Seattle Times: Should Learning Be its Own Reward?

Parents Forum
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<p>We all want our kids to study hard, get the grades, and succeed and for college admissions success is most often measured as a high GPA. This article addresses the problems that arise when parents and teachers send mixed messages to students when they rely on external motivators:</p>

<p>"One family paid $20 for report card As (and $5 for Ds.) Another mom offers her son $1 a day for filling out his planner, to reward effort rather than results. Others dangle driving privileges as an incentive for teens to keep up their grades.</p>

<p>For students who don't see why they need to apply themselves in school anyway, rewards can kick-start academic interests. But for students in general, experts discourage conditioning students to expect treats for school work.</p>

<p>"I don't know about your boss, but mine is not waiting by my desk ready to give me a Game Boy every time I work hard," said Anne Rambo, professor of family therapy at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. "It isn't useful for them to get the idea that in adult life prizes are passed out every time you do well."</p>

<p>As parents increasingly fixate on GPAs, college admissions and WASL scores, some educators worry parents set expectations too high.</p>

<p>"I think it's important to convey that everyone in a family has responsibilities," said Linda Harris, a Spanish teacher at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore. "Children's job is to be the best students they can be."</p>

<p>That said, parents need to understand students' talents and capabilities, said Harris, who has three adult children. "Kids have told me their parents said they can't have anything less than an A. They're sobbing over a B+. Personally, I feel that's too much pressure."</p>

<p>A small study of 136 undergraduate college students, published this year in The Journal of Genetic Psychology, found 7 of 10 reported receiving some sort of reward from parents for academic achievements. With elementary-school students, the most common reward was extra privileges (television time, dessert), followed by gifts. By high school, money topped the list, with half receiving cash for good grades...</p>

<p>"More students cited personal satisfaction and pleasing parents as motivators to work hard in school than getting paid for better grades, according to a 2000 survey by Public Agenda. Money ranked eighth out of 10 options offered. For high-schoolers, getting into a good college and earning a scholarship were top motivators.</p>

<p>By some definitions, grades themselves are external goals. Ideally, students "view learning as worthwhile to satisfy their own curiosity and thirst for knowledge," explains Douglas Lynch in a study published in the June edition of College Student Journal. His research found a link between college grades and internal goals, but not rewards."</p>

<p><a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2003436164_grades18.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2003436164_grades18.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>
[quote]
By some definitions, grades themselves are external goals.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What do they mean, "by some definitions." By any definition, grades are external goals.</p>

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<p>Somebody been reading Alfie Kohn? :)</p>

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<p>I like Alfie! :) I remember thinking how ridiculous it was that my daughter's gymnastic teacher passed out stickers to the 5-year-olds after their class each week - as a reward. Huh? Getting to go to gymnastics WAS a reward, in and of itself. I like "Punished by Rewards" - think it has a lot of valid points. Intrinsic motivation is where its at..</p>

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<p>I love Alfie, I could never persuade any of the administration at my kids' elementary school to actually read the book.</p>

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<p>Actually I wasn't reading Alfie (but thanks for the tip!) and who knows how much he influenced this particular article. I read the Seattle Times article shortly after reading the Cnn Money article "Ace Your Class, Save Some Cash" and was struck by the incongruities between the push to produce high grades for college admission, and the use of external incentives and cash pay-offs on the college level. In "Ace your class, save some cash" parents and college students are told how they can "parlay high marks into scholarships and grant money, lower car insurance payments, lower rent, and, for those who favor seriously micro economics, even a free doughnut." Good student discounts, scholarships and grants from individual colleges as well as from the federal government which "is launching two need-based grant programs for full-time students who are U.S. citizens with a 3.0 or better grade point average." There seems to be a very fine line between rewards, external motivators, the intrinsic (and extrinsic) value of grades and the satisfaction of learning itself.</p>

<p>"The Academic Competitiveness Grant, which is only available to first- and second-year students, is worth up to $750 in their first year of study and up to $1,300 in the second year if a student has completed a "rigorous high school program" as determined by the state.</p>

