This morning I had a somewhat awkward experience with one of my students. She is in Grade five, and her parents promised to buy her the new PS5 gaming system if her year-end average is above a certain percentage.
Needless to say, she is now working like a little angel doing everything she needs to do to succeed in getting the much-needed marks.
Her question to me was the following:
"Please can I rewrite my assessment to achieve a better result? "
Obviously, I said no, to which she answered:
"Why not?"
This is where I nearly lost it but I politely answered that we don't re-do assessments until we achieve a better result, otherwise there is no use for any assessment.
What I really wanted to say was the following:
Sweetheart, you had enough time to work hard during this year to achieve a better result. Now that you know you will get rewarded at the end of the race, now you want to run faster?
This is not the child's fault. All she sees now is the prize at the end, and the real reason behind the hard work goes to waste.
What is wrong with these parents?
Why do parents bribe their child with a big reward, to do something that they were supposed to do in the first place?
There are so many things wrong with this picture!
I am a very strong believer that you get what you deserve in life. I believe that you always have to work hard to achieve the best results.
I don't believe that everyone in a race should receive a medal, and I also don't believe that bribery will get you anywhere....
This poor child is working hard for completely the wrong reasons. She has no real interest in her education, and the only thing she is focused on now is the final destination, and it seems as if she will do whatever she needs to do, to achieve that!
What does this teach a child?
According to me, absolutely nothing.
If a child is taught to work hard to achieve good results, then THAT is already an achievement. We cannot always win the race, and if we don't win, we know that we have to work harder next time. Failure is the only road to success. If you don't achieve your goal the first time, you will do better the next time.
I seriously feel sorry for this child, but I feel even more sorry for her parents. Why are marks so important in life? Why do you have to achieve a certain result to make others happy? Not everyone is good at everything. It upsets me so much when a parent wants to know if a student passed or failed.
The world is completely upside down. When I was in school I worked hard to achieve results so that I could be proud of myself. Nobody bribed me to do better. As a result of hard work, I am where I am today.
Should we not instill the same values into our children today?
What is your view on this?
Bribery kind of works in the sense that if you work hard you get rewarded.
From an education perspective, bribery is bad as those who are bribed work for the sake of grades and not so much for learning. Those who focus on high grades only may either focus too much on school and/or may not take risks. (Grades only matter in the short term and not so much in the long term due to forgetfulness)
If you combine bribery with cheating for high grades, then that can get nasty.
Another extreme is where some parents do punishments for failing. Some go as far as wanting their child to be a doctor/lawyer/engineer/accountant or they are a "failure". This is crazy as this goes against the child's wishes and it is not easy to be a doctor/lawyer/accounting/engineer. (There are other alternative jobs that pay well.) The child in this case would work hard to avoid failure.