Good Monday Morning to you! How’s your Go-Go Juice brewing? Mine’s steaming with ideas from a recent article I read about bribing kids to do well in school. You know I’ve talked a lot about Cassy and her upcoming successes as she graduates this year. Her grades are up and she’s thrilled to be taking on the new challenges of freedom, new studies and getting employed…all the next steps to becoming an adult who can live on their own. But, what about those students who don’t do so well?
Teachers, psychologists, counselors and parents all discuss the ongoing topic of what to do with your student when he/she is failing or close to it. The contributing factors to a student’s success or failure comes with living environments, study habits, personal challenges (like ADD or ADHD or other mental complexity), type of friends he/she associates with and parental involvement. I have a child who struggles – my son. He’s a typical boy age 14 and while he’s into mischief time to time, overall, he’s a pretty good kid for the most part. His interest in school is nil. Not the social part, the study part. He, like most young boys would rather spend time with friends, play and just hang. OK – he’s a teenager with typical desires and level’s of interest. But here’s the snag…his grades suffer (although he’s put a teeny-bit of effort into pulling them up) and he constantly shows his dismay for the way teachers teach, how the subjects are not interesting, constantly complains on how long it takes to get homework done (I must agree on average, it takes 5 hours a night based on his sister’s studies), and he’s always rebelling against authority (he hates being told what to do). Sounds normal? Well, when the attitude becomes compelling, we start dealing with new issues whereas the attitude spreads to other areas of individual responsibilities and I as a mom, get caught up into an explosive debate with my son where we butt heads and play tug-o-war over who controls what. While I have him seeing a counselor to help identify any key areas that could otherwise help him out of his “rut”, I discovered this article published online by Time Magazine and reported by Amanda Ripley. See Article for reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100409/us_time/08599197858900
The article is titled, “Should Kids Be Bribed to do Well in School?” For the most part, I think all parents dangle carrots in front of their kids to help motivate their study habits or improve their grades. But I had never considered paying per grade, type of behavior or for that matter for reading. The detailed report was highly comprehensive and focused on a Harvard Economist name Roland Fryer Jr. who was a deadbeat kid himself doing all the “bad” things when young, facing as much challenges as a kid from inner city issues, but who took the bull by the horns after years of finding himself one who could do better. Today, Mr. Frey is trying to help students find their way and payment seems to be the answer.
He made an interesting statement, “most adults work primarily for money, and in a curious way, we seem to be holding kids to a higher standard than we hold ourselves.” His study drew extreme controversial comments – kids should learn and get improved through the love of learning. The biggest argument from his studies was that while kids get paid to do homework, change behaviors and get certain grades, once the incentive is stopped, so does their “learning”. On the contrary, how they paid students in this huge experiment showed varying and interesting results. While students were paid to get good grades and did, it did not seem to affect them after the experiment at the end of the year or the year to follow showing a cause that there was truly no long term effect from the payments. However, students who were paid to “read” actually improved grades and the effects showed a year later where the same students did better from their prior “reading”.
I know that my son is highly motivated by money. He wishes badly to get a job so he can have some freedom of his own – no doubt some of that is also control over what he can do. Let’s face it, it sucks to be a teenager who can’t really go anywhere or do anything without having a few bucks to spend. As quoted from the article, one teenager who was an eighth grader named Chyna, apparently a child with lack of interest herself in maintaining her own behavior and following school rules, said when she got checks to wear her uniform properly and do well in school, she tried very hard to do better, wear her uniform and not attack other girls in school, because she knew she was getting paid. Yet, the interviewer questioned her, “about how the psychologists' argument that she should work hard for the love of learning, not for short-term rewards.” Her honest response? She looked the interviewer dead in the eye, "We're kids. Let's be realistic."
My son would have said the same thing. I’m telling you, it’s not my influence – I was for the most part a straight “A” student – a book worm and a “Goody-Too-Shoo” growing up. Where my son gets his ideas I have no clue. But I’ve been enlightened and now, don’t feel so alone. While I’m not putting my endorsement on the idea just yet, it is no doubt, food for thought, or in this case, food for dollars. I will definitely need a few more cups of Go-Go Juice to decide on this one.
Motivation is still Motivation no matter how we look at it. I hope you find your motivation for the week – it is after all Monday. Have a great day!
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