Pay for grades

[Bentham]

Hello FDR community.

 

I have a 3 1/2 year-old son for whom I've been working hard lately to design a homeschool curriculum which is rational and sustainable.

 

I appreciate the concept of unschooling but I have reservation about it - I don't want him to be unprepared for college (should he chose to go) due to a non-coarsive unschooling curriculum which would may leave him without a grounding in non-academic-type stuff like math, grammar, science, etc.

 

My solution - and it seems very resonable to me - is to pay him (as if he were my employ) for doing the typical state-based curriculum. The payment scheme would be based on performance - so more for A's than B's and so on. I also look foward to his learning to negotiate higher wages with me since I want to train him for the real world, after all.

 

This would also be for non-state-based stuff such as certain area's of philosophy (especially basic epistomology and logic), computer usage, debating skills, critital thinking, which may or may not interest him much.

 

So the long and short of it is: Is paying for a child to do curriculum rational and moral?

[wdiaz03]

I'll be concerned with this approach short-circuiting valuable lessons related to time preference. By getting paid you are reinforcing immediate gratification instead of teaching sacrificing the now for the benefit of the future. He will be getting paid but not with money, its his future self receiving the payment in the form of knowledge. why not reinforce that?

 

Why not teach him how our current self can be grateful for what our past self have done? for example. I'm glad that my past self decided to learn how to juggle. It wasn't fun picking up balls from the floor all the time and the constant practice. but now my current self can sort of juggle, If i stick to it my future self can become good enough to entertain kids at birthday parties. So in a way I pay it forward to my future self as thanks to my past self.

 

I'm no expert, just something to consider. But it seems its better to explore the "do it because its good for you" rather than "do it for the money"

[ribuck]

I agree with wdiaz03.

 

By all means pay your son for doing things that are good for you (like washing your car), but don't pay him for doing things that are good for him. If he doesn't yet understand that a thing is good for him, then he's not ready to do that thing yet.

 

People can do school grades even as adults, so he can do them when he is ready and motivated. In the meantime, you can make sure that he's getting an education (as opposed to grades). 

[LovePrevails]

 

My solution - and it seems very resonable to me - is to pay him (as if he were my employ) for doing the typical state-based curriculum. The payment scheme would be based on performance - so more for A's than B's and so on. I also look foward to his learning to negotiate higher wages with me since I want to train him for the real world, after all.

 

 

DO NOT DO THIS

If you do this you will be training your son to only ever engage in activities for extrinsic rewards by criteria set by external sources

 

this will not help him later in life when he wants to pursue his passions and finds himself unable to motivate himself to DO anything because no one is judging him, or worse still he's afraid of the kind of judgments he will receive

 

 

 

 

from my essay, on the abolition of grades, (http://radiius.org/on-the-abolition-of-grades/)

 

 

Psychologists (with the exception of behaviourists who are result-orientated and reject considerations of the inner environment) generally draw a distinction between extrinsic motivation, the desire to attain in order to receive perceived rewards, and intrinsic motivation, the desire to do something because it is perceived as innately worthwhile.[3] In the context of education Carol S. Dweck states, “Both goals are entirely normal and pretty much universal,” [4] although extensive research shows that a motivation to learn for the sake of learning is inversely related to a desire to learn for grade achievement.[5] Correlation does not prove cause, however, progressive pedagogue Alfie Kohn has written: “as far as I can tell, every study that has ever investigated the impact on intrinsic motivation of receiving grades… has found a negative effect.” [6] The evidence suggests that promoting a grade-driven orientation leads to a degradation of a learning-driven one. “While it’s not impossible for a student to be concerned about getting high marks and also to like what he or she is doing, the practical reality is that these two ways of thinking generally pull in opposite directions.”[7] If we accept intrinsic motivation as a virtue which a strong need for extrinsic motivation is less preferable to, then these findings seriously undermine the ‘motivation’ argument for using grades: grades create a dependence on extrinsic motivation and citing motivation as an argument to justify their use is analogous to prescribing an addictive substance because it relieves symptoms of addiction.

