How do rewards work against intrinsic motivation?
When you say, “If you get an A on this test, I’ll give you $5,” that’s a colossal mistake. What that says is the only purpose of getting an A on a test is to get a reward. It extinguishes intrinsic motivation to do well; it puts the focus on getting the reward and not on the work itself. What would you say to schools that claim to have found success by paying for grades? In general, I opposed it, but I’m willing to reserve judgment for kids who have been so betrayed by the system, who have no real understanding of what learning is. If it takes a little bit of a bribe to get that kid to open up a book, then it’s hard for me to argue that that’s a bad idea. But, there’s research being done in New York City and some other jurisdictions about whether those sorts of mechanisms are effective even for the most disadvantaged kids. Can rewards ever be done well in school? For the vast majority of kids, contingent rewards are an abject disaster. At the same time, if your students do well on a te
