Rewarding Students

STOP REWARDING STUDENTS

Good behavior is considered as a fundamental tool for good learning. Nowadays teachers to encourage good behavior use rewarding system which is a controversial issue among educators. Advocates of rewards, claim that rewarding students provides fast change in their behavior and discipline. Moreover, it is accepted as the best way to get good behavior from student. However, I think rewarding students is not a permanent solution, stimulates extrinsic motivation, changes good behavior into work and decreases the intrinsic motivation to behave good. In addition, humanistic approach and psychologists  offer many ways to stimulate good behavior. In this essay I will prove why teachers should not give rewards to students for their good behavior and offer some alternative ways from humanistic perspective and psychologists.

First of all, rewarding system may be useful to provide fast change in behavior and discipline. That’s all very good but rewarding system like a coin has two sides. It changes bad behavior and makes student disciplined very fast as long as you offer a reward consistently. When the reward is not given, the student returns to earlier undesirable behavior. Because change is not permanent in case of rewarding, the student does not generalize learning to behave good and teacher faces chaos in classroom instead of discipline and stability. Especially in the case of habitually disruptive students Carmen Y. Reyes agrees on the fact that rewards have no permanent effect if discipline system only cares about giving rewards while disregarding children’s cognizance, behaviors, and emotions (Carmen Y. Reyes, 2011).

 Rewards stimulate student’s extrinsic motivation not their intrinsic motivation which is useful in making activity itself satisfying and rewarding. When students experience extrinsic motivation, they are not really interested in the activity for its own sake; they care only about what it will gain them. Moreover, because of extrinsic motivation student may produce a materialistic feelings toward learning. This results in loss of motivation when there is no reward. In other words, it changes good behavior into work. In addition, rewarding students can cheapen intrinsic motivation to behave when it is meaningless for them. Therefore, rewards get harder to use. They become more expensive than teacher expects and in the course of time teacher has to give more and more to get same behavior. It is not a beneficial long-term plan for students.

Another claim of advocates of rewards is that it is the best way to get good behavior from student. I totally do not agree with that claim because humanistic approach and psychologists such as Arthur Combs and William Purkey offer many solutions in that case. According to humanism teachers should chose talking students rather than rewards. If teachers use communication effectively they can decrease misbehaviors in classroom since students generally show undesired behaviors in order to be understood by others. The important point is that teacher should criticize behavior instead of personality. In addition, teacher should teach students that good behavior is its own reward. It suggests self-respect, confidence and feeling of belonging to a classroom which is a welcoming place for them.

Humanistic psychologist Arthur Combs thinks that perception has an important role in behaviors. He suggests that “ in order to help students learn, the teacher should help students to alter their perceptions and beliefs so that they will see things differently and behave differently” (Yıldırım 2009, p.134). Another psychologist  William Purkey also can help teachers to get good behavior. Purkey thinks that  on students’ self-perceptions and perceptions about teachers’ behavior  influence their behaviors in school. “Purkey suggests the implementation of Invitational Learning, communicating to students that they are responsible, able, and valuable. Teachers should do everything possible to encourage students to develop positive feelings about themselves” (Yıldırım 2009, p.135). These approaches should be used by teachers if they want permanent good behavior.

In conclusion, if teachers want temporary solutions to get good behaviors from students, they can use rewards. However, it is obvious that they do not work when we consider long-term plans. They have undesirable negative aspects such as they are not permanent, stimulates extrinsic motivation, changes good behavior into work and dwindles intrinsic motivation to behave good. On the other hand, teachers should benefit from humanistic approach and psychologists to encourage good behavior. For the sake of students, they should stop rewarding students for good behavior, stop impede the excellent power of intrinsic motivation. Instead of rewarding, create a welcoming classroom where student is communicated, encouraged and developed.

REFERENCES:

1. Carmen Y. Reyes, Initials. (2011, 07 03). Should teachers give rewards to students for good behavior?. Retrieved from http://www.edarticle.com/article.php?id=1069
2. Yıldırım, A. (2009). Development and learning. Ankara: Seçkin Yayıncılık: p.134-135.