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Louisiana Action for Healthy Kids - Team Nutrition
Bribing With Food
Classroom Rewards Go Beyond the Gold Star
To reward students or not to reward students is a current argument centered on much controversy. This age-old argument surfaces once again as Chicago area schools offer unconventional methods of achieving student success. School incentives are taking hold in a variety of ways as old-fashioned gold stars are being replaced by pizza, toys, token economies and oddball offers from principals to entice kids to read, achieve, behave, pay attention, or sometimes, just come to class. Incentive programs in the area include academic-based rewards, non-academic rewards, and attendance boosters.
On one side of the debate is Alfie Kohn, author of seven books on education, including Punished by Rewards. Kohn contends that all rewards are counterproductive. He likens them to "doggie biscuits” for kids. In addition, Kohn believes that rewards can cover up poor teaching.
University of Delaware psychology professor Robert Eisenberg disagrees – in part. "When you say, ‘I want to give you a reward for doing your math, and it doesn’t matter if you did a good job or a poor job, that devalues the activity,” Eisenberg said. "What really attaches value to the activity is if you reward a really good job.”
At Sundling, Principal Maryann Ross calls 20-minute school-time pizza parties "celebrations,” rather than rewards, for kids who hit a certain mark. They must post straight A’s or raise their grades in two subjects in one quarter as part of the school’s BUG, or Bringing Up Grades, program. Ross noted that local Kiwanis pay for the pizza and special certificates, emphasizing to the kids that the community values their achievement and effort.
Naperville’s Graham Elementary offered an unconventional incentive this year to get kids to read more at home – the chance to tape the principal to the wall with duct tape. Kids who reached their reading goals joined a raffle to stick their principal to a wall with duct tape as part of the school’s "Stuck on Reading” program. According to Principal Bailey, the duct-tape offer was the most successful incentive ever. Although the program did not require kids to prove they understood what they were reading, Bailey said another Graham initiative does. Kids earn points in that computerized program, called Accelerated Reader, and cash them in for toys, books or school supplies at the school store. "Principals do whatever it takes to get kids to make the right choices,” according to Bailey. "Hopefully, by reinforcing that behavior, they will go from behavior to habits.”
Source: An article from the Suntimes by Rosalind Rossi, Staff Reporter, retreived online at http://www.suntimes.com/education/learn/incent1.htm on October 2003.
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