For regular education classroom teachers, giving rewards in exchange for good behavior is a mistake.
It’s true that “do this and get that” type rewards can improve behavior in the short term. As in, “Sit up straight and give me your attention, and I will give you each a sticker.”
Or, “John, if you can go the whole day without bothering your tablemates, I have a surprise for you after school.”
But incentives of this nature, which include earning class pizza parties, extra recess, free time, and the like, don’t benefit students in the long run and make classroom management more difficult.
This applies to individual students as well as entire classrooms.
For real, lasting behavior improvement, focus instead on creating a classroom that nurtures intrinsic motivation.
And leave the bribery to the trainers at Sea World.
1. Rewards turn good behavior into work.
Rewarding good behavior sends the message to your students that if they have to be paid for it, then it must be work. They logically conclude that being well behaved must be something difficult or noteworthy. Otherwise, why would they be rewarded for it?
This effectively makes good behavior less desirable… and more like an effort your students deserve to be paid for.
2. Rewards lead to entitlement.
When you offer rewards in return for good behavior, you create in your students a peculiar sense of entitlement. They’ll feel entitled to receive something for merely doing what is expected.
It leads them to believe that they’re behaving and following rules for you, and thus are owed something from you. After all, if they’re getting a reward for it, there must not be anything in it for them.
3. Rewards cheapen the intrinsic motivation to behave.
Being rewarded to behave cheapens the intrinsic merit of being a valued citizen of your class. In other words, it puts a price tag on the priceless.
Have you ever had a student who was uncomfortable or less than thrilled with public recognition, drummed up awards, or excessive praise? This is a person with already strong, deep-rooted intrinsic motivation who would prefer that you didn’t barter with it.
4. Rewards lead to more and more and more.
When you put a price tag on good behavior by offering rewards, your students will demand higher and more frequent payments. Rewards, you see, are not only ineffective in the long term, but they weaken over time.
If you’ve used rewards in the past, you’ve experienced this. What is exciting and fun at first, like extra recess, becomes boring and not a big deal after awhile. Therefore, you have to continue to increase the payment or the frequency of the reward.
The Ultimate Reward
Good behavior is its own reward because it offers students self-respect, confidence, and the wonderful feeling of belonging to a classroom that needs and appreciates them.
To deepen these feelings, and to get your students to want to behave–for themselves and for the betterment of your classroom–stop rewarding them for good behavior. Stop interfering with the awesome power of intrinsic motivation.
Instead, support it, encourage it, and feed it by creating a classroom your students love coming to every day.
It’s the best reward you could ever give them.
If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.