On the other hand, the argument can be made that extrinsic motivation is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, this argument is often applied with a “students better get used to it” attitude in anticipation of the workplace, where employees may often need to reach targets and meet goals. Indeed, extrinsic motivations are a natural part of life: a child will need to put his toys away to enjoy playing with them, and an adult will have chores to do which are unappealing but for which the ends justify the means. The question is whether attempts to impose extrinsic motivations (such as grades) artificially in order to acclimatise individuals to them is in any way necessary or achieves desirable results. Students demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded, “When students are told they’ll need to know something for a test or… that something they’re about to do will count for a grade – they are likely to come to view that task (or book or idea) as a chore.”[8] This stands to reason, as if grades are what motivate a student to learn then logically the same students ought not to be motivated to learn when they leave education and grades are not presented as an incentives for learning. Thus students are not really being acclimatised to natural extrinsic motivations, they are being socially conditioned to require unnatural, externally imposed ones and to perform tasks reluctantly for them. Returning to consideration of the workplace, can we honestly imagine that workers dependent on external rewards will make preferable employees to individuals who are self-motivated? It seems unlikely.

 

The same could be said of paying your son to study. If you do that, why on earth would he study when he wass not being paid.

This is not a good way to instill a love of life long learning.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQesSzkZW4s

 

I hope this post helps!

[cherapple]

Read Alfie Kohn's book Punished By Rewards.

[stigskog]

Its a good book, and especially all the references to studies.

 

I am convinced that paying or coercing your son to study will damage him, mainly by removing his intrinsic motivation.

 

Google DESCHOOLING as well to get an idea of how long it takes to get over these effects.

 

Alfie kohn suggests listing the qualities and abilities that you think it will be important for your child to have when he grows up, and then to compare your plans against the list.

[tasmlab]

Everything I've read suggests you may be thinking about unschooling slightly off target.  The purpose is to let the child flourish where they want to learn, not recreate the screws of the public curriculum and grading system in the home.

 

My advice is wait until he is at least 14 and then start talking college.  If there are any gaps in his knowledge that would screw up an entrance exam, you'll easily be able to learn what's missing in time.  And he'll likely be ahead anyways.  

 

And the unschooling idea often forgoes college too (while not a homeschooler expert, James Altrucher has good things to say about skipping college).

 

And college might not even exist as we know it by the time your boy is ready.

 

And he's 3 and half!  Let him play legos and look under rocks for a bit before signing him up for university :-)

 

(disclaimer: I'm only beginning unschooling with my children - I don't have an experienced opinion, more of a 'book' opinion)

[ccuthbert]

I have to second LovePrevails response--DO NOT DO THIS, and read Punished by Rewards.

 

Contrary to our conditioned response to the idea that unschooling means uneducated, undisciplined, unprepared, lazy, etc, unschooling is none of this. Think of it as aided discovery. Daniel Greenberg of Sudbury Valley School fame noted that when some one wants to learn something, he will find the way to do it. Therefore, if your son wants to go to college (god forbid) he'll do what it takes to get there. For example, we unschooled with our children. My daughter will be graduating with her degree in chemistry in two weeks with a gpa of 3.8. Somehow, unschooling didn't stop her from aquiring the basics--quite the contrary. Stupid school stuff didn't waste her precious time, so that she was able to concentrate on what she needed to learn.

 

You might benefit from reading Greenberg's books.

 

PS, I always thought it odd that a parent would pay for grades. Grades themselves are arbitrary bribes. Clearly they don't cause the desired response from many children. Instead of recognizing this and abandoning the ridiculous system, the parent doubles down with money.

[Bentham]

Thank you for all your thoughtful responses and book suggestion.

 

Either way, he's very curious as it is and it would be silly for me to incentivise him in any way at this time - and I'm sure it will probably be like that for a while. Hopefully, unschooling will begin to make more sense to me as I learn more about it and I can just let his curiosity dictate his curriculum.

[LanceD]

I am glad to see you've reconsidered! As an unschooling parent your original post was somewhat concerning to me, though I very much understand your attitude towards unschooling.

 

Many people seem to think that unschooling means your child is not learning. This could not be further from the truth. When caring and involved parents unschool it simply means that the child is free to explore and learn what they want when they want, while growing an even deeper bond with their parents!

