Seattle Times: Should Learning Be its Own Reward?

Parents Forum
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<p>BurnThis</p>

<p>I didn't mean to be harsh. Of course it's fine for your son to aspire to any school he wants. And it sounds like he has a shot at Yale. But unless you've bought Yale a building lately or he's a rock star or you're the POTUS, you and he can't count on it. My son is a great student also, but he knows he can't count on the most selective schools on his list. And they may not even be the best match for him. I truly don't believe that higher selectivity necessarily equals better school.</p>

<p>And I don't think it is ignorant (you didn't say this, but someone else did) to say that an Ivy undergrad degree is not necessary for success. There may be some tiny fraction of jobs where it could be important, but not for most. I'm not saying the schools are over-rated; I'm saying the need to attend them is.</p>

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<p>Bethievt,</p>

<p>Believe me, we know what a long shot his app is at Yale. Five kids from his school have already received likely letters based on sports. Plus, we have some legacies every year. 24 kids are applying early to Yale -- almost ten percent of the graduating class. It's insane. And that's why I'm frustrated that for all his hard work (and, I'm sure, the hard work of many of those 24) he may be disappointed that he won't be getting the "reward" of the school of his choice. And as for Ivy being the be all and end all, without revealing too much I can tell you that for lawyers (both my husband and I are lawyers and S thinks he wants to go to law school) Ivy does guarantee you an easier time throughout your career in getting a job. This may not, and probably is not, true for other professions, but this is the one where your resume follows you for all of your career and where you went to school always matters. Trust me on this one.</p>

23

<p>Yeah, my bad,</p>

<p>The law angle was one I knew was tough (only for certain areas and certain firms though, I think??) But can't the Ivy piece be added for law school if not undergrad? I feel for you, I really do. I'm glad our son doesn't have a major in mind. It's easier to find the social/emotional fit because the good LACs all have the academics and he can explore when he gets there. Hoping the best for you and your son (and it may not be what you now think will be the best)...</p>

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<p>There were plenty of successful people who homeschooled, or taught themselves, and didn't need external rewards (superficial rewards such as grades) to gain their success and intelligence. Its a fact that almost all babies are born curious, its a question of cultivating that curiosity so that a child, teenager, and adult can continue to learn without someone having to teach them all the time, or without there being an incentive. Unfortunately, I think it is schooling which depresses that. I think its sort of like installing a switch into our brains when we go to school. Once we are in school, going to school becomes sort of like a light switch, which turns on. Once we leave, it must be turned off, and we learn very little because "we are not in school" and because "school is for learning, and nothing else".</p>

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<p>Like the Mark Twain quote, and I paraphrase what my Dad said to all of us when we left for college, "Don't let school get in the way of your education." It doesn't have to, and the best schools (and they are NOT all top 20 USN&WR schools) engender the desire to keep learning, in school or out.</p>

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<p>Growing up, I heard the adage "you learn something new until the day you die" time and time again - for the young at heart, (and that is part of the reward, too) the desire to learn and grow is a life long endeavor inside and outside of school.</p>

<p>I can't resist posting this article from the Boston Globe: "Cars now the ultimate prize for going to school".</p>

<p>"Public schools commonly reward excellent attendance with drawings for movie tickets, gas vouchers and iPods. But some diligent students like Kaytie are now hitting the ultimate teenage jackpot for going to school -- they've won cars.</p>

<p>Kaytie won a red 2006 Chevrolet Colorado crew cab pickup truck worth $28,000. If you thought that winning an iPod was cool, check out her truck's MP3 player.</p>

<p>Freedom is a standard option.</p>

<p>"I take it everywhere. To work, school. I don't know, anything I do, I have it out with me," she said. "I pay attention to where I park it, though."</p>

<p>So does bribing students with the possibility of winning a car or truck actually get them to think twice about staying home from school? Hard to say.</p>

<p>A junior with a 4.0 grade point average at Natrona County High School -- Dick and Lynne Cheney's alma mater -- Kaytie said the drawing last spring wasn't what motivated her to go to school nearly every day last year. She just didn't want to fall behind.</p>

<p>And while some educators say their car giveaways have boosted attendance, those claims tend to be anecdotal or based on limited figures.</p>

<p>Kaytie won the first Natrona County School District truck drawing. Besides raising attendance, district attendance officer Gary Somerville hopes to reduce the district's 29 percent dropout rate.</p>

<p>Somerville blames the dropout rate in part on Casper's economy, which has thrived along with booming gas and oil development across much of Wyoming.</p>

<p>"These kids can go out and earn, $15, $16, $17 an hour swinging a hammer. It's kind of hard to keep them in school past their 16th birthday," he said.</p>

<p>In northeastern Wyoming, the Campbell County School District in Gillette will hold its first attendance drawing -- for a Pontiac G6 -- this spring. School districts in Hartford, Conn.; Pueblo, Colo.; South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; and Wickenburg and Yuma, Ariz., are also giving away vehicles in attendance drawings this school year</p>

