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Should We Reward Good Students?

I remember in 5th grade we had the AR Reader program. At the end of the year you could use the AR Reader points you had to buy candy. I really liked reading when I was young, so I read all the big point books I could. I think I ended up with the 10th most points in the whole school. I got so much damn candy it was awesome.

The school also had a pretty unique thing where each individual class entered into a competition involving AR REader and Basketball. Towards the end of the year each class picked a kid to shoot for a chance at a pizza party. The catch was that your player got minutes based on how many AR Reader points your class had. Pretty much everyone in my class read, so we had a 30 seconds over the next highest class. My team chose me to shoot, and we won by like 10 points (3 points for 3's. 2 points for midrange, everything had to be behind the FT line).

It was pretty awesome. I don't know how dumb kids felt, and I didn't care. Sucks being dumb.
 
Never ever seen a better way to divide students. Yes, good behaviour should be rewarded and some bad behaviours should be punished but school events should be for all. This is at best demotivational for students who don't get A's.

This may even increase bullying.

For CT. The first one is pretty effective way to get kids to read a book. Second one requires talent therefore some kids are bound to fail. Losers will always feel left out in competitions unless you are giving them pizza too. You can always reward the winner with better seats, first to get the pizza I don't know etc.
 
Nah, smart kids get pizza. Dumb kids get school lunch.

Kids get divided in the end anyway. You get to HS and there are the kids who take all the advanced classes, and the kids who don't.


You don't have to rub it in the dumb kids faces, or even let them know it's happening . I don't think dumb kids should be forced to watch smart kids eat pizza.
 
This is just another thing in our horrific school system that needs to be addressed. Let's start with securing proper funding for education, then move on to finding a way to meaningfully assess and reward teacher performance and weed out ineffective teachers. Then we can look at touchy feely things, which seems to matter more than actual academic results anyway, since that is easier than teaching 30 brats who think the world owes them everything how to do fractions.




That said, I was never a fan of certain recognition in school. The worst thing I think they recognize is perfect attendance. Yes, let's send our kid to school loaded with the bird flu and get every kid and teacher in the school sick so we can get a nice plaque to put in the bottom of a cardboard box 20 years from now.
 
To take this another direction, I don't think rewarding results is the most effective way to improve performance. I think rewarding behaviors is. Getting the right results matters, but it matters more how they got those results, because getting the A in and of itself does not build the best habits to be successful later, since there are many paths to that A. If we want kids that are contributing members of society we need them learning the right behaviors that generate successful results, so that their success is transferable and repeatable in many circumstances. Not just googling the answers.
 
LogGrad98 said:
To take this another direction, I don't think rewarding results is the most effective way to improve performance. I think rewarding behaviors is. Getting the right results matters, but it matters more how they got those results, because getting the A in and of itself does not build the best habits to be successful later, since there are many paths to that A. If we want kids that are contributing members of society we need them learning the right behaviors that generate successful results, so that their success is transferable and repeatable in many circumstances. Not just googling the answers.
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Agree. Another thing that is vitally important is to recognize how each student learns. For example, my daughter and I have vastly different styles. I was always able to see and retain. One or two passes through a textbook did it for me for exams. My daughter is a very tactile/active learner. She learns by doing and writing. Put her in lecture-oriented classes and she struggles. Put her in science classes and she thrives!

I do agree on the behavior vs. results part. We've backed off a bit on my daugther knowing her strengths and weaknesses. Better to encourage and reward correct behavior and have that lead to a positive experience vs. just focusing on the negatives.
 
Cyrone Torbin said:
I remember in 5th grade we had the AR Reader program. At the end of the year you could use the AR Reader points you had to buy candy. I really liked reading when I was young, so I read all the big point books I could. I think I ended up with the 10th most points in the whole school. I got so much damn candy it was awesome.

The school also had a pretty unique thing where each individual class entered into a competition involving AR REader and Basketball. Towards the end of the year each class picked a kid to shoot for a chance at a pizza party. The catch was that your player got minutes based on how many AR Reader points your class had. Pretty much everyone in my class read, so we had a 30 seconds over the next highest class. My team chose me to shoot, and we won by like 10 points (3 points for 3's. 2 points for midrange, everything had to be behind the FT line).

It was pretty awesome. I don't know how dumb kids felt, and I didn't care. Sucks being dumb.
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Wow, that sounds fantastic. Anytime you can get kids to read more and more, I think it's a good thing. I still remember how excited I was when the Scholastic flyer arrived at school.

LogGrad98 said:
To take this another direction, I don't think rewarding results is the most effective way to improve performance. I think rewarding behaviors is. Getting the right results matters, but it matters more how they got those results, because getting the A in and of itself does not build the best habits to be successful later, since there are many paths to that A. If we want kids that are contributing members of society we need them learning the right behaviors that generate successful results, so that their success is transferable and repeatable in many circumstances. Not just googling the answers.
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Well stated. Maximizing the ability to produce contributing members of society is incredibly important and paramount in education. As you stated, behavior and habits are important because many life habits are generational. Financial literacy, for one, is an important one.

Core4 said:
I do agree on the behavior vs. results part. We've backed off a bit on my daugther knowing her strengths and weaknesses. Better to encourage and reward correct behavior and have that lead to a positive experience vs. just focusing on the negatives.
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You sound like a good parent.
 
Brilliant idea. I've always suspected that the solution to making poor students better is simply giving them pizza. This just confirms it.
 
Best motivation for good work?

Good engaged parents.

You can come up with policy, reward, and program you want at school.

Nothing motivates students more than an angry dad or a happy mom (vice versa).

A high five from a parent who actually knows what the hell their child is doing at school matters much more than anything the school could ever devise.