 

You said your child is 3 1/2, so I assume your child has already spent a lot of time with you and your wife learning all sorts of things. Whether its words, colors, shapes or whatever your kid has been learning from day 1. Why does this experience suddenly need to change to a "formal" setting involving compulsion or bribery? Why can't you continue the same pattern that comes naturally to the child?

 

Long ago with my son we abandoned the idea that we needed to teach him subjects or a curriculum. We instead just take him everywhere with us, give him plenty of free time to do whatever he wants, and engage him with projects or activities we think may interest him or expose him to new things.

 

What exactly do you remember from your compulsory education? Think back on all of the things you learned because you had to, not because you wanted to. What do you remember from them? What do you use in your daily life from these subjects? I bet its not a whole heck of a lot! Children who are forced to learn things don't typically absorb and hold onto the information for very long. Why do you want to do this to your child? Why do you want to waste their time? I'm sure you love and respect your child, so why show a complete disrespect for them by forcing them to waste so much time and effort when they could instead be doing something they enjoy?

 

My son can recite so many of the things he's learned that relate to topics he cares about. Whether it's how a star is born, how to play some song on the piano or some nonsense related to his favorite game. Wanna guess how much he remembers from the old compulsory lessons he got before we started doing this the way we do it now?

 

I suggest you stop planning for a formal college education and concentrate on today. Find things your child loves and expose them to things they may love even more. Use everyday experiences as opportunity to teach. Ask questions and engage your child, find out what they think and why they think it. This will help them learn to rationalize and analyze, and a person who can do that can learn anything whenever they want.

[cynicist]

School for me was pretty horrible. I learned to do things that I hated for grades that I did not care about while being surrounded by apathetic or sadistic classmates. It retarded my ability to think for a long while and discouraged me from going to college and extending my prison sentence by another four years for a piece of paper that wouldn't even guarantee me a job. I would be far more concerned with the type of environment your child is exposed to in public school over being somewhat unprepared for college. (The latter can be remedied with some books, while the former could require years of therapy or self-work to overcome)

[dsayers]

By all means pay your son for doing things that are good for you (like washing your car), but don't pay him for doing things that are good for him.

 

I feel this is a brilliant distinction.

 

I appreciate the concept of unschooling but I have reservation about it - I don't want him to be unprepared for college

 

Well we have no idea what "college" will look like 15 yrs from now. Rather than providing this conclusion for him, I would recommend that when the time is right, explain this to him. Encourage him to research what college is, what are its benefits, what are its pitfalls. There is already tons of material out there for people without (completed) government schooling to prepare them for college. Surely better, more time-accurate material will surface over the next 15 yrs. Let him decide if that's a concern he wishes to adopt and address.

 

To the topic at hand: Save the money you would've paid him to get him a tablet PC once he's old enough to properly maintain it. Just make sure it's one that supports handwriting input. I don't know if the day will ever come where humans won't need that skill, but it'll likely be pertinent for a long time to come.

[dokkou]

I thing I would like to ask is why would paying a child to have good grades any more or less moral than giving the child an allowance? At least you can control the expense of what you are paying a child with grades rather than giving the child an allowance. I think the child would learn better with having to get paid for the services he produce. It is the same as paying the child to take out the garbage or cleaning his room. The only fall back is that now he would expect to get paid for the things that are unintended like if you have to move or something. Hell, you could pay the child through food or other things like ice cream or stuff that he really likes. I don't see this any less or more moral than what you are trying to accomplish. Besides, education is subjective and people learn more efficiently when not having a formal institution to help you than a formal one. In terms of rational, it might help or it might not. It would definitely help the child to produce more, that is for sure but I wouldn't say it is any more rational if you don't do that. The child's development is not necessarily set in stone and it is too complicated for one to say that there is one method or many methods to do things since every individual is different. It is not just the environment that determines a child's development but also the motivation in which is he is willing to learn. So I say if you think that this is a good thing then I say go for it. You know your child better than any of us here so you determine how you want to raise your child. 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

I appreciate the concept of unschooling but I have reservation about it - I don't want him to be unprepared for college (should he chose to go) due to a non-coarsive unschooling curriculum which would may leave him without a grounding in non-academic-type stuff like math, grammar, science, etc.

 

I haven't looked into unschooling at all, but I just wanted to ask:

 

-Why do you think your child won't learn "math, grammar, science, etc." with a non-academic approach?

