One of the challenges of raising children is helping them develop a level of intrinsic motivation that will help guide their behavior. In a perfect world all children would eat their vegetables and get straight As. But as we know, these two behaviors are often only met after offering dessert or in some extreme cases, a new car. Earlier this week my leadership team debated the need to offer incentives for attending school. The issue at hand was whether it is appropriate to reward students who have perfect attendance. We ran through the predictable positions on this that included school attendance often being more a function of parent behavior than it is the student’s. What lurked beneath the surface of our discussion however, was how to avoid falling into the trap of creating an environment where students expect a reward for an expected behavior.
There is little question that a student who is not motivated or inspired by a course or school practice has a more difficult time learning and participating. Teachers understand this and present the material in an upbeat manner and whenever possible, provide relevant examples to illustrate the taught concept. And while it is fair to expect that the school and teachers will work to make school exciting, I feel it is a mistake for educators to feel that this is the only way to conduct school. Much of what we do in life is not that thrilling. A good example for me is the online safety training that I have to do. Parents and schools need to teach their children that there are certain things that you just do. I encourage our schools to not lose sight of this. I don’t want to dismiss celebrations as unimportant. I do want to recognize that much of what we do in life has little extrinsic acknowledgement.
3 Comments
Giving ice cream for eating green beans or a new car for good grades is not good parenting or good school administration. Yes, some things just need to be done – chores, homework, and following the law – and those are skills that should be learned at home AND at school.
But to “develop a level of intrinsic motivation that will help guide their behavior” (“enjoy learning” in common American English), students need an appropriate level of challenge in their classes. When slower students are stumped by the material or precocious students are bored in class, then learning stops. I’d rather rewards were de-emphaiszed and the delight of an appropriately challenging and interesting course increased. Learning and mastering new material is its own reward – we’re wired to enjoying learning relevant skills: anyone who starved, ate the wrong berries, or had fatally-bad social behavior isn’t one of our ancestors.
Yes, having been through them, KPBSD’s on-line, safety-training modules are tedious and impart far less information that they could in that time frame. That is a reason to find another vendor of such lessons, not to accept sub-optimal education as necessary to one’s upbringing.
Please, please, focus on challenging all students. For some, that will mean a steeper learning curve. For some, it will mean a slower pace.
“Tracking” is not a bad word. Classroom teachers never say, “I want the most disparate group of students possible in each of my classes.” The most thoughtful teachers want to help students having difficulties catch up and also take their most capable students as far as they can. “All children are above average” is a great joke because it is clearly not true. “All children need help to comply with NCLB or SBA’s” is equally false. Let’s not structure curriculum, scheduling, and class assignments on these false assumptions.
Yes, thank you. Thank you for not enabling and propagating the culture of short attention spans. The ability to find productivity in boredom is a life skill that needs to be learned by all. The intrinsic rewards derived from learning is also a valuable trait to have in the long run.
On the other hand, we often equate school to work. Certainly there is intrinsic reward in my job and I am fortunate to be someone who truly loves my work. However, the extrinsic reward that we receive from our jobs is a paycheck. That leads me to wonder if it is indeed reasonable to reward students in some way for their efforts. Also, adults in the work place are frequently recognized in various ways for their excellence in the workplace, i.e, BP Golden Apple Award, various Excellence in Science and other fields.
I also believe that we do need to teach our children, both at home and school, that you do what you are expected to do. I think it is a multifaceted question that doesn’t have a lot of easy answers.