decisions based on evidence and research, so should teachers and schools.

Should schools use rewards and punishments on their students?

Here are 3 reasons why schools and teachers need to stop using rewards and punishments:

1. We want children to do the right things for the right reasons. Too often rewards distract children from doing the right thing for the right reason. Instead of being virtuous and doing the right thing regardless of whether anyone is watching or waiting to catch them, too many children (and adults) will do good only when they stand to personally gain -- then we lament about why some children (and adults) become grade grubbers, praise junkies and bribe bait. We can't teach children to do the right thing with carrots and sticks. We want children to share and adults to slow down in playground zones not because they might get caught -- and yet when we reward and punish children to do the right thing, we teach them to look over their shoulder before they do good or bad.

2. There are two kinds of motivation: intrinsic & extrinsic. The problem here is that we need to stop asking ‘How motivated are my students?’ and start asking ‘How are my students motivated?’. Motivation is not a single entity that you either have a lot or little of. There are two kinds: intrinsic and extrinsic. If you are intrinsically motivated then you are doing something for its own sake; if you are extrinsically motivated, you are driven to do something, or not do something, based on a reward or punishment that may be waiting for you. But that is not even the interesting part—the real catch here is that these two kinds of motivation tend to be inversely related. When you grow students' extrinsic motivation by bribing them (or threatening them), you run the risk of growing their extrinsic motivation while their intrinsic love for what you want them to learn shrivels. Rewards can only ever gain short-term compliance from students when what we really desire is their authentic engagement.

3. To a child, an adult's praise and presents are cheap -- it's our presence that they value the most. There is absolutely nothing wrong with recognizing children -- problems occur, however, when our recognition is manipulative and controlling. Too often the children we deem the most undeserving of our recognition and attention are those who need us the most -- too often rewards and punishments rupture our relationships with children. My teaching and parenting mantra is borrowed directly from Jerome Bruner who once said that, "Children should experience success and failure not as reward and punishment but as information". This mindset lays the foundation for shifting away from doing things to children and moving towards working with them.

Further reading:

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Why we do What we do? by Edward Deci

Drive by Daniel Pink

Reading, it's kind of a big deal

This was written by Andrea Kerr who is a a freelance writer and editor, as well as a certified-teacher-without-a-classroom. Andrea blogs here and tweets here. This post was originally found here.

by Andrea Kerr

Reading is a big deal in our house.

Before returning to school for a Bachelor of Education, I worked in-house as a web editor in the publishing industry. I currently edit books and write back cover copy on a freelance basis. Since I graduated, I’ve taken additional qualifications in teaching Intermediate English and Reading. My undergrad is in English and Mass Communication (as is my husband’s), and I also have a diploma in Print Journalism. We have a LOT of books in the house (here’s to boxes of hand-me-downs from big sisters with older children!) My husband and I both love to read. So creating and nurturing a love of books in our boys was a no-brainer.

We’ve read to the boys since they were infants. At eight, BB#1 is an avid reader who reads everything from chess instructions to the Wimpy Kid series, kids’ magazines to novels like The Hobbit. Thanks to French Immersion, he can and does read in two languages. We have a deal when the Scholastic flyers come home: I will buy him French books, and he can choose to purchase English books with his own money.

Just turned five, BB#2 is not quite reading independently yet (at least, he’s pretending he isn’t), but loves being read to. He is excited when his Chirp magazine arrives in the mail, has his own library card, and will bring us book after book to read to him.

So, filling out the reading logs their teachers send home should be no problem, right?

Wrong. Something strange happens when my boys are asked to log their reading or read for homework. They are no longer interested. I have to nag them, either to read, or to write the titles down in the log. I’ve struggled to articulate exactly why that is, but this tweet from a teacher I came across a few weeks back puts it pretty plainly:

“Reading logs make liars of bad readers, annoy good readers, & tells us nothing about their literacy.” @jenmarten

You are probably saying, not all kids are like mine. Not all kids actually want to read or be read to, or have the culture of reading that we have at home. I know this. So how do we encourage those kids to read if we don’t offer rewards, and how do we know they are doing it if we don’t ask them to log their books or minutes? I don’t have the answers, but I do know this: if we offer stickers or pizza or a points system for reading, we’re telling kids that it’s something unpleasant with no value of it’s own. If we tell them they must quantify their reading by logging pages or minutes, we’re saying we don’t trust them, and that we know they wouldn’t actually choose to read if they didn’t have to.

These programs may get kids to pick up books, write them in a log (and maybe even read them), but they are not creating readers. And as @jenmarten suggests, what does a list of book titles a student may or may not have read even tell the teacher about that student’s ability to read, and understand what she’s read, anyway? Likely nothing the teacher doesn’t already know.

Since the boys are already reading on a regular basis, I suppose I could just fill in their logs without telling them. But that feels wrong—like pretending something is working when it’s really not. And in BB#1’s case, though he reads in English every day, he’s more likely to spend an hour reading in French by choice one day, and then not the next, rather than the prescribed twenty minutes a day. While this to me is more authentic and therefore more valuable, it doesn’t look as impressive on a daily log.

BB#2’s log can be of books he’s read, or that are read to him—and there is a small prize for every twenty-five books read. But at the rate we read, we’d be getting a prize every couple of days. And since we clearly don’t need that motivation to read together, well, it just feels silly.