-Why do you think your child will learn "math, grammar, science, etc." with an academic approach?

 

I graduated with a bachelor of science in chemistry in 2009 and this is what I have to say about my academic career in regards to math, grammar, and science:

 

Math: I never learned how to apply mathematics to anything, despite completing my fourth quarter of calculus and surviving 3 quarters of physical chemistry. The math that I did learn to do things is quite a ways out of my head and, even though I could probably brush up on it a hell of a lot quicker than learning it fresh, I have almost never used what I learned in math classes outside of math classes. Really USEFUL mathematics, like finances, interest rates, and statistics, I barely touched and have had to teach to myself recently.

 

Grammar: I didn't learn grammar until I took classical Greek in college, and that was just because my professor enjoyed using old textbooks which used "old teaching methods". Seriously. I remember my jaw dropping in Greek class and yelling at my professor, "Oh my god! I finally understand English!!" And even after Greek (and Japanese and Sanskrit), I didn't really get grammar until I started getting into the Trivium and going through the book Trivium by Sister Meriem Joseph. So basically, I learned grammar through self-study and a fluke at school because I had a quirky professor.

 

Science: Having majored in chemistry, one would think I would have some knowledge about science. However, half-way through my third year of a chemistry major I realized I didn't even know how to mix the chemicals under my sink, while my dad dropped out of highschool and spent his teenage years making fireworks, rockets, and laughing gas from reading science books. After graduating I couldn't even explain to you what the scientific method was, and I finally stumbled onto a clear explanation of it when reading a book by Carroll Quigley--a historian. I can talk up and down the road about chemistry, but actually making something or doing an experiment with chemicals? Forget it. What I can do is, surprise surprise, self-taught.

 

So yea, I don't know what to recommend to you to do with your child, but I definitely know the standard "academic path" is a bunch of crap. Save all parties involved the misery and figure something else out.

 

-Dylan

[ccuthbert]

dokkou, we never gave our children allowance either. I am totally against the practice. I know it's almost universal and that we were unusual in this, but hey, there are a lot of things that make us unusual.

 

I didn't want to pay our children for doing chores around that house that were their responsibility as part of our household. To me, paying your child to clean up his own mess is sending a very bad message. Worse is paying a child for nothing, which seems far more common in the US. Are we surprised that we have so many people who believe they are owed a living? If our children wanted pocket money, they had two choices, just like everyone else: 1. work, 2. gifts. Some how they survived. ;-)

 

 

 

I thing I would like to ask is why would paying a child to have good grades any more or less moral than giving the child an allowance?

[ribuck]

I haven't looked into unschooling at all, but I just wanted to ask:

 

-Why do you think your child won't learn "math, grammar, science, etc." with a non-academic approach?

-Why do you think your child will learn "math, grammar, science, etc." with an academic approach?

 

Thanks for sharing your own experiences, Dylan. I'd like to add one of mine.

 

My parents wanted me to become musically talented. They paid for my music lessons, and made sure I practiced. My music teacher made sure I did all my music exams and was well-prepared. I moved through the grades quickly, and passed my exams with distinction. But I never became musically talented, never became a musician. I never got any value from my exam certificates, my academic approach to learning music, or my thousands of hours of "structured" practice.

 

A good schoolfriend of mine never had music lessons. He developed a passion for guitar, and was always exploring new chords, new riffs, new songs. His passion then moved to electric guitar, and he was always building amplifiers, speakers, and effects pedals, and playing loads of great music. To this day he is an accomplished guitarist.

 

Fortunately, in other areas of my life my parents were happy to let me pursue my own passions, so I was able to achieve great things with electronics and computers, and in my younger days with adventure sports.

[Lians]

Here's an example of what the academic approach did to a passion of mine. I started drawing when I was around 3 and won my first fine arts competition when I was 5. I was later enrolled in one of the best arts programs in the country. My first teacher was a great lady who'd let us do whatever we wanted, and I was winning one competition after another; there were ceremonies, prizes and exhibitions. I was proud of my work. She provided help when I needed it, but I was free to paint whatever I wanted.

