Saturday, November 26, 2005

My mother, who works at the Teachers' Resource Centre, told me a peculiar story yesterday. TRC recently launched a certificate course on Early Childhood Education for in-service teachers and my mother has been going on evaluation visits to the schools of the course participants.

One of the private schools she went to yesterday has just taken in a fresh batch of three year olds and it was their second or third day at school. My mother was wandering around with a notebook and a pencil and each time one of the girls would see my mother and that pencil, she'd come up and stick her hand out and say "star". This happened three of four times!! This is no reflection on the school really, because the child has just joined. But what kind of reward-oriented, stick and carrot home does this poor kid come from? She's three for god's sake!!!!!! She's probably rewarded with "stars" in the form of material goods as well, each time she eats her food without fussing, goes to bed without howling, performs for guests by rattling off the alphabet in 30 seconds, or whatever it is that makes parents proud these days.

When my mother used to teach at the Karachi Grammar School's Kindergarten section, she rebelled against the system and never gave stars to any of the kids. Lest anyone think she was mean and cruel for not dishing out gold stars to three year old babies, all the children she taught still remember their Aunty Mimi fondly, as do their parents. What she did, in lieu of the artifical, destructive reward system, was to pique the natural curiousity of children, give them a chance to ask questions, express themselves, help them make decisions, listen to them and their ideas (something teachers never do), give them the confidence to explore unchartered territory, not brand them as "difficult" or "slow", not tower over them as adults tend to do, not sit behind a teacher's desk - the list is endless - and the children have not forgotten - even though most of them are over 25 years old now. Yes, yes, I am very proud of Aunty Mimi and wish she could spend most of her time with children rather than mean, power-hungry, agenda-toting adults.

"Rewards" are extremely dangerous when used thoughtlessly and indiscriminately. It's just that they're very convenient and people can't be bothered to think of less damaging ways to let someone know that they've done a great job. First! Second! Third ... and, oh, the remaining 27 kids: You can just go home and try harder next year, but remember, because you aren't very bright, we can't waste any time on you. We have to get our A-grade students into Harvard and Yale and that's going to keep us quite busy.

Please try and read Alfie Kohn's fantastic book: Punished by Rewards - The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes. It is an eye-opener and extremely relevant.

Posted by BeanZ | Permalink: 12:51 PM |