I’m not alone in this thinking. I’ve read a number of articles and blog posts by educators outlining the downside to reading logs. But here’s my question: if we know that reading logs and programs can cause more harm than good, then why are so many teachers still using them? And even more confusing: if what I’m most concerned with is nurturing my children’s passion for reading and interest in learning—if I know that they ARE reading, and that whether or not they fill out their reading logs in senior kindergarten and third grade is going to be meaningless in the grand scheme of their educational lives—why am I so conflicted about this? Why can’t I bring myself to write a polite note saying, in this house we don’t log reading, we just read.
I think I know why. It’s two-fold. And sort of embarrassing. As a teacher, one without a classroom at that, I’m worried about appearing judgmental of other, experienced teachers’ practices. As a parent, I’m concerned those blank log pages will reflect on me—that their teachers will view me as one of “those” parents: uninvolved, unsupportive, ignorant of the value of regular reading.
Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
For further reading. You know, if you like that sort of thing:

You Don’t Have to Read Every Day

My Son is Afraid to Read

Daddy I Want a Book Buck

This post by an administrator suggests how we can get all kids reading, without rewards:

Creating the Conditions: A Love of Reading

I also recently led a discussion on the following article as part of an assignment in my Reading course:

How to create non-readers

Reading for the sake of reading

There were a number of comments left on my post called "Daddy, I want a book buck!" where I detailed how the school's reading incentive plan was distracting my daughter from her love for reading.

Here is a comment left by anonymous:

As a parent to an 8 year old boy who LOVES to read, I find this heartbreaking. When my son was 4, I knew so many parents who were sending their children to reading programs to ensure they learned to read early so they could be competitive with other kids when school started. I remember my husband being concerned that maybe we should be doing the same for our son, to ensure he didn't get behind. As someone who loves to read, I knew if we could capture our son's curiosity and desire to learn through reading, all the drive he needed would come from within. Whenever he expressed an interest in anything, I found a book for him on that topic. As he gets older and has more and more questions about things, we seek out the answers in books. He will sit and read for hours sometimes because he loves to read and loves what he can learn from books. Instead of reward programs for how much kids read, I would love to see a program that helps kids find books that tap into their individual interests. That is what creates a love of reading.

Turning reading into work

There were a number of comments left on my post called "Daddy, I want a book buck!" where I detailed how the school's reading incentive plan was distracting my daughter from her love for reading.

Here is a comment left by Jeffrey Wardlaw:

My 5th-grade son always has loved to read - independently and with others. He enjoyed just sitting alone in his room for long stretches of time reading for personal pleasure. It is one of the things that I and his mother are most proud of - his joy of reading. 

This year, his grade level teachers instituted a new practice of requiring students to read a 100 minutes each week, at least 4 times a week, AND provide a written summary of what they read along with a personal reflection based on several writing prompts. 

Knowing how my son would react to being "forced" to read, early in the school year, I voiced my concerns very strongly with the grade-level teachers, explaining that I believed their reading program would not foster a desire to read, but rather force reading to become just another piece of homework to be completed. Unfortunately, they did not agree with my reasoning, and have continued with the reading program.

As you can imagine, my son no longer reads for pleasure. For him, reading is now "work." Despite the best intentions of his teachers to get the students to read, by instituting measures of "accountability" and "assessment"(the teachers' words, not mine) into the assignment, they have crushed my son's and likely other students' desire to read.

So, incentivizing reading is not the only way to kill a love of reading. Just turn reading into "work" and watch the kids shut down.

Destructive Incentive Plans

There were a number of comments left on my post called "Daddy, I want a book buck!" where I detailed how the school's reading incentive plan was distracting my daughter from her love for reading.

Here is a comment left by Julie:

As the parent of a now 14 year old son who avoids reading for pleasure, I can attest to the damage done by school reading bucks, teacher required reading logs, Pizza Hut Book-It programs, school-wide Battle of the Books, and classroom posters charting the oral reading speed of every child in the class. All of these supposedly motivating things turned reading into just another chore for my son. Reading became something that was assigned, rather than something that he chose for pleasure. Reading became so graded, recorded, judged, timed, tested and tracked that he rebelled, despite our best efforts at home, and now rarely picks up a fiction book.

If I had to do it over again, I would politely but firmly let his teachers know that he would not be participating in any of these forms of manipulation. Better yet, I would have homeschooled him and let him read widely and freely for hours on end.

Don't let the school system and their misguided approach to reading ruin your daughter's love for books. Don't let them turn reading into a chore and don't allow them to manipulate the joy she find in words with cheap trinkets. It's worth fighting for.

Rewarding Reading, Ruining Readers

I've received a number of comments and emails in response to my post where I detailed how an incentive reading plan is undermining my daughter's motivation to read for its own sake.

Here are a couple points that I would like to address:

1. Unfortunately there will be a significant number of homes where there is no parent support or modelling for a love of reading, and even more unfortunate, no shared reading times either. In these circumstances "Book Bucks" and other extrinsic rewards might be the only chance the teacher has to foster a very young child to start reading.

Firstly, why do so many assume that kids with little parent/home support need extrinsic rewards to be motivated to learn? Regardless of the quality or quantity of parental involvement, our long-term goal for all children should remain a love for books not rewards. Not only does it make little sense to distract children who already have a love for books with rewards -- but it might make even less sense to entice reluctant readers to read by telling them reading is something one would not want to do unless bribed (or threatened). If we want to inspire children to have a love for reading, shouldn't our schools focus on a culture of reading rather than a culture of rewards?

