Punished by Rewards?

Summary

According to Alfie Kohn, rewards and punishments are both ways of manipulating behaviors, and destroy the potential for real learning to take place. Kahn says, “while students would certainly like to have the goody itself—the pizza or money or gold star—none of us enjoys having the very things we desire used as levers to control our behavior.” Kahn goes onto say that although rewards are always damaging, they are the most destructive when there is intrinsic learning taking place, because it will take the interest out of learning. He makes it clear that even praising a student is a verbal reward, and has no place in the classroom because it turns a quest for knowledge into seeking triumph. Kohn says the solution to the rewards problem is his three C theory; Content, Community, and Choice. He says a school that uses that theory will not need to depend on punishments or rewards, and learning will take place in a pure form.

This article was a conversation or interview with Alfie Kohn, by Ron Brandt. Kohn argues that rewards are not a very effective way of motivation. He also argues that “both punishments and rewards are ways of manipulating behavior that destroy the potential for real learning”. He thinks that rewards or bribing actually makes students less motivated because, they are looking more forward to that reward then the actual subject. He also argues, that rewards are for dogs not humans. Kohn suggests, that we use content, community and choice instead of rewards. He quotes, “You show me a school that really has those three Cs in place—where students are working with one another in a caring environment to engage with interesting tasks that they have some say in choosing—and I'll show you a place where you don't need to use punishments or rewards. “