 

Enter 5th grade. New teacher, new rules. Now we had structure. We had life drawing sessions, anatomy workshops, landscape painting trips. She gave us guidelines and we had to follow them. I hated it and she hated me. It took me about 2 years to lose all my passion for painting, and I haven't finished a single painting since then. Luckily, I found other creative outlets that weren't part of an academic structure. Question is, will your son be just as lucky?

[dsayers]

Is there a name or explanation for how the sense of necessity kills passion? I've observed this in my life and the lives of those around me as well.

[Lians]

Well, as a kid, suppose you have a preference for how you want to do things. An authority figure comes to you and tells you that your preference is invalid and you should do things in a different way. They've got power over you but they don't negotiate. What do you do?

 

If they're right and don't communicate to you why that is the case, then there might be something terribly wrong with your capacity to process reality. Your preferences - and by extension your senses, emotions and reasoning abilities by which those preferences are derived - are out of whack. You get paralysed, you can't make any progress and then you give up. This happens gradually over time. If your eyes were constantly misleading you, would you keep them open?

 

If the authority figure is wrong, you've got an ever bigger problem on your hands. Now you have to process the reality of the situation. You're surrounded by people who can enforce their seemingly random preferences at will. Since you've got no power and there's no predictability in your environment, you'll be in a constant state of distress. That's pretty bad for you from both a physiological and psychological standpoint. Facing the horror of this reality, adaptation by assuming fault in yourself seems like a pretty healthy strategy to me. At least you've got control over that. Matter isn't behaving randomly, it's my eyes that are messed up. All I have to do is stop relying on them.

 

It's particularly bad if your parents didn't respect your preferences. I remember having hope about the world when I got to go outside my family environment. School was there to extinguish that hope. Overall, the entire system is set up to produce broken human beings. It's not surprising that the expansion in Prussian militarism coincided with the establishment of schooling. As far as I know, that was the actual plan.

[dsayers]

Well I didn't necessarily mean from an authoritarian standpoint. My father used to enjoy painting and my step-mom did various craftsy type things. They started doing craft shows together and he eventually lost his love for painting altogether because he now felt as if he HAD to do it. I've experienced similar things in terms of computers and programming. Is this natural or an effect of unresolved trauma?

[Lians]

If what I described existed in your environment while you were growing up, why wouldn't it affect you later on? You acquired all your behavioural templates in your childhood, so it's a good idea to look there first. Also, most parents and teachers are authoritarian figures in the eyes of children.

[dokkou]

dokkou, we never gave our children allowance either. I am totally against the practice. I know it's almost universal and that we were unusual in this, but hey, there are a lot of things that make us unusual.

 

I didn't want to pay our children for doing chores around that house that were their responsibility as part of our household. To me, paying your child to clean up his own mess is sending a very bad message. Worse is paying a child for nothing, which seems far more common in the US. Are we surprised that we have so many people who believe they are owed a living? If our children wanted pocket money, they had two choices, just like everyone else: 1. work, 2. gifts. Some how they survived. ;-)

 

 

 

Look, I am not saying it is the stamp of what it has to be, I was replying to your question on whether it was moral to pay your child for good grades. And my reply was I don't think it is at all. Morality is to determine if something will make you happy or the recipient happy. Of course, there has to be some type of universality of things to keep things in order but in essence, giving a child money isn't a bad thing or a good thing. It is something as a parent to determine. My parents didn't tell me the value of money until I learned from helping with their restaurant and legal stuff I am the only person besides my sister that speaks English. I learned the value of money then and also when I lived on my own. If you think that learning it in an early age is good then try it. You as a parent will affect the way your child thinks by every action you do with the child so just choose wisely. I learned the value of cleanliness from my parents after I moved out since I am allergic to dust. I learned the value of cooking and doing things on my own since my parents left me alone most of the time. As long as you don't physically hurt you child through negative re/enforcement like spanking, yelling, etc. then I think you should be fine with teaching your child the value of money.

[LovePrevails]

[AustinJames]

Age and maturity are crucial factors in deciding extrinsic incentives for education.  In teaching a four-year-old how to read, there is nothing wrong with promising a sweet if they can successfully decipher a line of phonograms.  The young child does not connect current hardships with the prospect of increased future opportunity, so creating the neural pathways connecting work and reward can begin by offering such immediate incentive as a piece of candy, or a shiny quarter.  This inspires the child to seek out the possible rewards for their actions, rather than inhibiting their ability to determine what is valuable.