2. Some parents and teachers can't get children to read without some kind of incentive program.

That some children will only read when bribed or threatened is as unfortunate as it is predictable, but I don't see this as an argument for more rewards and punishments -- rather, I see this as an indictment of such programs. If children become acclimated to reading only when extrinsically induced, should we really be surprised that they refuse to read when the rewards and punishments are removed? In fact, this might be one of the best arguments against trying to entice reluctant readers with rewards and then weaning them off -- which is really nothing more than the ol' bait and switch.

3. How will it affect your child if you opt them out of the school's rewards program?

When schools employ reward systems, they put progressive parents in a difficult spot. Because the only way anyone can experience the absence of a reward is as a punishment, it is very likely that when parents opt their children out, their children will experience this as a punishment. This doesn't make opting out impossible, but it certainly makes doing the right thing challenging for parents and their children.

4. If parents express their concerns for incentive programs, how will that affect their relationship with the teacher?

The only way to guarantee not to rupture the parent-teacher relationship is to remain silent -- that is to say, go along to get along. But then what kind of relationship is built on submissive silence? It is likely that the most progressive teachers will see an informed parent who plays an active role in their child's education as an ally; and yet, it's very likely that the most unimpressive teachers will see these parents as nothing more than problems to be dismissed.

If you want to read about how a school nurtures a culture of reading around reading (not rewards), check out principal Chris Wejr's school in his post Creating the Conditions: A Love of Reading.

I would also suggest you read Alfie Kohn's How to Create Non-Readers: Reflections on Motivation, Learning and Sharing Power.

"Daddy, I want a book buck!"

Most nights before bed, Kayley and I read together. Because she's 5, I typically do the majority of the reading to her; however, she's learning to read by looking at the pictures and watching and listening to me read. She's also starting to identify a couple words like her name. And even more importantly, Kayley already loves to read.

When I ask her if she wants to read with me, she almost always says, "yes", and when I ask her why she wants to read with me, she almost always says "because its fun!"

From the beginning, we've worked really hard to inspire a love for reading with Kayley by stocking our house full of books, modelling reading for our own enjoyment and reading to and with her almost every day, especially before bed.

But something changed.

Last night I asked, "Kayley do you want to read before bed time?"

She said, "Yes," and added, "I want a book buck."

I asked, "What's a book buck?"

She said, "If I read 5 books, I get 5 book bucks at school."

I asked, "Why do you want book bucks?"

"Because I get toys."

I decided to let this go for the moment, so we could read the book she brought from school. While I read, I could tell that she really enjoyed it. She got excited during the exciting parts and nervous during the nervous parts. We both smiled and laughed while we made our way through the book.

When we were done, I asked, "Did you like that book?"

"Yes!"

"Why did you like it?"

"Because I'm going to get a book buck! Did you like it, daddy?"

"Yes."

"Why did you like it, dad?"

"I liked it because it was fun and we spent time together reading."

"Dad, I'm going to get a book buck, and I'll get one for you, too."

She went to bed.

I didn't.

Instead, I spent the rest of the evening writing this and thinking. Here's what I thought about:

• Before Kayley went to school she said she read because she liked to read with me and it was fun, but now she says she likes to read because she wants book bucks. I'm not okay that book bucks and toys are competing for my daughter's motivation for reading with me.

• There are two kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic; and these two kinds of motivation tend to be inversely related. Grow someone's extrinsic motivation and watch their intrinsic motivation wither away and vice versa.

• Some claim that incentive programs can help get kids interested in reading, but even if that we're true, Kayley is already interested in reading and there is evidence that the book bucks are actually having a negative effect.

• Motivation matters. There is a big difference between wanting to read a book because the characters are cool and you can't wait to turn the page versus wanting to read a book because you can't wait to get your hands on a reward or avoid a punishment.
• We have worked really hard to inspire a love for reading with Kayley. We have the best of intentions for her.

• The school really wants to encourage parents to play an active role in helping their children read so they use incentive programs like "book bucks". They have the best of intentions for students.

• However, despite our mutual best intentions, I think it's pretty clear that there's a problem here. Does Kayley still love to read with me. Yes. Is her love for reading instantly destroyed. Of course not. However, reading for its own sake has been something that we've worked on for 5 years but now she's distracted by book bucks and toys. Is this good for Kayley?

• If the school's incentive plan undermines a child's intrinsic desire to go on reading for the sake of reading, what should a parent do?

What would you do?

Everything works

Punish a child to teach him a lesson and he'll learn that you can use power over those weaker than you to get what you want.

Reward students for high testsandgrades or punish them for low testsandgrades and you teach children that testsandgrades, not learning, are the point of school.

Use multiple choice tests as your primary form of assessment and you teach children that in the real world you don't have to generate your own response to solve problems.

Frame learning as a competition and you force children to see their peers as obstacles to their own success.

Assign boatloads of nightly homework to children and you encourage them to see learning as this thing they just need to get done before they can return to their regularly scheduled lives.

Praise administrators for their district or school's standardized test scores and you push them to place pressure on their teachers to attain higher scores by whatever means available.

Mandate teachers to attend one-size-fits-all, "drive-by" professional development sessions and you teach them that professional development is something done to them rather than by them.

Catch children being good and you encourage them to be good so they get caught.

Everything "works". The question is: works to do what?

Salaries as Rewards - a Non-Sequiter

Here is a guest post by Nick Jaworski. Nick is a Director of Studies based in Shanghai, China, where he lives with his beautiful wife Hande. He also blogs about ELT in Turkey and China at Turkish TEFL. Follow him on Twitter here.

by Nick Jaworski

"Your salary is a reward. People work for salaries, so rewards must work." This is the faulty logic I often hear when discussing my dislike for the use of rewards in education and business.
Rewards are a tool used to manipulate (or more positively - extrinsically motivate) staff and students into doing what you want. They place a carrot in front of the individual and say, "Hey, if you try hard enough, this could be yours." This is fundamentally different from a wage or salary.