<p>But only Hartford has been doing its drawing, for a car or $10,000, long enough to draw reliable conclusions. The results there aren't exactly encouraging.</p>

<p>"I can't tell you that it's increased attendance," district spokesman Terry D'Italia said. "But what it has done over the years is just kept a focus on it and kept it at the top of kids' minds."</p>

<p>A couple thousand students and parents turn out for the Hartford drawing in a riverside park each spring. In five of six years, the winning family has chosen the $10,000 instead of the car.</p>

<p>Sure, in a perfect world, every student would skip off to school every day for the pure reward of learning. But educators say times have changed.</p>

<p>"My mom had the three-B rule," said Jack Stafford, associate principal at South Tahoe High School. "There'd better be blood, bone or barf, or I was going to school.</p>

<p>"That's not the case now."</p>

<p>This will be the second year Stafford's district has given away a car in an attendance drawing. He said attendance increased slightly last year, and has been up slightly again so far this year...</p>

<p>"The kids all come around and say, 'Man, that's the truck I'm working for,'" he said.</p>

<p>Only 98 students out of 3,200 eligible had good enough attendance to qualify for last year's truck drawing. The contest was open to students at four high schools, and they could have no more than one excused absence -- and no unexcused absences.</p>

<p>Somerville said the number of qualifiers this year would show whether attendance has risen in the Natrona County School District."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/11/23/cars_now_the_ultimate_prize_for_going_to_school/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/11/23/cars_now_the_ultimate_prize_for_going_to_school/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>In Ohio, a study conducted by a Case Western Reserve University economics professor looks into the effect of "pay-for-performance":</p>

<p>"Students in grades three to six in the Coshocton city schools earn $15 for every "proficient" score on state achievement exams and can collect $100 if they ace all their tests. The youngsters are paid in "Coshocton bucks," a form of cash honored at the local Wal-Mart and pizza joint.</p>

<p>The experiment, which is being conducted by Case Western Reserve University economics professor Eric Bettinger, has thrust the 2,000-pupil district, about 75 miles east of Columbus, into the middle of a thorny question: Should children receive money for classroom success?</p>

<p>"In a perfect world, all kids would come to school ready to learn and would love to learn," said schools Superintendent Wade Lucas. "In reality, that's not always the case."</p>

<p>That reality is what got Robert E. Simpson interested in the pay-for-performance concept four years ago...</p>

<p>The group agreed to a pilot study in which entire grades from the city's four elementary schools would be randomly chosen each year in a lottery at the school board's September meeting, a popular event with raucous performances by the high school band and cheerleaders.</p>

<p>"It is an incredible mobilization of everyone," Bettinger said. "It was a grass-roots movement. Everyone in the community was behind it."</p>

<p>The program is in its third and final year but could be continued if data show the incentives boosted student test scores. The final data will be compiled this summer.</p>

<p>"If the results are positive, I think we'll see a favorable reaction from both parents and teachers," Simpson said. "At that point, and if recommended by the local school administration, our foundation is prepared to fund a districtwide program. We are confident the incentives work, and our foundation is very pleased with the program so far."</p>

<p>While the Coshocton experiment is rare, plying students with money and other incentives is not unheard of. In the late 1980s, the Cleveland schools operated a Scholarship-in-Escrow program that "paid" students $40 for an A, $20 for a B and $10 for a C. The money, which went to students in grades seven through 12, was held in an account and could be used for college tuition. The program was discontinued in the early 1990s.</p>

<p>The New York City schools in 2005 operated an incentive program similar to Coshocton's, but it lacked the same political and grass-roots support and was soon eliminated.</p>

<p>In Israel, high school students have been paid to pass a college entrance exam. In Dallas, students were compensated for the number of books they read on their own. And in Canada, college students were given bonuses if they kept their grade-point averages at a certain level.</p>

<p>Parents, of course, have been rewarding academic performance for years, either with a crisp $20 bill, a special dinner or tickets to a ballgame. Athletes and scholars are given full-ride scholarships to college. And merit pay for teachers -- linking compensation to students' achievement -- is one of the nation's most-discussed initiatives."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/education/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1169373323266510.xml&coll=2%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cleveland.com/education/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1169373323266510.xml&coll=2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Back when I was teaching HS chemistry full-time, I had a surprisingly large number of students who thought it was the teacher's job to make learning "fun." I spent some time explaining about the intrinisic rewards of struggling to learn something difficult (and I personally think the concept of a mole--and the rest of stoichiometry--is perhaps the hardest thing they learn in HS) and then succeeding, and how good they would feel about themselves once they'd done that. To me, making the transition from the "fun" of elementary and middle school (and note that I think such ideas are a mistake) to the serious effort--and delayed gratification--required for some high school subjects is essential for long-term success.</p>