And yes, I am an educator and see this every single day.
 
Hekate said:
Never ever seen a better way to divide students. Yes, good behaviour should be rewarded and some bad behaviours should be punished but school events should be for all. This is at best demotivational for students who don't get A's.

This may even increase bullying.

For CT. The first one is pretty effective way to get kids to read a book. Second one requires talent therefore some kids are bound to fail. Losers will always feel left out in competitions unless you are giving them pizza too. You can always reward the winner with better seats, first to get the pizza I don't know etc.
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I couldn't disagree more.

At some point, kids have gotta learn that their grades matter. Not all grades are created equal. Most students feel entitled to their "A" grades. All students move along whether they demonstrate the skills or not.

This isn't lil league soccer. Everyone shouldn't get trophies because they showed up. We need to get back to advancement based on demonstration of skills education rather than this monster we have today.

These parents should be helping their kids to get As not protesting the pizza party. Why punish achievement?

That's our education system for ya. Some kids care and really invest themselves. Usually their parents are engaged. Most are apathetic and their parents are completely disengaged but will get up in arms over things like these. Some are really bad students with family situations that would make you throw up.

But that's our education system for ya! They'll advance no matter how little they demonstrate the skills required.

I'm not endorsing pizza parties. I feel that a lot of the programs we have at school to motivate students are wasteful. But I have no problem with it. Kids will be divided and bullied no matter whether you have a pizza party or not.

Let's stop bitching about the failures and start celebrating the successes! It's weird how as a society we idolize the winners. Yet, in education, we focus only on the losers.

The best cure for 99 percent of all ailments is to get off your *** and to achieve.

Should we reward good students? Why shouldn't we? Should we reward bad students for being bad? We seem to with all the exceptions we give them.
 
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The Thriller said:
I couldn't disagree more.

At some point, kids have gotta learn that their grades matter. Not all grades are created equal. Most students feel entitled to their "A" grades. All students move along whether they demonstrate the skills or not.

This isn't lil league soccer. Everyone shouldn't get trophies because they showed up. We need to get back to advancement based on demonstration of skills education rather than this monster we have today.

Most students with "IEPs" are students who are just too damn lazy. So the spineless counselors will find excuses for them. I have one student who is completely manipulating the system. His legal guardian thought he had special education issues. So they tested him. He actually have an above average IQ and excels at reading and writing. So why are his worst grades in English and History?

He has "issues." He doesn't like getting up early (unless it's for football at 5am) and doesn't like to do stuff in class (because he loves his cellphone). He struggles with attendance because he loves McDonald's.

I'm sorry if he feels bad about missing out on a pizza party. But it's his own damn fault that he's getting straight Fs instead of As. And this kid will move onto the next grade regardless of what little he demonstrates this year.

That's our education system for ya. Some kids care and really invest themselves. Usually their parents are engaged. Most are apathetic and their parents are completely disengaged. Some are really bad students with family situations that would make you throw up.

I'm not endorsing pizza parties. I feel that a lot of the programs we have at school to motivate students are wasteful. But I have no problem with it. Kids will be divided and bullied no matter whether you have a pizza party or not.

Let's stop bitching about the failures and start celebrating the successes! It's weird how as a society we idolize the winners. Yet, in education, we focus only on the losers.

The best cure for 99 percent of all ailments is to get off your *** and to achieve.

Should we reward good students? Why shouldn't we? Should we reward bad students for being bad? We seem to with all the exceptions we give them.
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Grades matter. You have a talk with the kids, with the parents. You make them feel they need it. Teacher stuff, you probably know. Where I answered CT was just a talent competition with some stupid rule. Punishments should be when it is about their grades.

Bad behaviour should be punished immediately not after their grade comes. Just because a kid has issues doesn't mean the rest does. May be some other kid had a C because he/she panicked. What would he/she feel when he/she is left out? Even though the effort he/she gave?. Reinforcing the good behaviour, responsibility comes before grades.

Your "issue" kid deserves the F coming his way. Should he be sent to a room with Pizza leftovers? No. You notify their parents and the if the kid continues to fail, it is their parents fault. Probably a spoiled brat.

Education is for all. I have been in schools(as a student) where they only focused on only successful ones. That shouldn't be the case either.

I need to find some time to write something better. This is all I can do after a tiring night. Peace out.

P.s : I think we are kinda on the same page.
 
If schools aren't willing to even point out that in fact, yes, some kids get better grades than others, then you get stuff like this (not a spoof article):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uk...hool-No-it-was-merely-a-deferred-success.html

The argument that the excluded kids get discouraged... I just don't think it tracks. Kids are competitive, let them compete over getting better marks. The schools should be incentivizing doing well. Especially since it seems to me that there are some anti-intellectualist tendencies among American students. Most kids I know are admiring the guys on the sports teams, and really don't care what someone else's grades are. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.
 
Firstly, getting a good grade is a reward in and of itself. The "A" student gets positive recognition and reinforcement over the course of the entire class. One of the hardest parts of teaching is making sure you are just as positive with your struggling students as with your successful students. I would have no objection to a school event where the additional reward or recognition is offered, and everyone gets pizza. I think just these kids getting pizza is piling it on a little.

Some people are motivated by a competitive desire to improve their grades, but some people are not. A "D" that motivates one student into studying harder will disillusion another.
 
I think these kids just got a "welcome to life" moment.

That's not a bad thing.

Guess what, in life, those who work harder will get more. Get used to it. When that part of life changes, then what made our country great changed (the fact that anyone, with hard work, could accomplish anything).
 
green said:
(the fact that anyone, with hard work, could accomplish anything).
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This was never a fact. There have always been people working 80 hours a week and having little or nothing to show for it at the end of the year.
 
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