Wages and salaries are based on mutual agreement by both parties. It's a contract. The company says they believe this job is worth such and such pay. The employee agrees and accepts or disagrees and looks elsewhere. That salary does not change regardless of the extent to which you do your job.


While salaries that are too low often result in worker dissatisfaction and lack of productivity, higher salaries do not equate with increased performance. The extent to which an employee does their job is generally a result of job satisfaction, personal competence, and faith in the company.


What rewards try to do is to motivate the employee to work harder by offering them something in return for a desired behavior or outcome. It moves motivation from something internal to the employee to something external. This has all kinds of negative consequences that have been written about by many others before me. I recommend Challenging Behaviorist Dogme: Myths about Money and Motivation by Alfie Kohn and Daniel Pink's speech on TED as good starting points.

Education deform is dehumanizing

A better rule book with better rule-followers won't make anything better.

A better curriculum with better tests will never make schools better.

Education deform is built around dehumanizing the education system by propping up content-bloated, prefabricated, highly prescribed curriculums that are married to punitive, high stakes standardized tests that are quickly followed by the reinforcements. We are all choking on carrots or sore from sticks - either way, most of us are either too drunk on incentives or scared shitless to stand up and question school deformers.

Those who present a healthy dose of skepticism about what is generally taken on faith as the best way to improve schools (read: prescribed curriculums and standardized tests) are put in their place with the kind of efficiency that would make the likes of Benito Mussolini proud.

I don't have all the answers for authentic education reform, but I do know this: getting all teachers and all students to simply teach and learn the curriculum so that they can achieve high test scores won't improve a damn thing. To think otherwise reminds me of an old saying: "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong." Good teaching and real learning are far too complex for what a silly, over-simplified solution such as standardization can offer.

A teacher who teaches curriculum well with students who test out proficient can no more call themselves teachers and learners than someone who simply follows a trail can call themselves an outdoorsman.

The sooner we can come to this realization the better because our kids can't wait.

Should students be paid to learn?

The National Journal posted the question "should students be paid to learn?" to their panel of insiders. Here is Alfie Kohn's response:

Alfie Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org), author of Punished by Rewards andThe Schools Our Children Deserve, submitted the following:

Rewards, like punishments, can produce only one thing: temporary obedience. What they can never do is help kids become more effective or enthusiastic learners. In fact, a huge body of research demonstrates that exactly the opposite is true: Dangling carrots in front of people is actually counterproductive.

What the data show, more specifically, is that the more you reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. To understand why, it helps to realize that the meaningful question isn’t “Will rewards motivate kids?” but “What kind of motivation do rewards create?” And the answer is: “A motivation to get more rewards.” Unfortunately, that tends to reduce their motivation to learn.

Psychologists distinguish between intrinsic motivation, in which the learning itself is seen as meaningful, and extrinsic motivation, in which the learning becomes just a means to an end. That end could be money, grades, stickers, or any other incentive. More than 75 studies have shown that extrinsic and intrinsic motivation aren't just different; they tend to be inversely related.

Thus, for example, kids who are led to focus on grades -- the reward of an A – are apt to think in a more superficial fashion, prefer easier tasks, and find learning less interesting when you compare them to kids in classrooms where grades are absent or invisible. Paying kids for good grades is basically a reward for a reward. It doubles the damage.

The bottom line is that dangling incentives in front of children is a way of doing things to them. It’s a form of sugar-coated control. In the long run people react badly to being controlled, even if they like the goody itself. In fact, the bigger or more desirable the reward, the more damage it tends to do, according to the research.

But in the case of initiatives like Fryer’s, the news is even worse. To this point I’ve just been addressing the method: How do we get kids to do something? My contention is that, apart from the inherently objectionable nature of carrot-and-stick control, rewards are ineffective at best (for producing anything beyond temporary compliance) and harmful at worst – even if the goal is laudable. But in these programs, the goal isn’t to help students love learning or think more deeply. The goal is just to raise scores on bad tests to make the adults look good. Standardized exams, as I and others have explained elsewhere, measure what matters least. We even have studies that demonstrate a statistically significant negative correlation between deep thinking, on the one hand, and results on a range of standardized tests, on the other. So what you’ve got with these cash-for-scores programs is a flawed means married to a terrible objective – the worst of both worlds.

One reason adults are so fond of reward programs is that they’re spared from having to ask why kids have to be bribed in the first place. What would it take to create a school where kids want to show up? How can we nourish kids’ natural curiosity and desire to learn? What does it say about homework that children dread doing it and rarely find it of value? To answer those questions, to make school meaningful for students, takes time and talent and courage. But you don’t need any of those things to toss kids a goodie when they jump through your hoops. Such programs are powerfully conservative in that they discourage us from changing the status quo.

Finally, four quick responses to arguments offered by proponents:

Q. Shouldn’t we do anything to help kids who are desperately poor and trapped in bad schools?

A. We should do what’s likely to help. Bribing students to raise standardized test scores does absolutely nothing to address the real problems – social, economic, or educational. To the extent that it leads kids to see academics as just a tedious prerequisite to snagging some cash, it devalues the very thing we want to help them become excited about – and therefore worsens their plight.