 

It may be confusing to your pre-teen or teenager, however, as he/she develops their own educational values and priorities, to offer cash incentives for completing state-sponsored curriculum.  If your stance is against the public school system, then simply share with your child your problems with it, along with the real-world incentives involved, and let them make their own decision as to whether they should pursue it.  If you have nourished their critical thinking skills, and modeled negotiation, they will have no trouble deducing the optimum course of their education.  They will probably be better at it than you are (since I assume you were not raised in this manner), and come up with solutions better than you can imagine.  They may lose respect for you if you defer to the very system you criticize to decide the value of their work.

 

I reject the notion that there is such a thing as "learning for the sake of learning."  All learning is, and should be, pursued because of the incentive perceived by the learner (not limited to monetary incentives, of course).  We don't tell employees that they should work for "their innate love of working;" the employer simply provides incentive (whether it is money, or a sense of accomplishment, or something else), and trusts the employee to do the calculation as to whether it is worthy of the effort involved.  The trick is to introduce a student to a broader sense of incentives than is provided by academia.

 

To answer your question; it is completely rational, but amoral, and the effectiveness is questionable, dependent upon your goals.

[LovePrevails]

Age and maturity are crucial factors in deciding extrinsic incentives for education.  In teaching a four-year-old how to read, there is nothing wrong with promising a sweet if they can successfully decipher a line of phonograms.  The young child does not connect current hardships with the prospect of increased future opportunity, 

 

 

How do you reach those conclusions?

those are some poretty big (and dangerous) assertions presented without any evidence - just conjecture

That is EATING DISORDER territory if you ask me

 

you are training a child to perceive sweets as a reward.

[AustinJames]

How do you reach those conclusions?

those are some poretty big (and dangerous) assertions presented without any evidence - just conjecture

That is EATING DISORDER territory if you ask me

 

you are training a child to perceive sweets as a reward.

 

Most of the evidence is anecdotal.  I work at a K-8 charter school, and the methodology utilizes many different reward systems, attempting to span the nature of rewards provided in the rest of a child's life.  Part of the methodology allows the children to negotiate their own reward system.

 

You can't train a child to perceive sweets as a reward; that is a physiologically intrinsic valuation.  A monkey climbs a tree because there is fruit at the top-- not because of its 'innate love of climbing.'

 

The eating disorder argument is rationally inconsistent, because eating disorders override a rational cost/benefit analysis of behavior, whereas the ambition for extrinsic incentives requires a rational cost/benefit analysis of behavior.

[LovePrevails]

I think everything you have ju

 

Most of the evidence is anecdotal.  I work at a K-8 charter school, and the methodology utilizes many different reward systems, attempting to span the nature of rewards provided in the rest of a child's life.  Part of the methodology allows the children to negotiate their own reward system.

 

You can't train a child to perceive sweets as a reward; that is a physiologically intrinsic valuation.  A monkey climbs a tree because there is fruit at the top-- not because of its 'innate love of climbing.'

 

The eating disorder argument is rationally inconsistent, because eating disorders override a rational cost/benefit analysis of behavior, whereas the ambition for extrinsic incentives requires a rational cost/benefit analysis of behavior.

 

I think you are just stating your arbitrary opinions as facts

 

I will go with the research thanks.

[ribuck]

It makes no sense to give a child something harmful (a sweet) as a reward. If you do that, how can you expect them to take you seriously the next day when you encourage them to eat healthily?

 

There are things children value much more than sweets. Time and attention from adults is one of those things.

 

If you're pleased that your child has accomplished a difficult task (such as "successfully deciphering a line of phonograms"), spend some time with them doing something that can benefit from your input. In any case, don't promise a reward in advance of the task - that's just conditioning children to perform monkey tricks for rewards. When the child is ready and motivated, they will "decipher a line of phonograms" just fine without being promised a reward - or, more likely, they'll learn to read by whatever way their brain finds easiest, when their brain is ready for it.

[AustinJames]

I think everything you have ju

 

 

I think you are just stating your arbitrary opinions as facts

 

I will go with the research thanks.