<p>Then there is the National Smart Grant for upperclassmen who major in science, math, engineering or a foreign language and maintain both a cumulative 3.0 GPA and a 3.0 in their major. The grant is worth up to $4,000 per year."</p>

<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/10/pf/college/grades_savings/index.htm?section=money_pf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/10/pf/college/grades_savings/index.htm?section=money_pf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I haven't read Alfie Kohn, but I totally believe in intrinsic motivation. I've said on another thread, it was the only disagreement my H and I have had in parenting. Ss K-8 public school did not give grades, but did narrative evaluations, used rubrics and taught the kids to evaluate their own work. By HS, son knew he'd want a good college so that's motivating too, but by this point he loves to learn. We've always traveled with him, sought out learning opportunities and shown him our interest in our own learning. He won't be the val, but he's arguably the most interested, interesting kid around.</p>

<p>I wonder what will happen to some of these pushed, bribed kids later on. Where is the space for them to find what they love? A woken-up brain will keep itself going, just for the fun of it.</p>

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<p>I have used stickers though (full disclosure) when he really needed to change a behavior, like climbing into our bed at night. I was always surprised how well stickers worked.</p>

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<p>Stickers -- not so much for us. As a negative "incentive" I used counting until they were both well into Jr. High. That was when they finally asked, "What happens when you get to a certain number?" Since I never knew what I would do, let alone what the number was, when they started asking, I stopped counting.</p>

<p>As for rewards for grades, my parents never paid me, and I don't pay them. I did offer my guitar-playing son a Fender Telecaster if he pulled in straight As as a joke. Unfortunately, he thought I was serious. We're still negotiating that one...</p>

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<p>Intrinsic rewards: one of the colleges Son1 is applying to asked for a resume. I showed him what a resume looked like and then left the room. Two pages later, he'd created a list of invententions, things he'd built, skills he'd learned on his own, and a reflection (I doubt he meant it that way) on the path of a curious kid's intellectual journey. I now have him send that resume with every school application, even if they don't ask for it. A college that reads that resume and Gets It will value him in their program. I hope some of the admissions officers are that smart, since he is about 10 times more passionate about learning on his own than he is in high school.</p>

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<p>Rick</p>

<p>Nice. I'm betting the schools that deserve him will "get it".</p>

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<p>
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Should Learning Be its Own Reward?

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</p>

<p>No. It shouldn't.</p>

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<p>"No, it shouldn't"</p>

<p>Well, I think a lot of educators are beginning to think that while learning ought to be its own reward it isn't and can't be - because most often subtle, as well as not so subtle, combinations of external and internal motivators work together to produce the best results. As far as college admissions is concerned, let's face it, these days the prospect of "getting in" to a selective college is both an extrinsic motivator to make the grade and the ultimate reward for having made the grade. If we get lucky, like Rick, our kids will become the best and the brightest they can be and get intrinsically motivated along the way.</p>

<p>The following is from the article "Gold Star Junkies":</p>

<p>"Of course, if systems of rewards and punishments are really as bad as some assert, they would have been swept from the classroom years ago. The fact that so many teachers deploy them points to some inherent value. Even many of the researchers critical of rewards are reluctant to condemn them unconditionally. Harvard's Amabile, for one, is careful not to proscribe against all forms of extrinsic motivation, despite having spent the last two decades documenting its detrimental effects on creativity. "We have recently discovered," she writes, that certain forms of extrinsic motivation "do not necessarily detract from intrinsic motivation and creativity. Rather these motivators...may actually increase creativity."</p>

<p>Amabile offers several examples of valuable extrinsic motivation. Praise, for instance, can abet students' efforts when it is given not as flattery but as information—"the confirmation of one's achievement by respected others." She also discovered, interestingly enough, that low-skilled students are often more creative when their work is to be evaluated—a prospect that tended to undermine the performance of others. Some students, she hypothesizes, need incentives to embark upon a task in which they have little intrinsic interest.</p>

