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Incentivized Rewards for All: Why Are We Still Doing That?
David Hutchison
Article
Incentivized Rewards For All: Why Are We Still Doing That?
When my grandson was in second grade the teacher, as is typical, spent time over the first few days working to establish classroom norms for the year. But she did not begin by tacking a list of rules to the wall. Instead, she asked her students what they thought the rules should be. What they came up with was pretty much what you would expect: no running in class. no pushing, take turns. With a little guidance, these 8-year-olds came up with pretty much the same rules as the teacher would have.
As a result, there would be no ‘stars’ for good behavior, no names on the wall chart (good or bad); instead, there would be the pride of ownership. This is our class: our rules.
By the way, this seems to me to be a pretty good definition of a democratic society: citizens working together to establish the rules and norms that will govern their interactions. We’ll come back to that.
But tragically (from my perspective, anyway) there was no follow through in 3rd or 4th grade. Fast forward to 5th grade—a pandemic year, with all those masking protocols. The teacher, of course, set the rules, and the students, by
and large, obediently followed them—until they were out-of-sight of the teacher. Then, all bets were off. Every man or woman for him or herself! (My grandson described it as chaotic.) Why? Because the goal wasn’t to act in a way that helped to create a positive classroom environment for everyone; the goal was to “not get caught.”
The truth is that students see through our adult schemes fairly quickly. In
The kids are clearly on to us. So, one might ask, “why are we still doing this?”
The short answer is that we are creatures of habit; change is hard. But the longer answer is that significant change requires rethinking our assumptions across numerous interwoven systems.
our middle school, our administrators attempt to mitigate the optics of having the ‘good’ kids get all the good behavior stickers, and watching as the ‘not-asgood’ kids quickly tune out. (It should be noted that many of our ‘good’ kids aren’t so thrilled about being singled out for this recognition.) So the administrators developed a process in which these extrinsic awards would be evenly distributed to every student over the course of the year. (Which kind of misses the point, but nonetheless…)
The result? The students quickly came to understand that once they got their ‘sticker’ (pizza coupon?) they were done for the year, and they were now free to tune the whole thing out! In fact, they were rather proud to share this insight with visiting school board members!
The skills for developing an emotionally and psychologically safe classroom community is typically not part of the training for new teachers. Few school administrators have much experience with developing a positive ‘school climate’ at the system level. And our current accountability systems are typically based on punishing teachers and administrators for low standardized test scores, rather than focusing on helping our students develop the set of skills needed in the 21st-century.
So we fall back on what we know—and we have a long history in education of relying on extrinsic motivators to get our students to do what we think they
should be doing. (Beginning with grades— but that’s a subject for another day.) We should consider whether rewarding a student for ‘doing the right thing’ actually diminishes the sense of value they receive from doing the right thing. The realization that you have the power to make a difference in the world is a far greater reward than any pizza coupon.
One thing that’s changed over the last couple of decades is the accumulation of research on how our brain works. The results are in: intrinsic motivation is far more powerful than extrinsic: the effects last longer, and this is especially true for activities involving the frontal cortex.
We can no longer be of two minds on this. :)
It’s relevant to understand incentivized reward programs were initially developed for particular special education students—students who can benefit from having very clear, explicit expectations. In other words, incentivized rewards are now being broadly used in ways that were never intended, and that the research does not support. One problem with extrinsic reward systems is that they often appear to work in the short term. Even the most enlightened of parents will resort to the occasional bribe to get out of a tight spot, and there is a time and place for “because I said so!” But this is not a long-term strategy. In the long run, it is a waste of time and resources we cannot afford.
As every educator knows, public education has long operated under a ‘rank-and-sort’ model. But it’s worth considering that this model used to work, more or less. Notwithstanding the inequities inherent in the sorting process, our economy needed only so many “leaders.” As for everyone else, if you could read, write, and follow instructions, you had a pretty good chance for a middle-class job and a house with a picket fence.
But that was a long time ago. Students today need to develop the ability to think critically, to communicate clearly, to listen for understanding and without judgment, to work with others to solve real problems, and to be creative. Why? Because in the world they will soon be entering, anything that doesn’t require
collaboration and human creativity will be done by robots and artificial intelligence. You cannot reward your way to critical thinking or creativity.
Furthermore—and finally—these are precisely the skills that our students will need if they are to become active, engaged, and effective citizens. (Which, by the way, was the original argument for public education. Ask Ben Franklin!) I believe this is a large part of what’s missing in our current political environment. The sense that “my opinion doesn’t matter” has caused many Americans to disconnect from politics. Nobody likes to be told what to do, but people tend to be a lot more accepting of decisions if they feel that they have had a say in their creation.
So, if over the course of their educational career, students begin to develop the sense that they can work with people they might disagree with, including school personnel and community members, to solve real problems, that feeling of competence will be powerful and likely to last. When students have a say on behavioral expectations, beginning in elementary school, when they are older they will understand that they have an essential role to play in the broader school environment, and beyond.
According to the National School Climate Center, (2007; 2012) the goal of school climate efforts is to “support students, parents, school personnel and community members learning and working together in a democratically informed manner to foster safe, supportive, engaging and flourishing schools that support school—and life—success.” The goal of incentivized behavioral programs, however, is narrower: to “prevent the development of problem behaviors.”
So why are we still doing that? We could do so much better.
David Hutchinson was an 18-year member of the State College (PA) schoolboard; the 2019 president of the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA), a member of the National School Climate Council, and is currently host of the Discomfort Zone, on TheLion.FM, at 9 am Thursdays.
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