Q. Shouldn’t we wait for evidence and see if these programs work?

A. First, there have been enough studies of similar incentive programs so that it’s pretty clear by now that they don’t work – certainly not in the long run, and certainly not with respect to outcomes that matter. Second, there are many more studies of rewards in general – and an impressive body of theoretical work in the field of motivational psychology -- that provide the context for understanding why such programs can’t work.

Q. Why not use rewards to jump-start kids’ interest, then fade them out so facilitate a transition to interest in the learning itself?

A. If only it were so simple! Unfortunately, as soon as you introduce an extrinsic inducement – a reward as a reason for doing something -- you affect the way students look at learning, at the people offering the reward, and at their own reasons for doing what they do. It then becomes more difficult to promote – or recover – intrinsic motivation than it was to begin with.

Q. Lots of affluent kids get financial rewards from their parents. Why not offer the same to inner-city kids?

A. First, I’ve never seen a speck of data to support this rather dubious claim about the supposed pervasiveness of financial incentives in the suburbs. Second, even if we grant that some rich parents are bribing their kids to bring home high grades or test scores, how is that an argument for doing it to poor kids, too, if it doesn’t make sense for anyone? Third, it’s one thing for individual parents to use these tactics on their children, but something else again for schools and public officials to officially endorse this kind of manipulation.

Also, notice that the most controlling classroom management and school discipline programs – carrots and sticks to enforce obedience – are far more likely to be imposed on low-income kids of color. That’s the real context in which to understand this latest version of “do what we say and we’ll give you a doggie biscuit.” If anything, given the structural and attitudinal obstacles facing poor children, we should be going out of our way to support their autonomy and critical sensibilities, working with them to solve problems. This kind of program does exactly the opposite and amounts to a plan for doing things to them so they’ll do what they’re told.

Abolishing Awards

Chris Wejr's post Death of an Awards Ceremony has caught the attention of the press. The Vancouver Sun ran a story titled Are Academic Awards Losing Favour in B.C schools?

Here is the comment I left:

When teachers or parents make success, rewards, gifts, excellence, treats, fun, grades or opportunities artificially scarce, we alienate and marginalize the very children who need us the most.

Critics might say that abolishing awards ceremonies will only smother children in a cloak of mediocrity. To this I ask the critics why they devalue something simply because everyone can acheive it? Do we wear dropout rates as a badge of honour? I would hope not. So why do we scoff at schools that celebrate every student?

Recognizing every student is no more an exercise in mediocrity than believing all children should graduate from high school.

Traditional Honor's certificates are more about control through seduction and exclusive elitism while the changes that Chris Wejr and his schools have made are more about unconditional, inclusive acceptance and recognition for all students.

For more on the harmful effects of rewards, take a look at these:

Treating Kids Like Pets
Is Learning a Sport?
Catching Kids
Unconditional Recognition
The Risks of Rewards
Punished by Rewards?
The Impact of Awards

Shame on you Steven Levitt

Honestly, when it comes to providing our children with an authentic learning environment where they can develop an intrinsic love for learning, should we ever ask how we can do so "cheaply" and "quickly"?

If there was anything we should invest wholly and entirely in while taking our time doing so, I would hope it would be the education of our loved ones.

Shame on you Freakonomics author Steven Levitt.

Shame.

On.

You.

Chris Wejr on The Price of Grades

Chris Wejr wrote a fantastic post where he reflected on an article that explained how Aboriginal students were being offered cash incentives for their grades.

Chris asks a number of provocative questions that challenge the conventional "common sense" behind bribing children for their academic achievement (read as grades).

Here is one of my favorite parts from his post:

I have taught grade 1 through grade 12 and as they grow older, many students seem to lose their sense of curiosity and learning – a primary student has yet to ask me, “Is this for marks?`while this is a common question in most high school classes.

So what happens to this inquisitive learning nature in children? Why do some feel the need to have to resort to bribing students into doing well at school? As students move up through the system, the societal and educational focus shifts from learning to grades and from the child to the curriculum. Some of the teachers at our school have stated that they would love to just teach what is meaningful to their students but they are pressured from society and the Ministry of Education to define student learning in the form of a single letter or number. Too, they feel pressure to make sure they get through the mandated curriculum.

Why is it that as children grow up, we narrow our definition of school? I find it odd that we tend to accept the idea that very young children, even toddler's, need to develop their whole selves - and yet, when children reach school age, we suddenly forget that children have other body parts other than their heads.

This reminds me of an excerpt from Sir Ken Robinson's book The Element:

The other big influence on education has been the academic culture of universities, which has tended to push aside any sort of activity that involves the heart, the body, the senses, and a good portion of our actual brains.

The result is that school systems everywhere inculcate us with a very narrow view of intelligence and capacity and overvalue particular sorts of talent and ability. In doing so, they neglect others that are just as important, and they disregard the relationships between them in sustaining the vitality of our lives and communities. This stratified, one-size-fits-all approach to education marginalizes all of those who do not take naturally to learning this way. 

I think we can probably mostly agree that school has too narrow of a definition of success. What if the kids disengagement is a message we need to listen to? What if they are trying to tell us just how alienated and marginalized traditional school has made them feel?

Even if we can agree that there is a problem, what we can't seem to agree on is how to solve it.

