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One of Punished By Rewards points is correct but a bit of a straw man- Rewards don't teach anything to anyone, they just change behavior while the reward is in place. Well, yeah. When my dad promised us dinosaur toys if we behaved through all of the grocery shopping, I don't think he thought we were learning a life long lesson about the value of not screaming for every sugary treat in sight. I think he was tired and stressed out and assessed that he didn't have the energy to deal with a meltdown, and the dinosaur toys did that. Compared to giving in to a meltdown, or being strong though the meltdown but yelling at us the rest of the day, bribery was a pretty winning strategy. Kohn's insistence that parents and teachers should, at all times, be willing to put infinite energy into teaching the correct long term strategy, no matter what the short term costs, seem like the kind of nonsense you get from nonparents- or, since he in fact has two kids, the kind of nonsense you get from breadwinner parents who refer to parenting their own children as babysitting.
This is even more ridiculous when you apply it in classrooms. Teachers only have so much time and energy. If you have an assignment where the value comes in two parts- the actual learning, and the learning to learn and be self motivated and all that jazz- any one student will probably benefit more from getting 100% of both of those, even if it slows him down. But the time it takes to teach that one kid to *want* to do the assignment comes at the expense of the traditional learning of the other 29, and it may well work out that everyone is better off if they only get 70% of the self motivation. Or it maybe not. That's an empirical question that I think he should be lauded for raising but questioned for assuming the answer lay all the way on one side.
It does, however, raise questions about merit pay. If you pay for the sort of things that can be created in students via bribes, you'll get more bribing and less instilling a lifelong love of learning. He also brings up evidence that when students are rewarded for teaching other students based on the junior students test scores, the senior student gets a lot angrier and teaching suffers. Those are both valid concerns. On the other hand, paying the same amount whether you actually teach students or spend all day watching film strips does not seem to be working out for us.
This is even more ridiculous when you apply it in classrooms. Teachers only have so much time and energy. If you have an assignment where the value comes in two parts- the actual learning, and the learning to learn and be self motivated and all that jazz- any one student will probably benefit more from getting 100% of both of those, even if it slows him down. But the time it takes to teach that one kid to *want* to do the assignment comes at the expense of the traditional learning of the other 29, and it may well work out that everyone is better off if they only get 70% of the self motivation. Or it maybe not. That's an empirical question that I think he should be lauded for raising but questioned for assuming the answer lay all the way on one side.
It does, however, raise questions about merit pay. If you pay for the sort of things that can be created in students via bribes, you'll get more bribing and less instilling a lifelong love of learning. He also brings up evidence that when students are rewarded for teaching other students based on the junior students test scores, the senior student gets a lot angrier and teaching suffers. Those are both valid concerns. On the other hand, paying the same amount whether you actually teach students or spend all day watching film strips does not seem to be working out for us.
