Challenge Day #19

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Over the past several weeks I have read, talked with others about, and discussed one topic repeatedly –praise/rewards. In each of these encounters I have found myself experiencing a strong visceral response and asked myself ‘Why do I feel so strongly about this topic?’  If you know me you know that once my mind gets going on a topic I’m not very good at letting it go. Each time I felt I had come to some resolution there it was again in a book, in a question I was being asked, or as I thought about my 16 month old grandson – who claps for himself each time he does something for which he is proud.

Guilt, praise, rewards, punishments, consequencing, isolation, buddying are all ways we try to get someone else to do what we want.  Most folks believe that with their words or actions they have the ability and the right to get someone else to bow to their wishes—to do or say what they want them to. What they really want is for the other person to conform – to obey often without questioning.  Sometimes we try to be subtle by saying ‘How do I motivate them.’ The short answer is you can’t.  Motivation is an inside job.

Before you stop reading, because you are worried about safety,  I am not talking about issues of physical, emotional, psychological safety. Keeping people safe is a number one priority for me. I'm talking about the less visible damage subtle forms of coercion can do. It's usually easy to convince people that punishment and isolation are not great choices but praise is the one I find most adults struggle to stop.  

Where did this strong belief come from—what lead me to believe so strongly that praise is really a form of punishment. Was it the book, Punished by Rewards, the man who wrote it, Alfie Kohn or several other folks? People like Lev Vygotsky, William Powers, Diane Gossen, William Glasser, and Carol Dweck.  I settled on the book Punished by Rewards because I’m hoping if you haven’t read it you will at least read this interview with Alfie Kohn and Ron Brandt from ASCD (The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) about the book.  In the book Kohn lays out a convincing argument backed by over 70 research studies that shows that “…praise, and other rewards—are not merely ineffective over the long haul but counterproductive with respect to the things that concern us most; desire to learn, commitment to good values, and so on.” Praising children in particular can make them slaves to praise and soon they seek praise rather than understanding.

At its core praise and other forms of rewards are saying “do this to get that” – the carrot. Which isn’t any different than “if you don’t do this, this is what will happen to you”—the stick.  Both are stimulus response views of the world.  And to be a reward you need to be sure the recipient has limited ability to get it without you and that they want it. In Kohn’s work he shows that when we reward/praise, intrinsic desire erodes, the quality of the work decreases and creativity is limited.  Dr. Carol Dweck put it this way “Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.”  I try to remember that conformity does not equal creativity.

Like me Alfie wants people to ask two really important questions “Who do you want to be?” and “What kind of a class/family do we want to have?”  Be cautious with these questions because if you are not careful you will use them as a stick.  Instead they need to be asked upfront and repeated often. 

Kohn recommends that in school we explore the three C’s : Content, Community, Choice.  

1. Has the child/person been given something worth doing/learning? 
2. Does the child/person feel they are part of a community? 
3.  Has the person/child been given a choice to think about what they are doing, how and why they are doing it and with whom?

Each time I come across a reference to praise/rewards I am reminded of an idea from Alfie’s book when talking about a popular reading reward – All this will get us is fat kids who hate to read.