For example, here is a comment left by Rebekah (comment #25) on Chris Wejr's post:

I think it’s naive to say that extrinsic motivation isn’t ultimately authentic. How many of us would show up at work every day if we didn’t get paid? Without money as a motivator, our entire economic system falls apart. Given that our school district’s mission statement is “to develop responsible citizens through appropriate academic, career and social programs”, it seems that the economic aspect of motivation is valid (i.e., we want our students to grow up to contribute to society by having paying jobs). When I worked in Watts (L.A.), one of the biggest challenges we faced was students who had no hope. They gave up because of academic frustration, social fear, and economic hopelessness. Extrinsic motivators worked as a bridge for those kids. If we could give them a reason to try, we could often make them see what they were capable of, and they would begin to hope. Only then could we work on building intrinsic motivation for learning.

If our premise is to solve the problem of disengagement by manipulating and forcing engagement, we are ignoring why kids are disengaged in the first place. Arguing over the implementation of incentives to coerce children to achieve is a massive exercise in missing the point. Before asking how we can get kids engaged in the current school system, we must investigate what we are asking them to in engage in, and why we want them to do so. For example, in the case of Canada's Aboriginals, history shows us that there are some very good reasons why school has in fact been harmful.

At some point, we need to admit that the number of children who choose to vote with their feet and disengage from school is less of a problem with the kids and more of an indictment of the system. And manipulating kids to reconcile themselves to a system that may be broken or irrelevant is likely to do more harm than good.

Primitive Moral Development: PBIS

Unfortunately, my school subscribes to a program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. Teachers hand out green cards to kids who are caught being good, and red cards for those who are caught being bad. For the student's who have attained green cards, prizes are dispensed over the public address system during morning announcements, and school-wide assemblies have us all watch the administrators draw more names from buckets - all sorts of prizes are up for grabs.

Keep in mind that only the "good" kids who were lucky enough to be caught being good by receiving a green card are eligible for prizes - including the opportunity to eat lunch with the administration.

My objections to this system are many. (However, my suggestion for fixing this system is fairly simple: I would make everyone eligible for these prize thus turning them from conditional rewards to unconditional gifts. This would mean teachers would no longer need to dispense tickets as if they were traffic cops)

Here's a real story that happened just the other day:

My grade 6 class was in the gym for "Free Day Fridays". This is where we spend our gym time emptying the equipment room, looking for all the cool things to play with like scooters, jumping ropes, yoga balls, footballs, floor hockey sticks, etc. It all looks pretty chaotic, but the kids have a lot of fun. 

While standing in the gym with another teacher, a giant, purple yoga ball hit my colleague in the back of the head. As I turned around I could see Nolan gasping in shock as he realized that his errantly kicked yoga ball had hit a teacher.

His first reaction was shock.

His second reaction was to run in the opposite direction.

I quickly caught up to him and asked him to stop so we could talk. Admittedly, I was a little angry about his reaction, but I tried my best to suppress my frustration so that I could talk with Nolan about what had happened.

While his eyes watered and his face reddened, I asked him, "why did you run away?"

He answered, "I didn't want to get in trouble."

"So you were thinking about yourself?"

"I guess so."

"Nolan, I saw what happened. You kicked that yoga ball into the wall, and it hit a teacher in the head, and then you ran away. Nolan, who should you be thinking of during a time like this."

He paused. His eyes continued to water as he said, "the person I hit."

"Why?"

"Because she might be hurt."

"So then why did you run away?"

"I was scared."

"Nolan, I am not a normal teacher. You know I don't believe in rewarding or punishing people. I am not talking with you to get you in trouble. I'm not going to punish you. But I am here to help you solve this problem. What do you think you should do to solve this?"

He took a minute to think this over but eventually said, "I should go and see if she is all right."

"Nolan did you do it on purpose?"

He was quick to answer, "no, I promise I didn't mean to do it on purpose."

"Nolan, I believe you. So why did this happen?"

Again, this required some thought before he responded, "I wasn't as careful as I probably should have been."

"Okay, so what's next?"

"I don't know."

I just waited.

"Well, I guess I should go and see if she's okay."

"Sounds like a good idea, Nolan. Let me know how it goes."

--------------------------------------

If we endorse behavior programs that use rewards and punishments to coerce children into compliance, then Nolan's initial reaction by running away after hurting someone else is as reprehensible as it is predictable. 

When we dangle rewards in kids faces, we encourage them to ask, "What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?" And when we threaten them with punishments or consequences, we encourage them to ask, "What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it?" Neither question encourages kids to contemplate life in a way we would like to promote, and neither question has anything to do with creating a collaborative community built on caring.

After Nolan's escapade with the yoga ball was over, an observer of the whole affair snidely commented, "you know, some kids just never change." 

You know what?

They're right. Nolan's inability to think about others, combined with his obvious self-interest certainly exemplify a primitive level of moral development... but, if the adults in his life subscribe to an equally primitive kind of character development, how can we come to expect anything more? How can we expect kids like Nolan to progress to a higher level of ethical behavior when our dependence on rewards and punishment is precisely what condemns kids to such primitive self-interest.

For many kids like Nolan, rewards and punishment aren't even working to gain temporary compliance. There are probably as many stories of kids doing bad things to each other as there are kids, and these incidents are happening under the current system of discipline. I find it sadly ironic that many teachers and parents continue to perpetuate the status quo of reward and punishment, sometimes at twice the dosage, when by our own admission these tactics are a failure.

Albert Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

Teachers and parents for the most part are good intentioned people. In fact, most of our societies real heroes are teachers and parents, but sometimes our good intentions are guided more by tradition than by reason. Because our misguided use of rewards and punishment perpetuate a preoccupation with self-interest and predictably stunts moral development, it's time we stop blaming the kids and start questioning our own practices.

Consequences for whom?

