George Couros's List: Awards and Recognition

• In the end, a report card with all A's, copies of the high honor roll list with your name on it, a high school diploma are certainly nice to have.
• ut if you have all of this without a passion to go out and immerse
• in learning about something that interests you what do you really hav
• Will these past records of learning in an environment focused on performance goals help our children get where they want to go and become what they want to become? Just wondering?

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• The proper occasion for outrage is not   that too many students are getting A’s, but that too many students   have been led to believe that getting A’s is the point of going to   school.
• First, students tend to lose interest in   whatever they’re learning.
• Second, students try   to avoid challenging tasks whenever possible.
• Finally, the quality of students’ thinking is less   impressive. One study after another shows that creativity and even   long-term recall of facts are adversely affected by the use of   traditional grades.
• Consider a school that constantly emphasizes   the importance of performance! results! achievement! success! A   student who has absorbed that message may find it difficult to get   swept away with the process of creating a poem or trying to build a   working telescope. He may be so concerned about the results that   he’s not all that engaged in the activity that produces those   results.
• ive disturbing consequences are likely   to accompany an obsession with standards and achievement:
• 1. Students come to regard learning as a   chore.
• 2. Students try to avoid challenging tasks.
• 3. Students tend to think less deeply.
• 4. Students may fall apart when they fail.
• 5. Students value ability more than effort.

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• Studies over many years have found that   behavior modification programs are rarely successful at producing   lasting changes in attitudes or even behavior. When the rewards   stop, people usually return to the way they acted before the program   began.
• Rewards are no more helpful at enhancing   achievement than they are at fostering good values. At least two   dozen studies have shown that people expecting to receive a reward   for completing a task (or for doing it successfully) simply do not   perform as well as those who expect nothing (Kohn, 1993). This   effect is robust for young children, older children, and adults; for   males and females; for rewards of all kinds; and for tasks ranging   from memorizing facts to designing collages to solving problems.
• There are several plausible explanations for   this puzzling but remarkably consistent finding. The most compelling   of these is that rewards cause people to lose interest in whatever   they were rewarded for doing. This phenomenon, which has been   demonstrated in scores of studies (Kohn, 1993), makes sense given   that "motivation" is not a single characteristic that an individual   possesses to a greater or lesser degree. Rather, intrinsic   motivation (an interest in the task for its own sake) is   qualitatively different from extrinsic motivation (in which   completion of the task is seen chiefly as a prerequisite for   obtaining something else) (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Therefore, the   question educators need to ask is not how motivated their students   are, but how their students are motivated.
• Deci and Ryan (1985) describe the use of   rewards as "control through seduction." Control, whether by threats   or bribes, amounts to doing things to children rather than working   with them. This ultimately frays relationships, both among students   (leading to reduced interest in working with peers) and between   students and adults (insofar as asking for help may reduce the   probability of receiving a reward).
• Moreover, students who are encouraged to   think about grades, stickers, or other "goodies" become less   inclined to explore ideas, think creatively, and take chances. At   least ten studies have shown that people offered a reward generally   choose the easiest possible task (Kohn, 1993).
• Unfortunately, that sort of motivation often comes at   the expense of interest in, and excellence at, whatever they are   doing. What is required, then, is nothing short of a transformation   of our schools.
• The implications of this analysis and these   data are troubling. If the question is "Do rewards motivate   students?", the answer is, "Absolutely: they motivate students to   get rewards."
• First, classroom management programs that   rely on rewards and consequences ought to be avoided by any educator   who wants students to take responsibility for their own (and   others') behavior--and by any educator who places internalization of   positive values ahead of mindless obedience.
• Second, grades in particular have been found   to have a detrimental effect on creative thinking, long-term   retention, interest in learning, and preference for challenging   tasks (Butler & Nisan, 1986; Grolnick & Ryan, 1987). These   detrimental effects are not the result of too many bad grades, too   many good grades, or the wrong formula for calculating grades.   Rather, they result from the practice of grading itself, and the   extrinsic orientation it promotes. Parental use of rewards or   consequences to induce children to do well in school has a similarly   negative effect on enjoyment of learning and, ultimately, on   achievement (Gottfried et al., 1994). Avoiding these effects   requires assessment practices geared toward helping students   experience success and failure not as reward and punishment, but as   information.
• Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling   rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst   counterproductive.
• In short, good values have to be grown from   the inside out.
• Children are likely to become enthusiastic,   lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging   curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and   create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and   why) they are learning.
• Rewards--like punishments--are unnecessary   when these things are present, and are ultimately destructive in any   case.

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• My students work in my classroom because I expect them to do so. When someone needs extra motivation, we talk about it… even the youngest students! I’m not going to say that everyone works their hardest 100% of the time, but I can tell you that no one comes in asking who is going to win the candy today. In my opinion, the reward is in the learning. Obviously, most kids aren’t going to think of that as a reward… so it’s my job to make sure they are engaged and enjoying what they do. When it’s time for them to leave my class and they’re disappointed that their time is up, then I know they are learning about their own motivation and enjoying their learning.