 

Which one of my statements is an 'arbitrary opinion?'  

 

I described the use of extrinsic incentives in my career.  I then made an objective statement about the nature of primates.  My last statement shows the rational opposition between the ambition for extrinsic incentives and eating disorders.  I fail to see any opinions here at all.

 

Is there research that I missed in your posts that shows use of extrinsic incentives in childhood causes eating disorders later in life?  Or have you not posted that research?  If it exists, I sure can't find it.  I would appreciate you bringing it to my attention.

 

 

 

It makes no sense to give a child something harmful (a sweet) as a reward. If you do that, how can you expect them to take you seriously the next day when you encourage them to eat healthily?

 

Children are generally capable of greater understanding than you imply by this statement.  Simply explain to your child that it's important to eat healthy most of the time, but sometimes it's okay to have a sweet.  You could go further and say that's why you save sweets for special occasions, like birthdays or holidays.

 

Even if you are like some people I know, that want to raise their children on zero sweets, a pretzel or a piece of fruit works just as well.

 

Children are quite good at regulating their own diets, if they are provided with a wide variety and freedom to choose (Birch & Deysher study, 1985).  Most of my students eventually reject the sweets as incentives and negotiate for something else, like free time or a game.

 

 

 

In any case, don't promise a reward in advance of the task - that's just conditioning children to perform monkey tricks for rewards. 

 

I don't want my students, or my children, to expend their efforts if there is no perceived tangible benefit from doing so.  I want the neurological pathways formed that connect effort with possible tangible benefits.  When an employee completes a project, considering the promise of a bonus, do we say that the employee is 'performing monkey tricks for rewards?'  When a patron of a movie theater disposes of his own garbage, considering the societal shaming that may occur if he does not, do we say he is 'performing monkey tricks' to gain the reward of societal distinction?  If you do not promise a tangible reward in advance, then you are asking for compliance based on emotional manipulation.

 

An effective and successful human being will always ask, when considering a behavior, "what are the possible rewards for this behavior?  What are the possible negative consequences for this behavior?"  The more chances you can give a child to go through this decision-making process independently, the more successful they will be in deducing cause and effect in their lives.

 

 

When the child is ready and motivated, they will "decipher a line of phonograms" just fine without being promised a reward - or, more likely, they'll learn to read by whatever way their brain finds easiest, when their brain is ready for it.

 

Where is your evidence for this?  There is lots of evidence against it; it is the methodology utilized by most public schools in the U.S., and you can review their rate of success in teaching children how to read.

[ribuck]

 

they'll learn to read by whatever way their brain finds easiest, when their brain is ready for it.

 

Where is your evidence for this?  There is lots of evidence against it; it is the methodology utilized by most public schools in the U.S., and you can review their rate of success in teaching children how to read.

 

The Steiner school system doesn't teach reading until age 7. By age 8 the children have reading abilities on par with 8-year-olds who have been force-fed with reading from age 4 or so.

 

My daughters went to Steiner kindergarten until age 6. When they moved to a state school, they were labelled as requiring remedial reading education, yet by the time the state got around to organizing this (six weeks) they had caught up with the others in their class (and went on to be top of their year overall). So I have seen it first-hand.

 

I helped out at the Steiner school, and sat on its management committee for several years. During that time I saw many, many children who became skilled and voracious readers.

 

On the other hand, I also helped out in the state school, and I saw four- and five-year-olds who were extremely stressed by being pushed into reading before they were ready for it, and ended up fearing or disliking reading as a result.

 

Children are naturally keen to learn. The best schools provide assistance when the child is ready. The worst schools follow standardized timescales and force-feed the children whatever is on the curriculum that week.

[original_brownbear]

The Steiner school system doesn't teach reading until age 7. By age 8 the children have reading abilities on par with 8-year-olds who have been force-fed with reading from age 4 or so.

 

My daughters went to Steiner kindergarten until age 6. When they moved to a state school, they were labelled as requiring remedial reading education, yet by the time the state got around to organizing this (six weeks) they had caught up with the others in their class (and went on to be top of their year overall). So I have seen it first-hand.

 

I helped out at the Steiner school, and sat on its management committee for several years. During that time I saw many, many children who became skilled and voracious readers.