When I share with people that I don't believe in rewarding or punishing students, I tend to get some very odd looks. The idea that a parent or teacher would not reward children for good behavior or punish them for being bad seems to many to be more than just a foreign idea.

Here is one of the first questions I get asked:

Don't you believe in consequences? How will children grow up to be good people if they don't know that there are consequences to their actions?

I do believe there are consequences for people's actions, and kids really do need to learn this, but when people imply that children need to learn consequences, they almost always mean the consequences to the child. If this is the kind of myopic character development we endorse is it any wonder how many kids grow up to be self-serving, egotistical, narcissists?

In his book Beyond Discipline: From Compliance To Community, Alfie Kohn makes the case that punishment actually impedes the process of ethical development:

A child threatened with an aversive consequence for failing to comply with someone's wishes or rules is led to ask, rather mechanically, "What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it? - a question altogether different from "What kind of person do I want to be?" or "What kind of community do we want to create?"

Think about such a shift in the context of this commonly heard defense of punishment:

"When children grow up and take their places in society, they're going to realize that there consequences for their actions! If they rob a bank and get caught, they're going to be put in jail. They'd better learn that lesson right now."

The fatal flaw in this argument is that we want children not to rob a bank - or do various other things that are unethical or hurtful - because they know it's wrong, and also because they can imagine how such actions will affect other people. But when disciplinarians talk about imposing "consequences" for a student's actions - and inducing him to think about those consequences ahead of time - they almost always mean the consequences to him. The focus is on how he will get in trouble for breaking the rule. This fact, so fundamental that it may have escaped our notice entirely, is a devastating indictment of the whole enterprise. Just as some people try to promote helping or sharing by emphasizing that such behaviors will eventually benefit the actor, so the reason for the child to behave "appropriately" is the unpleasantness he will suffer if he fails to do so.

By contrast, ethical sophistication consists of some blend of principles and caring, of knowing how one ought to act and being concerned about others. Punishment does absolutely nothing to promote either of these things. In fact, it tends to undermine good values by fostering a preoccupation with self-interest. "What consequences will I suffer for having done something bad?" is a question that suggests a disturbingly primitive level of moral development, yet it is our use of punishment that causes kids to get stuck there!

You say you're concerned about the real world, where some people do awful things? So am I. In the real world, getting children to focus on what will happen to them if they are caught misbehaving simply is not an effective way to prevent future misbehavior because it does nothing to instill a lasting commitment to better values or an inclination to attend to others' needs. Most people who rob banks assume they won't get caught, in which case there will be no consequences for their action, which means they have a green light to go ahead and rob.

If we really care about character growth and ethical development in children, we have to stop managing their behaviors and start working with them as safe and caring allies. We need to stop seeing misbehavior as this thing to be squashed out and start seeing misbehavior as problems to be solved together.

We have to stop reacting to misbehavior by saying:

He has done something bad; now something bad must be done to him.

And we need to start saying:

We have a problem here; how are we going to solve it together?

On a superficial level, some disciplinarians use the "real world" as justification for rewards and punishment as a means to manage children's behavior; however, real pragmatism tells us that working with kids to solve their problems constitutes as the only hope we have of reducing the frequency of misbehavior over the long haul, and our only hope for helping kids grow into caring citizens.

Lilian Katz summarizes this discussion up nicely:

Some teachers tend to focus on what is happening rather than on what is being learned. They may wish to simply stop the incident rather than consider which of many possible interventions is most likely to stimulate long-term development and learning.

It takes courage not to punish, and it takes real effort to see misbehavior as an opportunity for the teacher to teach and the student to learn.

Treating Kids Like Pets

When teachers or parents make success, rewards, gifts, excellence, treats, fun, grades or opportunities artificially scarce, we alienate and marginalize the very children who need us the most.

When teachers and parents treat kids like pets by bribing and threatening them in an attempt to garnish control, children start to see the adults in their lives less as safe and caring allies and more like judges in-waiting. In other words, kids learn that it is in their best interest to keep their distance from these adults.

Manipulation that is driven by bribes and threats is built on a foundation of conditional acceptance; that is, one person uses power over another to garnish compliance. All relationships are eroded by such treatment. That means the adult-child relationship is poisoned as much as the relationship between one child and another.

Want proof?

Did you see how the red-headed child looked at the adult? We probably can all imagine how little the child thinks of the ice-cream man, but did you see how that same boy looked at the new boy? If looks could kill...

Behavior systems based on rewards and punishment pit children against their peers as much as they pit children against adults. In an age when we should truly understand that good teaching and good learning are inseparable from good relationships, far too many teachers and parents are willing to sacrifice their long-term goals in favor of short-term compliance.

What's more, we should all understand how a classroom built upon collaboration and cooperation is infinitely more productive than one built on competition. Alfie Kohn explains:

The central message of all competition is that other people are potential obstacles to one's own success. Competition creates envy for winners, contempt for losers, and hostility and suspicion toward just about everyone. Not only is it irrational to help someone whose success might require your failure, but competition creates a climate in which such help is unlikely to occur in any case. Researchers have found that competitive structures reduce generosity, empathy, sensitivity to others' needs, accuracy of communication, and trust. These results follow naturally and logically from competition itself; the problem does not rest with the individuals involved and the way they approach a contest. Moreover, contests between teams teach that the only reason to work with others is to defeat another group of people who are working together. Cooperation becomes the means; victory is the end.

Bribes, threats, rewards and punishments are built on manipulation, and manipulation is built on mistrust. If we are to truly believe in our children and their pursuit of life long learning, we have aspire to something better than this.

