Punished By Rewards

I love it when I learn so much about something I wish I knew long before and would have helped me in my role… especially as a parent.  Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn is a sociological view on how teachers should be teaching differently, with strong inference to how parents should be parenting differently.  Kohn studied (a course or so from) the renowned BF Skinner and also interviewed him (transcription of the conversation is at the end of the book for added learning).  Kohn doesn’t believe that we are like the rats that ring the bell when you feed them; we are humans so we act differently!  Kohn believes that there is a great deal wrong with “gold stars, incentive plans, A’s for all, praise for praise sake, and other bribes” – which is the subheading of his book.  Clearly this is a favorite book from a student staff member who is studying to be an education major, nonetheless I really enjoyed reading how I have wronged my kids over the years with promises and “candy bars” to change their behavior, as it doesn’t.  Kohn provides significant research to support his claims that we shouldn’t be treating our kids like pets!  Rewards do little long term to change behavior and actually will make those who were motivated regress into inaction after being shown the carrot.  His book is broken into three parts, Why we shouldn’t use rewards with kids or in the work place, illustrations of rewards in the work place (bonuses, incentive pay, etc.) and finally what should we be doing as a society rather than offering rewards.  Kohn even suggests, to some degree, do we really need grades?  In the end he relents and suggests yes, but with a caveat.  Let’s stop controlling our kids, let’s start listening to what motivates and gets them excited about education.  Go to where they are instead of trying to program them to respond to our ways of thinking.  And just read an interesting blog post on praise… hmm…  The book is a powerful read.  For anyone who is overseeing people or children, this is a book that has you think more than twice about your practice.  Good to get out of the power novel reading.