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<p>I saw a quick blurb on TV news today that Case Western Reserve U is doing a study where they are going to pay students for improving their standardized test scores or something along those lines. I can't find anything on the web about it. Has anyone else heard this yet? If I see the news again I'll fill you in.</p>

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<p>I found the article. </p>

<p>Paying For Good Grades
Jan 19 2007 8:17AM</p>

<p>Reported by Tanisha Mallett</p>

<p>Coshocton schools are giving some students money for their good grades.</p>

<p>When you get a good grade, what do you expect? If you're in Debbie Brown's 6th grade class, you can expect money.</p>

<p>Brown says, "I think we have to keep the kids motivated and they enjoy having rewards and incentives."</p>

<p>Coshocton schools are in the third and final year of an experiment conducted by Case Western University in Cleveland and funded by an area businessman to see if using money as an incentive can improve grades on statewide exams.</p>

<p>The money the students get is not really cash, but something called Coshocton Bucks. If the students ace their exams they can get up to $100 that they can spend in over 150 businesses in Coshocton.</p>

<p>Final results aren't due until the end of the year, but so far, the superintendent says math test grades are improving.</p>

<p>What happens when the money is gone?</p>

<p>Superintendent Wade Lucas says, "If we can get one child to take intrinsic motivation and turn them into extrinsic motivators, then we've been successful."</p>

<p>Lucas says he can already see changes in the way students approach their school work and that will remain long after the money is gone.</p>

<p>Its something Debbie Brown says she sees as well.</p>

<p>Brown says, "No matter what we do in life, as long as we have the tools, we're good to go. We can handle whatever comes our way."</p>

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<p>stowmom, thanks for posting the Ohio News Network piece to the Case Western experiment - Superintendent Wade Lucas' comment "If we can get one child to take intrinsic motivation and turn them into extrinsic motivators, then we've been successful" is certainly telling and controversial as far as these experiments go - as dmd points out in his post.</p>

<p>"Can cash motivate kids to learn?"
"While the thought of paying for good grades makes some parents squirm, others argue that monetary rewards mimic the real world, where economic incentives are used to motivate people. And anyway, they say, haven’t schools and colleges always handed out scholarships for academic achievement?</p>

<p>“For some kids money is a natural motivator,” Clay Watkins, a family therapist and director of the Village Counseling referral center in Arroyo Grande, Calif., wrote in an e-mail interview. “The more ways you can find to reinforce good behavior the better.”</p>

<p>But even for educators who approve of the practice, a lot depends on the spirit in which the reward is given. Is paying your child to do what you want positive reinforcement or plain old bribery? For Janet Bodnar, an expert on issues of children and money and author of Kiplinger's "Dollars & Sense for Kids," it’s a question of timing.</p>

<p>For example, the parents who paid their son $100 to learn the Gettysburg Address by heart and recite it on the first day of 6th grade were indulging in bribery. If the boy had done the exercise on his own and then been given the cash, that would have been different.</p>

<p>“It may seem like splitting hairs, but the former is an out-and-out bribe, while the latter is more of a reward,” Bodnar explained.</p>

<p>Even some schools have joined in upping the ante from the old system of handing out gold stars. Crestwood High School in Kentucky, for instance, offered students with good grades and attendance records the chance to enter a lottery and draw for a prize. The winner was 19-year-old Krystal Brooks, and her reward was nothing less than a bright yellow Ford Mustang worth $21,000.</p>

<p>School administrators cite pressures from programs like the No Child Left Behind Act, which bases school financing on children's attendance and performance.</p>

<p>But experts in education and psychology seem to be divided about the benefits of using financial rewards. Some, such as Watkins, believe that paying children for doing well will encourage them to do even better.</p>

<p>“It has been and always will be one of the most effective strategies for raising positive and motivated boys or girls,” he said. “Most of the real world works the same way--we get punished when we do bad things and rewarded for doing good things.”</p>

<p>Gwynn Mettetal, at Indiana University in South Bend, agrees that money does motivate some children, but worries about the unintended side effects.</p>

<p>“Once children have been paid for doing something,” she wrote in a recent e-mail message, “whether making their bed or reading a book, they tend to expect payment every time.”</p>

<p>Research seems to bear this theory out. A study examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation published by Edward L. Deci, Richard Koestner and Richard M. Ryan in 1999 concluded that offering tangible rewards ultimately defeated the intended objective.</p>

<p>The study showed that once the rewards were removed, children became even less motivated than before the incentives were introduced.</p>

<p>“If you reward children for something they already enjoy, it tends to take the enjoyment out of it,” said Rheta DeVries, a professor of education at the University of Northern Iowa. “If you reward children for something they don’t enjoy doing, then it confirms for them that this is something that isn’t worth doing for its own sake.”</p>

<p>For Tighe Mullins, the cash he earned during the summer for reading books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Giver" has not, apparently, fostered a sustained interest in books. Since the cash deal ended, he hasn’t read a single book."</p>

<p><a href="http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-11-15/dobson-goodgrades%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-11-15/dobson-goodgrades&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>