 

On the other hand, I also helped out in the state school, and I saw four- and five-year-olds who were extremely stressed by being pushed into reading before they were ready for it, and ended up fearing or disliking reading as a result.

 

Children are naturally keen to learn. The best schools provide assistance when the child is ready. The worst schools follow standardized timescales and force-feed the children whatever is on the curriculum that week.

From my own experience as an educator I completely agree. Trying to force children to learn stuff at a younger age really does not accomplish all that much in the long run.

The only thing that I belive to have actual value is to constantly try to present opportunities of learning to a child.

I actually worked with a lot of children from very affluent households here in Germany, where parents basically paid me to for example get their 10 year old to do math at a 10th grade level.

I at first achieved very mixed results when just trying to teach them all the concepts directly following a strict curriculum.

When I changed to the approach of just presenting the various things we could learn next on the other hand I had huge success with a lot of kids who figured that they'd actually like to know how to solve certain problems.

 

Additionally even though it's no sample size but I had one student that was actually paid by his parents to work with me and also financially rewarded for sucess and I can tell financial rewards just do not work on young children. They either completely loose focus on the long term goals of learning, in the case of older children, or they are still too young to make the connection between educational success, money and the ability to buy what they want with it.

[AustinJames]

 

 

The Steiner school system doesn't teach reading until age 7. By age 8 the children have reading abilities on par with 8-year-olds who have been force-fed with reading from age 4 or so.

 

My daughters went to Steiner kindergarten until age 6. When they moved to a state school, they were labelled as requiring remedial reading education, yet by the time the state got around to organizing this (six weeks) they had caught up with the others in their class (and went on to be top of their year overall). So I have seen it first-hand.

 

I helped out at the Steiner school, and sat on its management committee for several years. During that time I saw many, many children who became skilled and voracious readers.

 

On the other hand, I also helped out in the state school, and I saw four- and five-year-olds who were extremely stressed by being pushed into reading before they were ready for it, and ended up fearing or disliking reading as a result.

 

Children are naturally keen to learn. The best schools provide assistance when the child is ready. The worst schools follow standardized timescales and force-feed the children whatever is on the curriculum that week.

 

I don't see how this is relevant to the assertion that children will "learn to read by whatever way their brain finds easiest, when their brain is ready for it."  The Waldorf schools still use a consistent methodology to teach literacy; they don't just let the student figure it out based on "the way their brain finds easiest;"  they just have a particular approach, reflecting what they think is easiest for the child's brain (for which there is little supporting research).  If it were otherwise, their model would be able to accommodate children that wanted to learn to read at an earlier age.  Moreover, if this were the case, they wouldn't advocate a consistent methodology, such as how to teach the alphabet in first grade.

 

I agree that children are naturally keen to learn.  For this reason, they do not need to be force-fed.  They simply need to be introduced to the benefits, or rewards, of learning certain things, so they can prioritize their own education.  If an immediate reward, such as a sweet, is what it takes to "prime the pump" and get the children connecting learning with tangible benefits, I can see no fault in it.

From my own experience as an educator I completely agree. Trying to force children to learn stuff at a younger age really does not accomplish all that much in the long run.

The only thing that I belive to have actual value is to constantly try to present opportunities of learning to a child.

 

I agree with this as well.  I don't think anyone is advocating forcing children to learn anything.  I can't help feeling my position has been misrepresented.  The controversy to me is not whether we should peacefully present opportunities of learning, but rather how best to introduce the prospect of educational opportunities, in order to instill a positive attitude toward learning in the child.

[tjt]

 

 

 

 

 

Still catching up on this thread, but had a quick question about this short video. I understand Kohn's general ideas around 'rewards' (not thoroughly yet though, my knowledge is pretty limited, but so far I agree).

 

What I'm wondering, though, is what's so great about "generosity" and "sharing"? Was he simply using these two acts as an example to show that if parents try to encourage X by rewarding a child when they do X, the child will act in exact opposite of X when the parents are not around? But why use generosity and sharing as an example?

 

If anyone can help clarify that would be appreciated, because I don't think sharing and being generous are necessarily virtuous in and of themselves. Yet we often teach children that is what they are to do if they want to be nice little boys and girls (whether or not rewards are used in teaching them this).