Incentivising Learning

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

onlyroz wrote: »

JoJo, we seem to be breeding a generation of kids who are taught that competitiveness is somehow bad. E.g. the school ran a contest to see who could make the best "shoebox garden". So my kids worked super hard on theirs, only to be told by the headteacher that they were "all brilliant", and everybody should give themselves a good pat on the back, and there wouldn't be an overall winner declared. And then there's the concept of the "non-competitive sports day" because we don't want to traumatise the poor kids by having them come second or third in a race.

The real world is a tough place, and our soft kids will flounder in it unless they are pushed a little, and are just occasionally told that perhaps they could have tried a little harder at something.

I really don't see how we are harming our kids if we reward them for doing well.

I think that refusing to acknowledge doing something well actually discriminates against kids - how can a kid who has very little in life going for them ever feel good about themselves or feel motivated to progress if they are not rewarded or praised for the one thing they do well? If you've got two kids, one good at sports but struggles with art, one using crutches and not able to race against anybody else because they're the only kid using them, but is a talented artist, how is it fair to not only ignore the first kid's ability to run faster than everybody else, but also ignore the second's ability to draw great cartoons of staff?


I'm glad my school kept competition going. It reminds people that success and talent and hard work isn't just confined to one particular group - and that sometimes, you aren't going to be the best at something, especially if you don't try.


It's just a pity they don't extend the same courtesy to their staff.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Andypandyboy wrote: »

I think the last two posts are conflating the issues. Being rewarded or praised for doing well after the event, is not at all the same as incentivising before the event. Nor is having parents who don't care able to be equated with those who don't see the value in bribery.

Praise, encouragement and appreciaton does not have to be expressed by bribery. It is important to foster the self belief and the will to suceed for what it can bring for them personally, not for parental approval which should already be a given. Nor does that preclude being told that more effort is needed, if indeed that is the case.

I am really not sure how the cup of tea scenario and being appreciative of someone doing something nice for others fits into this discussion. Surely that is just manners? I wouldn't want my kids thinking that they should expect a material reward every time they were kind or helpful. However, again, by working hard at their studies they are not doing something for someone else they are doing it for themselves for their own personal and, long term, material gain.

I agree we should bring our kids up to know there are winners and losers and that it is better to be a winner if that is within your power.

It's teaching that actions have consequences. The way to do that is to make clear beforehand that x action = positive consequence.

Success as a grown up is an extremely abstract concept. Can you not remember as a kid that the teachers were all incredibly aged and at least 30 years old? If you're being asked to imagine yourself at double your age at 15, try and imagine yourself at, say 86. As far as I'm concerned, I'll be dead by then - I'll be amazed if I make it to 65.

But a clear, short term reward for x action is unambiguous, there's no room for massive timescales, uncertainty about whether you'll even be alive by then, or vague promises of 'you'll be better off in the future'. It is clear - x is a positive thing because it gets you something you want now. Two years is a lot longer than the treat at the end of a week with stars on the chart for not wetting the bed.

And no obvious reward for an action is also getting something across - that it doesn't matter what you do. This works with not saying thank you for a cuppa as much as not saying 'you've worked really hard, so here is the reward that I promised you two whole years ago'.

Andypandyboy

It is teaching that x matters to mum and dad, so they are prepared to pay you to do it. It is not teaching that x actually matters more to me for; self esteem, progression and longer term prospects.

Again, you conflate issues, incentivising good behaviour is different from incentivising academic sucess. I also woudn't incentivise for bedwetting, to me that is something that often the child has little, if any, control over so it woud be unfair to do that imo.

I find your last sentence indicative of other issues, praise is a reward, encouragement is a reward, neither of which would express the negative sentiment you would appear to believe. Rewards do not have to be material or come from others.

My youngest son has got his first year University exam results today, he got marks which equate to firsts in all of his modules. He was ecstatic, as were we, but he doesn't expect a material reward for that, he achieved those results because he is driven and despite being a real party animal, but he was mature enough to balance that with the amount of work required to achieve his goal. Had he not got all firsts he would have been disappointed and would have worked even harder next year. His sense of pride in his achievement is his reward.

We will fund a night out but we wouldn't have funded a night out to encourage him to study, that motivation had to come from him.

Mojisola

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

A token of appreciation would have gone a very long way with me.

As it was, being effectively told they didn't value it/me or what I did was never going to be good enough to deserve encouragement, never mind congratulations, a 'well done - I'm proud of you' or a £5 to spend on sweets, a book or to put towards a CD made me not want to take part.

