Too Much of a Good Thing

in Parents of School-Aged Kids by Margo Smith — May 5, 2011 at 10:00 am | 2 comments

I imagine a world where learning structures and methodologies, not just policies, would never be implemented in any school district until the majority of the parents agreed with the proposed change. Do you dream of that too? This post is meant to be a thought-provoker for all parents of school-aged children out there. I think we may be damaging our children, and I find that sad.

Are School Rewards Overdone?

Here is the problem as I see it. You write a sentence; you get a small prize. You complete an assignment; you get a scholarship. So far the rewards in our schools have not reached that ridiculous level, but is it coming? Can you imagine your job if you had to be rewarded for each and every piece of your task? Can you picture the time and resources it would take from any corporation to not only micromanage, but micro-motivate their employees like that? Personally, I would be insulted. It seems more like Pavlovian conditioning than education for our schools to give awards of achievement for so many insignificant things.  If you are not a parent of kids in school today, perhaps this seems ludicrous to you. So if you don’t believe it works this way, here are a few examples from schools that follow the Vivo Miles tradition of an abundance of awards:

• Reading preassigned number of pages by a set date to get a pizza party – sponsored of course by your friendly local pizza joint.
• Getting cold hard cash for a good score on a placement test. In my day, those tests used my income, they did not provide it.
• Praising a poor swimmer for merely floating in the pool during school swim time.

What are our children learning from this? What are we actually teaching them? I picture a well-intentioned elementary school teacher doling out praise quick as a wink and smiling inside because it makes her feel good to be kind. And it should. We should be kind. But where does kindness meet sincerity? Many times, children are better equipped to spot a fake than even you or I. Oh, they may not be able to differentiate between quality and the boastful claims of a commercial, but when it comes to people, they know when someone is being sincere and when that person is a phony. These teachers themselves are more than likely in earnest, but the praise is trumped up and kids can sense that. Of course, they are not going to argue with someone who is handing out smiles and candy, but what do they think? What is it teaching them? Most of us learn to despise strokes that come too easily as being worthless. It is the adulation we have to earn and work hard for that we covet – that is what many work and hope for in their families and professional lives. These extrinsic rewards cheapen the goal; they devalue the very process and importance of learning. Ironically, you have to wonder if, as schools denigrate learning by shelling out cash and awards, will school districts be forced to up the ante just to keep student interest? What is the ultimate cost of such unearned praise? Again – what are we actually teaching our kids?

What is Really Being Taught?

Kids are not fools – they learn life lessons quite quickly in fact. When we adults tell them one thing but do another, children notice. This is just as true at school as it is in the home. As a society, we need to think things through before we implement them willy-nilly. It aids the decision making process to decide what end we are trying to reach. What are the benefits we hope this change will give our children? Keep the end in mind when starting out. It may sound basic, but it is a fundamental that is easily overlooked. What are we teaching the younger generation when rewards and praise come too readily? How will they find life outside of school when it hits them right between the eyes? How will they respond when they learn the real lesson: the rest of the world does not exist to congratulate them on mediocre accomplishments? How do they approach school when it is too easy for them? As the years go by, I’m sure testing will be done on the repercussions of this school reward culture that has cropped up in the past decade or so. Too bad we don’t have the benefit of the findings of those tests now so we could make more informed decisions about how to motivate students to learn and to do their best. Their honest-to-goodness best that is, not their good-enough pretending to be best.

What are the True Costs?

Is this burden of over-rewarding too big for our children to bear? It will not matter in the end if the language of praise was well-meant – it may still have negative effects on the up and coming generation. Will the cost be that they expect everyone to tell them they’re great just for showing up to work – even if late? Or, just as likely, will these children become cynics at an all too early age as they learn not to believe phony baloney praise and look in vain for some meat and substance to their education and the world around them? Some people in the education field worry about the staggering cost to the students of being induced to learn by using physical rewards. In years to come, what will the price of praise be to this generation? How will they meet the demands of the workforce? True, it may evolve and many say the work place should change, but will it meet the needs of these falsely prepared students?

What’s Your Opinion?

Perhaps this assessment of the culture of over-rewarding seems unnecessarily critical, but it is hard not to be concerned when the up and coming generation has such a disquieting sense of entitlement. Maybe it is time we took a good hard look at why we feel the need to falsely inflate rewards and praise. Is it so that we feel more comfortable with ourselves at the end of the day? Is it to try to make up to those students who try so hard and yet do not do well? Is it because we still feel the stings of childhood ourselves?  I will be the first to admit that teachers of today’s children have a daunting job to do. I am not pointing the finger at any individual teacher or program, just raising the question to learn where all this stemmed from originally. Has the theory taken us – and our children – where we thought it would? If it has not, maybe it is time for a change. Maybe we owe them the truth. Perhaps they should be told when their efforts are only average. It just may be that expecting more of our children rather than less is the kindest thing we could do for them.

Don’t agree? Alrighty then, let me have it!

 

 

Tags: children prizes rewards school teach