<p>Amabile also surmises that evaluation and rewards may in some cases facilitate what she terms "algorithmic" processes—that is, tasks requiring that a student follow specific rules and procedures. "Heuristic" processes, on the other hand, which involve creative, open-ended problem-solving, are often stifled by external motivators. A student may sit down and learn musical notation with the help of incentives, but no prospect of reward is likely to help her improvise a jazz solo on the keyboard.</p>

<p>In America, accepting the premise that extrinsic motivation doesn't work is the equivalent of treason.</p>

<p>The experts and their research aside, teachers and parents—not to mention corporate executives and football coaches—aren't likely to buy into the counterintuitive notion that extrinsic motivation doesn't work. In America, accepting such a premise would be the equivalent of treason. After all, this is the land of opportunity, where the pursuit of happiness has always been roughly congruent with the quest to get rich. Horatio Alger's "rags to riches" dime store novels, which Alger turned out by the dozen following the Civil War, are all about poor boys who, through a combination of pluck and luck, get rich. One of Alger's most famous heroes, Mark the Match Boy, eschews a seductive life of crime in favor of honest hustle not only because it's the right thing to do but also because he hopes it will get him off the street corner and into a mansion. Mark is a good boy but expediently good. He wants the big payoff—the reward."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.shearonforschools.com/gold_star_junkies.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.shearonforschools.com/gold_star_junkies.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>In this competitive climate, it's probably best to think of learning as its own reward. Kids who work hard and get good grades are no longer guaranteed to get into the schools they want so the old notion of hard work + success = reward no longer applies. I take this very personally because I had naively taught my son that if he worked hard and did well he could accomplish anything. But that's no longer true. I was accepted to Stanford thirty years ago with a 1350 SAT and a 3.7 GPA (stupidly went to UCLA instead, so no legacy for son). He has a 1540 (old SAT) 2310 (new) and a 4.44 GPA and has a 10% chance of getting into HYP. Other kids with similar statistics (and better) are going to be disappointed that all their years of work did not have the big payoff they were expecting. I never rewarded my kids for grades, so I guess they won't be disappointed when they aren't rewarded in the real world either.</p>

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<p>Burn This</p>

<p>Are you kidding? Is the only reward HYP? My son doesn't even want one of these schools. Get a grip.</p>

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<p>I think it's fair to say that bethievt missed the point by a fair margin.</p>

<p>I agree with BurnThis - why do you think parents push children to be the top of the class, to participate in as many activities as possible, to score a 1600? Is it because scoring a 1600 teaches you something, or does it make you a more valuable person? Achievement in school has no purpose besides the various rewards that people place upon it: if learning is the goal, there are far better alternatives than having teenagers sitting in a classroom with a teacher that may or may not even have a good understanding of the subject matter, and a curriculum that is supposedly comprised of the most important information a student should learn. For many students, and/or their parents, admission to HYP or whichever dream school you might consider, is the entire point to the lifestyle of a high/overachiever.</p>

<p>As Rick Tyler stated earlier, his son is learning much more outside of the classroom than in the classroom; if we make the assumption he gets slightly lower grades as a result of this, what is more important - slightly higher grades, or actual learning? If he does happen to be pulling top grades and learning on his own, great for him; although, the time he isn't spending on school could just as easy be used by an equally intelligent person to make themselves that much more attractive based upon an admission officer's completely "holistic" approach that in no way disadvantages those who don't fit the mold of a high achieving student. As we know, students who win dirtbike races and spend their afternoons at the paintball arena are represented just as equally as the typical overachiever at highly selective universities.</p>

