Punished by Rewards

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes Paperback – September 1, 1999

Author: Visit Amazon's Alfie Kohn Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0618001816 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes – September 1, 1999
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Review

"a clear, convincing demonstration of the shortcomings of pop-behaviorism, written with style, humor, and authority," Kirkus Reviews

"Every parent, teacher, and manager should read this book -- and hurry." -- Thomas Gordon, founder of Parent Effectiveness Training

About the Author

Alfie Kohn's six previous books include Punished by Rewards and No Contest: The Case Against Competition, as well as Beyond Displine and What to Look for in a Classroom. Descrilbed by Time magazine last year as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of educational fixation on grades and test scores," he is a popular lecturer, speaker to teachers, parents, and reasearchers accross the country. The author currently resides in Belmont, Massachusetts.

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Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; 2 edition (September 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0618001816
ISBN-13: 978-0618001811
Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Education & Training

So I wanted my students to learn how to read notes on the staff. I had a fun idea to use "notes" to spell words and then the students would decipher the notes to figure out what the words are. I was concerned about them being motivated to do the assignment, so I turned it into a game and use jolly ranchers to reward the team that comes up with the words the fastest. Guess what? As soon as the jolly ranchers were rewarded, the students lost interest. Also, the kids were more concerned about fairness and cheating then the actual activity. More over, certain students took over the competition and other students relied on their already exisiting expertise to win them the jolly rancher.

I tried a different tactic the next period. I decided to promise them the jolly rancher regardless of the outcome, but I still wanted to play the game. I still got much of the same.

That night I picked up this book and read a good deal of it. I decided to put Kohn's ideas to the test. The next day, I pointed the kids to the materials, showed them basically how to do it and set them on their way. No games. No Jolly Ranchers. Nothing. Guess what? All students were learning and involved, students who finished came up to me and asked what to do. They were more than happy to either help other students or figure out more words, or create their own. A complere 180. True, there were plenty who asked, "Do we have to do this?" or "What do we get when we finished?" Which just reinforced for me Kohn's notion that kids have become addicted to rewards.

Does this book show you how? No. Thus the 4 stars and not 5. But it does point you in the right direction.

I come at this book as an educator and as someone who has spent a lot of time grading students and helping them navigate the treacherous waters of the standardized testing game. This was on the bookshelf of the tutoring center where I work and I thought I'd see what this man's case was.

For the most part, I found this to be an intentional counterbalance to business as usual. It appears that there are a great many reviewers with the psychology background to assess how he may set up BF Skinner as a straw man to strike down. I'm not sure it's necessary to set up Skinner as a man to strike down. I do agree with Kohn, however, that "pop behaviorism" and incentive driven behaviors are pervasive in our culture. Incentive plans in business, grades at school, and rewards at home are commonly thought of strategies for management. Kohn consistently attacks the abuses and excesses of incentives and gives a coherent framework for what makes rewards wrong, focusing on how relationships are fragmented and creativity and attention are undermined. As a teacher who has seen grade obsessed students in tutoring and classroom situations, any book that provides philosophical and psychological research to advocate for intrinsic learning is welcomed.

Readers should be aware that this is a *very* radical book. Like other radicals, Kohn is probably better at ripping down the capitalist, or in this case incentive-based, order than in building something up to replace it with. Kohn wants us to reason with people and clearly communicate agreed upon objectives. Has Kohn ever tried to implement these strategies in a classroom of 35-40 urban students?