"Carrot approach to education to be dangled across the state"

[Joseph41]

This was an interesting article published in The Age the other day that has received some press.

An initiative that rewards well-behaved students with movie tickets, canteen vouchers and toys is being expanded to all Victorian state schools.

The approach has been credited with improving classroom behaviour, reducing suspensions and detentions and boosting students’ grades.

But despite the hype, psychologists and education experts remain divided on whether rewarding students with prizes is a good idea.

The state budget allocated $9 million over four years so that every state school could implement School Wide Positive Behaviour Support, an initiative that has its roots in the US and rewards and teaches positive behaviour.

What's your position on this? Full article can be found here.

[Bri MT]

My highschool started giving out positive feedback on compass for similar things and the feedback was linked to both house points and the possibility of an award.

[Joseph41]

My highschool started giving out positive feedback on compass for similar things and the feedback was linked to both house points and the possibility of an award.

What type of award? Do you think it was effective?

EDIT: Also, just on that: how important are house points at your school? This could make an interesting topic of discussion, actually.

[K888]

Idk, to me it almost seems like you're bribing kids to do good work or be well-behaved. You should do something good because y'know, it's the correct thing to do, rather than because you're going to get something tangible out of it

[Poet]

Idk, to me it almost seems like you're bribing kids to do good work or be well-behaved. You should do something good because y'know, it's the correct thing to do, rather than because you're going to get something tangible out of it

Agreed. The thing that stands out to me most in this system is the yawning chasm between the real world and the school environment. In my experience with things like this, people begin to associate good deeds with rewards, and so do good things not because they're the right thing to do, but because they will be rewarded for it. When people realise the real world doesn't give you a pat on the head for doing what you're expected to, how is that meant to be an encouragement?

[Bri MT]

What type of award? Do you think it was effective?

EDIT: Also, just on that: how important are house points at your school? This could make an interesting topic of discussion, actually.

A "school values" type award.

It was thought to be somewhat effective (based on teacher feedback and changes in attitude surveys) & it was motivational to some students.

House points didn't mean much aside from sports, part of the motivation to having points associated with good behaviour was to make system more relevant to non-athletes.

[Aaron]

Not like it's much different from performance-based bonuses etc. in a workplace.

If it helps me as a teacher to get kids to actually do work (and/or stop them distracting others from learning) then i'm all for it.... as long as I don't have to personally fund the rewards! Haha.

We used Compass as well for positive praise... how effective was it? Who knows. I think tangible rewards are much better.

"Positive behaviour support" is a HUGE thing in schools now. So too are schemes such as positive education, recognising strengths/growth etc. It's recognised so much that my MTeach had a master-level subject dedicated to this area.

I understand why they're doing it because I've seen what positive reinforcement, rewards etc. can do in a school especially to those more troublesome kids.

Like, I know it's very easy to say things like "well, they should just be good because it's the right thing" if thats been our experience... but in reality it's not as easy & blue sky as this, especially with teenagers. I have to constantly battle with behaviour issues and have done so for the past year, majority of it is explained by external factors influencing the student.... for some students getting them to even write down notes from the board is a massive challenge (which I have also dealt with, there are other examples however this one is recent so it's the first that came to mind  ).


Edit: I should probably also mention that I read somewhere a comment about this article (I can't remember where) regarding students with special needs who may not be able to "behave" (whatever the definition of that means) for reasons outside of their control. How do these students get rewards? Is there a consistent criteria that defines what constitutes reward-worthy behaviour? Something to think about.....

[EEEEEEP]

I think that encouragement and motivation has to come from within. Dangling carrots may not necessarily help. I also think it may not be good for development.

1. What if the kid has enough money for movie tickets and toys? They won't care about them!  They will just ignore it.

2. In the real world, they will be given a BIG SHOCK. The real world sometimes doesn't reward you with overtime, they make you do work after hours. They may only give a simple pat on the back and nothing else for a hard days work.  Thus, it goes back to point no 1.

Any sort of motivation has to come from a sense of challenge, a sense of creativity and sense of innovation.  If it's based on getting goodies, they won't try hard if they don't goodies.

(Just think about that "good" kid or pet that always doesn't dig up the floor or make a mess only if the parent says "I'll give you food".

[Sine]

“We want to develop students who are intrinsically good; when they are out on the weekend we don’t want them to not do stuff because they are waiting for someone to reward them,”

I agree with this you will just end up getting a lot of kids only trying doing something because they think they deserve something in return which I personally feel is a very toxic attitude to have in life.

Also the stuff outlined in the article weren't really academic related so you could just end up with well behaved students who won't necessarily be better academically  .  Not saying that it would be a bad thing but not sure what their ultimate aim is.

Also what E6P said: For some students the prizes won't be too much of an incentive.

[brenden]

I mean, why complain about good results for the wrong reason when the alternative is just the same old struggle without much change?

Ya it’d be nice if everyone was righteous and noble and well behaved but if everyone was well behaved why do we give a fuck if they are righteous and noble. We want less well behaved people so that the total proportion of noble and righteous people is higher? 🤔🤔🤔

[appleandbee]

"Assisting someone who has fallen to the ground" and "opening a door for their classmates" are just part of being a nice person. Doing these things are even easier than not misbehaving in the class. Even when I misbehaved in class (towards the teacher) for most of high school, I would do those two of the above things anytime. I think that many kids in similar situations (difficult home and life circumstances) would have no issues doing those two things. I despised authority (especially with teachers that were condescending without giving any thought to my life/home circumstances, again not justifying my behaviour but explaining my mindset) for the best part of high school for various reasons, but doing those things are the least that a decent human being with a bit of empathy can do. Giving rewards for these things sends the message that they are extras rather than expected behaviour. As for misbehaviour in class or towards teacher, I'd say the same in spite of my high school experience. To be honest, a reward wouldn't help someone whose difficult home life or special needs contributes to their misbehaviour. I do think that their individual progress should be recognised and acknowledged given their difficult circumstances, but their behaviour isn't going to change by just dangling carrots.

Side issue, I've seen the carrot dangling lengths that many schools go to get kids to debate. I'm all for widening participation especially amongst students who many not seem naturally gifted at the activity as well as from underrepresented demographics through things with free training and such. But much of the carrot dangling results in many student giving adjudicators rude and terrible attitudes as well as a higher than optimal amount of forfeits. I liked how at my high school, doing extra-curricular rarely got you awards or anything like that. There were school colours for sport, music and the like, but only a very small number of students out of the people that participated got them.

[vox nihili]

This was an interesting article published in The Age the other day that has received some press.

What's your position on this? Full article can be found here.

No point listening to psychologists and education experts babble on about what they think will happen. Simple answer to the question of whether or not it works. Submit it to a proper trial set up and test it. Shits me that these thought bubbles pop out in education all the time and nobody ever really jumps in and says "hey let's acknowledge that this is an interesting idea and just trial it properly to see whether it works". Governments just get on their bloody high horse and push on with it.

[spectroscopy]

i initially misread it as one of the rewards being "reduced suspensions" and I was thinking "finally i wouldn't get in trouble for wearing the wrong shoes" LOL

in all honesty I think its an okay idea if it doesn't blow the budget. I feel like it should be on like an improvement basis or something though. if the same old kids keep getting 90% and winning all the shit, then thats no fun. but if you go from 55% average to 80% you deffs deserve a movie ticket LOL