I still did well, because I couldn't not, but there didn't seem any point. It meant that my A grades didn't feel like success or something to be happy about, as nobody really cared about them - or me.

There's a massive spectrum between having parents who don't care about a child and their successes and offering financial incentives only if a child achieves certain levels of education!

We were in no doubt that our parents cared for us very much and wanted us to do well in our education and hobbies and our successes were celebrated.

However, we weren't penalised if our best wasn't good enough to get the grades for a 'pay out'.

"Do your best" is something I heard often from my parents. If our best wasn't good enough, we were still told that they recognised the effort we had put in and they helped us reassess what our strengths were and how to make the best use of them.

Andypandyboy

I agree, my parents only expected that we try our best, that is really all you can ask of anyone. We have always told our kids that too.

Detroit

Praise should always be given when something is done well.

However, I do think this should be genuine, and deserved, rather than desperately seeking something positive to say because we think it makes our children confident.

We seem to have adopted an approach over the last generation, where the smallest 'achievement' of a child, such as eating a spoon of vegetables, or sitting still for 5 minutes, is greeted with rapturous approval, to the point where either the praise becomes devalued, or the child grows up thinking they everything they do is an outstanding achievement.

In my view, this is poor preparation for life.

I cannot agree with paying children to study. Getting an education is not a job. It is a privilege that benefits the receiver, and I think children should be brought up to understand this.

Further incentive should not then be needed.

theoretica

I guess this is a question of how much do the means devalue the results?

If a parent is faced with a kid who isn't studying for their own sake and with encouragement, but the parent thinks they would respond to financial incentive is it better to offer the rewards and see them do better than otherwise? Or to leave them to do comparatively poorly and hopefully learn an expensive lesson in lost years and opportunity?

cadon

Andypandyboy wrote: »

I would have considered it patronising to my kids to have to bribe them because they were young and "didn't understand", and so would they.

At 16, you can join the army, be a parent yourself, get married with parental consent etc, so the idea that they wouldn't undertand the importance of GCSE's and AS/A levels never entered my head.

Of course at 16 I knew that results were "important". There are different levels of importance though. Most people, whether "patronised" 16-year-olds or adults would naturally assume that an average GSCE result plus a great degree would lead to lots of opportunities. Competition however is so brutal that you need an exceptional GSCE result and an exceptional degree. There are so many people going to university, you can't just do OK anymore.

Personally, I'm thankful I didn't have to sit my school exams with that kind of pressure weighing on me. I'm glad I was encouraged to do as well as I possibly could by my parents rather than them letting me do just OK to teach me some kind of strange lesson. It would have prevented me from having the career and financial independence that I do now.

There is a time and a place to take the moral high ground - it's not at exam time.

Detroit

theoretica wrote: »

I guess this is a question of how much do the means devalue the results?

If a parent is faced with a kid who isn't studying for their own sake and with encouragement, but the parent thinks they would respond to financial incentive is it better to offer the rewards and see them do better than otherwise? Or to leave them to do comparatively poorly and hopefully learn an expensive lesson in lost years and opportunity?

Difficult question and a valid one.
If you could know that the incentisising was to get them over a temporary apathy, and they would turn into adults with a strong work ethic, it would be more acceptable.
However, if a child who needs bribing to work turns into an adult who also expects the same, I think a problems been created.

Andypandyboy

cadon wrote: »

Of course at 16 I knew that results were "important". There are different levels of importance though. Most people, whether "patronised" 16-year-olds or adults would naturally assume that an average GSCE result plus a great degree would lead to lots of opportunities. Competition however is so brutal that you need an exceptional GSCE result and an exceptional degree. There are so many people going to university, you can't just do OK anymore.

Personally, I'm thankful I didn't have to sit my school exams with that kind of pressure weighing on me. I'm glad I was encouraged to do as well as I possibly could by my parents rather than them letting me do just OK to teach me some kind of strange lesson. It would have prevented me from having the career and financial independence that I do now.

There is a time and a place to take the moral high ground - it's not at exam time.

I really don't understand your reasoning. If, at 16 you are an adult then surely if you don't recognise the importance of those exceptional results unless you are being paid to do so, there is an issue?

Encouragement is one thing, bribery is another, everyone needs the former, I don't think anyone should need the latter.

You seem to be saying that had your parents not bribed you to do well it would be their fault had you not got the job you felt you deserved. I beg to differ.