Alfie Kohn Interview with Dr. Ross Greene

Here is a fantastic interview with Alfie Kohn.

Some highlights:

• There is a big difference between working with kids and doing things to kids.
• Punishing and rewarding are not only ineffective but they are also counter-productive in raising children.
• We get lost in finding new techniques to gain compliance from children, when we really need to be clear of our ultimate goal - help children become ethical, caring people.
• Kids who get rewards and praise tend to be less generous than their peers. Self-interest trumps caring for others.
• No kid ever benefits from punishment.
• There is a big difference between control and structure. Highly structured learning environments need not be controlled from the top-down. Students need to play an active and democratic role in forming the structure of the classroom.
• The more we focus on just compliance, the more we will shuffle through an endless product line of gimmicks and tricks that will never achieve our ultimate goals.
• Time-outs, or more accurately Forcibly Isolated, classrooms no longer feel safe. These classrooms become conditional and we all lose from these kinds of traditional, punitive interventions.
• Not much learning takes place in a classroom that is too quiet.
• Our classroom management techniques can be quite effective, but we must ask "effective at what?"
• Kids make good decisions by making decisions not following directions.
• Unconditional acceptance is at the heart of any good classroom.
• The best teachers are those who make the curriculum worth learning.
• Punishment by any name, even consequences, ruptures the safe and caring alliance that must be nourished between teacher and student.
• Punishment is less about solving problems and more about revenge and inflicting pain and suffering.

Dan Pink: Compliance to engagement

Daniel Pink's books Drive and A Whole New Mind both speak to how education needs to shift from just left brain linear, sequential abilities to also include the metaphorical right brain abilities.

This leads to the question, how do we motivate people to shift away from the factory model of education towards conceptually creative learning. To make this shift, Pink argues that we must move away from traditional carrott and stick manipulators that simply encourage sit and get - or in other words, an education system that was about processing people through compliance.

Compliance may be good enough in training workers to conduct rote instructions on fundamentally simplistic tasks, but ingenuity, advancement and creativity require much more than just compliance - we require engagement which demands far more autonomy, purpose and mastery on the behalf of children.

Pink also identifies the sad irony in that the American education system is currently moving towards even greater emphasis on routines, right answers and standardization precisely at the time when our society is moving away from these these factory model characteristics.

Want more on these topics?

Here is a brilliant interview by Harvard Business Review's blogger Andrew Keen and Daniel Pink.

Learning as a chore

Token economies and other rewards systems are prevalent in schools and families. The belief being that a kind of behavioural bait-and-switch can be used to encourage or reinforce students to achieve anything from reading,  to doing their times tables or cleaning their room.

In his book Predictably Irrational, Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely describes an experiment he conducted with his students. He started by reading a few lines from Walt Witman's Leaves of Grass:

After closing the book, I told the students that I would be conducting three readings from Walt Witman's Leaves of Grass that Friday evening; one short, one medium, and one long. Owing to limited space, I told them, I had decided to hold an auction to determine who could attend. I passed out sheets of paper so that they could bid for a space; but before they did so, I had a question to ask them.

I asked half the students to write down whether, hypothetically, they would be willing to pay me $10 for a 10 minute poetry recitation. I asked the other half to write down whether, hypothetically, they would be willing to listen to me recite poetry for ten minutes if I paid them $10.

This, of course, served as the anchor. Now I asked the students to bid for a spot at my poetry reading. Do you think the initial anchor influenced the ensuing bids?

Before I tell you, consider two things. First, my skills at reading poetry are not of the first order. So asking someone to pay me for 10 minutes of it could be considered a stretch. Second, even though I asked half of the students if they would pay me for the privilege of attending the recitation, they didn't have to bid that way. They could have turned the tables completely and demanded that I pay them.

And now to the results (drum roll, please). Those who answered the hypothetical question about paying me were indeed willing to pay me for the privilege. They offered, on average, to pay me about a dollar for the short poetry reading, about two dollars for the medium poetry reading, and a bit more than three dollars for the medium poetry reading, and a bit more than three dollars for the long poetry reading. (Maybe I could make a living outside academe after all.)

But what about those who were anchored to the though of being paid (rather than paying me)? As you might expect, they demanded payment: on average, they wanted $1.30 to listen the short poetry reading, $2.70 to listen to the medium poetry reading, and $4.80 to endure the long poetry reading.

With simple manipulation, Dan Ariely was able to arbitrarily make an ambiguous experience into a pleasurable or painful one. Without ever hearing Ariely's poetry reading skills (or lack there of), their first impressions were formed based on whether they were asked to pay or be paid.
Dan Ariely concludes:

The die was cast, and the anchor was set. Moreover, once the first decision had been made, other decisions followed in what seemed to be a logical and coherent manner. The students did not know whether listening to me recite poetry was a good or bad experience, but whatever their first decision was, they used it as input for their subsequent decisions and provided a coherent pattern of responses across the three poetry readings.

Reward systems that bribe kids to learn implant a dangerous anchor. What if kids come to see learning as a mere means to an end? What if they see learning as something to only engage in if the conditions are profitable?

To further make his point, Ariely quotes Mark Twain:

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

What if all of our extrinsic manipulators, whether they be exorbitant rewards or ghastly punishments, are herding kids to anchor learning in as an obligation - something they ideally would never need or want to engage in?

We need to think long and hard on bait-and-switch systems that frame learning as a chore.

We may be doing far greater harm than we could ever imagine.