From the prominent author/education expert’s 2001 book Punished By Rewards: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes (great title! ht Ethan Richardson):
“Letting [students] know their performance is going to be evaluated is sometimes said to provide ‘accountability’—a buzzword in both the public and private sectors—and to push people to do their best. Once again, however, control backfires. When people think they will be evaluated, their intrinsic motivation suffers—even if no reward is offered for doing well, and even if the evaluation turns out to be positive. Performance too, declines, especially on tasks demanding creativity. In fact, anytime we are encouraged to focus on how well we are doing at something, it is less likely that we will like the activity and keep doing it when given a choice.”
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22 responses to “Interesting Quote from Alfie Kohn”
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So this is what happened to me in college.
Can you imagine, honestly, never ever being evaluated? It almost feels inhuman. Weird.
cjdm
Caleb, I doubt the author proposes that people should never be evaluated (though that would obviously be quite radical, as you point out). I think he's just pointing out the obvious, that the law has a back-handed (i.e., psychological) impact, that it doesn't work the way people hope and tend to think it will.
This is why I always tested poorly as a kid. If my college required SAT scores to get in, I wouldn't have had a chance!
Two facts that I really don't know how to process:
1. Even St. John's gives grades, sort of.
2. Dylan Thomas wrote some of his best poems after being locked in the Boat House by his wife until he came up with something that would allow them to eat.
God moves in mysterious ways, is all I can say…
Nice post, Dave.
One of the reasons that upon becoming a Christian, Law and Gospel as theological ideas were not as alien as they might have been, is because I had already encountered them in a preChristian form in the work I did as a kindergarten teacher and (later) as a math teacher in college (where I taught without grades, lectures, or textbooks).
A book that was very influential on me and others was John Holt's 1964 book HOW CHILDREN FAIL.
John: Great post!
Browder: you and me both, buddy! Well, that and other excuses too!
Andrea: ME TOO! I had a paltry 1040 on my SATs…i'm not ashamed of this (that much) any more…I had to take it 5..yes FIVE times to break 1000. I have no idea how i got into the school I did. I always did better in class, no time-limits, no restrictions. My tutors for the SATs–and I had many–scratched their heads…I did well in practice, but not when it counted (under the penalty of it counting!).
Michael: yes, I completely agree with your thoughts. I think that maybe while I cannot perform well in a testing situation, there are others that are gifted to do so (my brother, my husband, any number of my friends, etc). Some people loves tests, while I gag and prefer to write a treatise. like this one.
SD: One of my fav. profs. at TSM didn't give grades but had contract grading. So you did a certain level of work to get a c, b, and a. It was up to you. I think he even said that people do better when they aren't being graded and they learn more.
My take on this is that fear of failure and hope of reward are great motivators when it comes to achieving goals that don't matter. Many people go very far in this world fueled by fear of failure and/or hope of reward. But you don't want to go where they ultimately end up, and you sure don't want to be related to them.
As a teacher, I'm fascinated by Kohn's ideas, but I struggle to implement them. Parents, administrators, and even students WANT grades, points, rewards, punishments, etc. I suppose that is the human experience… it always comes back to Romans 7.
This quote reminded me of a quotation I have on my desk at school:
"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
In my mind, that longing is what remains despite the "fall" – a longing for relationship with God that hasn't been extinguished…
Hi Mattie! Nice to hear you are a teacher.
You are right that it's tough to teach without the usual armory of rewards and punishments (typically grades but there are lots of others). It's tough largely (as you say) because of all the people (administrators, parents, even students) clamoring for you to give carrots and beat with sticks.
My own experience is that it is only possible when you have support for what you are doing. That's not impossible. When I taught kindergarten the kids weren't demanding I give grades, and neither did the parents or the administrators. There was some desire for coercive curriculum (now we are all going to sit down and learn x today) but again when kids are young enough parents are willing to give them and you a lot more freedom, so I was able to get away with not forcing anybody to learn anything.
When I taught college math that way there was a lot more resistance, but the solution was to make sure there was buy-in ahead of time. Everybody knew what the class was going to be like ahead of time. And it worked out great.
Yeah Lauren, let's hear it for Les!
(I assume this is who you're speaking about) Don't forget, he also gave like 5 options for writing assignments, and they were usually fun, starting with lead-in sentences like 'You're having a beer at a pub with Constantie and Charles the Bad when an argument breaks out between them about the role of church and state…'
yes, dylan…absolutely! that's who I'm talking about. Great, great teaching style.
Accountability may be a buzz word, but it can also protect students from teachers who don't care, teachers who aren't motivated to help students. If every teacher were motivated, creative, and gifted, it would be undoubtedly better to teach without grades and evaluations that restrict and narrowly try to measure and define learning.
But what about kids who are caught in other kinds of classrooms? It seems to me that the author's quote–and this discussion–are mixing ideas about the ways we reward kids (gold stars, carrots, sticks) with the ways we evaluate teachers and schools.
Anyone else?
My instant thought when reading this was about the internal evaluation system that exists in me. The external evaluation systems that we have all survived and continue to survive do hurt and do stifle, etc. BUT my real problem is with the reality that I evaluate myself and often to a much harsher and higher degree than any teacher or boss I have ever had.
You could remove every bit of evaluation and demand that exists outside of me, and I would still be crippled by not matching up. It is true that the law is written on our hearts. That's why I need to hear the Gospel everyday that reminds me that because of the cross I am dead to the Law and alive in Christ. Those voices of condemnation inside me are silenced by His mercy.
Anyhow, that's what I thought about as well as my high school math teacher who ruined math for me forever. That's why I ended up changing out of my business major to theology in college. Business Calculus was going to destroy me. I guess I should thank that high school teacher now. God does indeed work in mysterious ways, Michael;)
Have any of you read the article out a couple days ago in the NYT about Guilt and Atonement? Sort of related to this but earlier in childhood than we're discussing here. I'd be interested in any of your thoughts. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/science/25tier.html?em
Hey Andrea! Thanks for the link to the NYT article. I thought it was fascinating — although the researchers did strike me a bit on the side of Dr. Mengele in their willingness to inflict terror and pain on small children.
One of the more striking observations was this:
But it’s not enough, Dr. Tangney says, for parents just to follow the old admonition to criticize the sin, not the sinner. “Most young children,” Dr. Tangney said, “really don’t hear the distinction between ‘Johnny, you did a bad thing’ versus ‘Johnny, you’re a bad boy.’ They hear ‘bad kid.’
This is good for us to hear in pastoral practice. What Tangney says is also about kids in their 30s and 40s.
Thanks Sean, for that very touching and true post.
As far as I can tell, the two "subjects" in school that are most terribly taught and with the most deeply scarring results, are math and gym class.
Very true, Stampdog, very true.