<p>I find it quite amusing when people correlate success in high school with intelligence, or in fact future success. Who's to say that the reasonably intelligent football player who doesn't concentrate in calculus won't go on to a successful career as a corporate executive or politician, while the A+ student in the front row ends up teaching the same class at a local community college. Now, you may say that teaching at a community college is in fact more impressive than an occupation as a corporate executive, a fact that has some merit, however, if you were to say that, how can you say that the student paying more attention in calculus is more intelligent/better to any degree? You cannot, unless you use some incredibly "magic bullet"-esque reasoning. </p>

<p>I'll leave you with one last thought - what is more important to you as a parent: having a student that excels in school or having a student that actually learns and pursues that which helps them grow as an individual? The two examples are not mutually exclusive, yet if they were, would you still push your child to achieve, achieve, achieve, or rather support activities that help the child more, even at the expense of percieved success.</p>

<p>Personally, I think a balance must be struck between the two extremes - the most advantageous path is one that allows the student to grow and develop on their own, yet still uphold the image of scholastic success so as to benefit from the various scholarships, opportunities, and possible college educations, that result from that success. In school, it is not often necessary to be the best, it is only required that you be near the best, or appear as though you are near/one of the best. Unfortunately for the students, the same cannot be said about life as those hardworking students who struggle to do exactly what their teacher asks to obtain A's are the same people who end up spending their time furthering the success of their boss and coworkers. Subsequently, they may spend their youth hearing how smart they are, yet when it comes time to enter the real world, for some reason the same lessons don't apply.</p>

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<p>All I was trying to say was that there are hundreds of great schools and thousands of ways to be successful. The idea that not going to an Ivy is losing out on the American Dream and what was all the work good for...??? Maybe I mis-interpreted BurnThis's comments. That's what they sounded like to me. I know all kinds off successful people. Few have gone to Harvard and lots don't even want to. No slur on Harvard, but it's not everyone's idea of heaven and not the only way to get to a great life. Really.</p>

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<p>Beth,</p>

<p>Ouch. For my son, yes, HYP (really, just Y) is the reward that he's been working towards. He's worked his butt off for four years so that he could go to the top school in the nation because he loves learning and wants to be in the most intellectually stimulating environment (for the record, he's also including St. John's and Chicago for their ability to fulfill his intellectual needs). He's taking AP Physics and Advanced Seminar in Math despite not being a math/science person because he loves the challenge -- the report I just received from his math teacher talks about his love of math and how he's one of the top students in the class. My son thinks he sucks at math, but he puts his all into whatever he's doing. That's what he brings to his classes -- even the classes that aren't in his technical area of interest he throws himself into with gusto. Yes, I'm a bit defensive about the whole grip thing, but I think kids who work hard and do well should be rewarded and the reward for hard work in high school is getting into your dream college -- whatever it may be.</p>

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<p>It's easy to say that there are thousands of great colleges, but it is really dependent on the career which a student wishes to pursue. The way I think of it is - if I walk into an office to ask for an internship, job, or something to that effect, by having the Harvard prestige behind me, I have a significantly better chance of getting somewhere than if I had gone to any one of those thousands of great schools.</p>

<p>I'm not attending an Ivy, and neither do I think that it's necessary or the right choice in all situations to attend an Ivy; however, if one works their entire scholastic career, and puts in the effort outside of class, it's reasonable to assume that the student would expect, or at least like some sort of reward. Admission into a college that anyone can get into isn't exactly the type of reward most overachievers expect.</p>

<p>It's simply ignorant to discount the enormous advantages to an Ivy education, and it's also very common to use admission into HYP to represent the fulfillment of a dream; I don't see where the opinion that either of those schools is the be-all, end-all comes up.</p>

<p>I really don't see much reason to argue this point though; it's inconsequential to the overall idea. Just pretend that HYP is your son's dream school.</p>

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<p>To me, learning is its own reward, but if I need to choose whether to work on (college freshman) Physics or AP English at a given time, I will choose Physics - even if it means getting a B in the other class. Why? I hope to be a physicist one day and do significant research. Working very hard on my Physics coursework is <em>one</em> of the ways I prepare myself to succeed later on. (For the record, so far I do have an A in English.)</p>