Friday, July 9, 2010

Punished by Rewards

I came across a few clips on youtube about a man named Alfie Kohn who wrote the book "Punished by Rewards: The trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive plans, A's, Praise, and other bribes". In the first clip, he talks about how too much praise can do the opposite of the intention and in this case, cause the child to be less likely to share his toys. He believes that the desire to be generous and share is less likely to occur when there is no one around to praise them for it.



On the other hand, he also talks about punishment. He views it very unlikely for children to learn their lessons in a time-out situation. He comically rattles off the scenerios of what might be going on in a childs mind during these punishments to show how they are ineffective.



Alfie Kohn believes that a student that has already recieved the A that they were looking for, all the motivation to keep going is lost. They seem to be less interested in learning the material and more interested in the A to show their parents.


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