Punished By Rewards - Why Montessori Teachers Don't Use Either!

Why Montessori Teachers Don't Use Gold Stars, Grades or "Good jobs!" - a Review on the book "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn, a well-researched, thought-provoking, LIFE CHANGING book.

''Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.''

-Maria Montessori

We all want caring, empathetic children. But rewards have shown to NOT help children be more caring, empathetic or moral. 

 Most Montessori schools do not use grades, gold stars or other rewards. Why?

Long before behaviorists arrived on the scene, Maria Montessori shared her two-cents on what rewards and punishments really do to the child. I have been amazed how many times I have learned something "cutting edge" via the newest books, courses, classes, or lectures, that Maria Montessori already knew. Oh the power of observation!

While on my last vacation, I had time to read a book! For the first time since the baby was born I could read non-stop! The book I chose, well, I'm sure it screams "My psychology major and love for teaching is showing!"

 I read the book "Punished By Rewards" by Alfie Kohn. As a Montessori teacher and a parent who follows the Montessori philosophy in my home (best I can), it sounded like it would confirm a lot of the practices I follow. What I found was extremely informative and thought-provoking. As opposed to just a lot of anecdotal or "because it feels good" references or stories, he had an abundance of peer reviewed and scholarly reports and experiments that showed over and over how much rewards damage our children behaviorally and educationally. By the end of the book I was even forced to reevaluate some of my practices that I thought were "Montessori" but were actually rewards/punishments in clever "politically correct" disguises

While nearly everyone (even behaviorists) agree that punishments do more harm than good, most people don't realize that REWARDING children is just as manipulative and just as flawed as punishing them.  How can rewarding children be flawed? Shouldn't they be rewarded for good behavior? Don't they DESERVE rewards?

The author, by pointing out study after study, experiment after experiment, says no. and I tend to agree. So, are you ready to learn ? What about rewards can be so counter-productive?

Why Rewards Punish:

First of all, let us get something straight. Rewards include anything that is deemed "positive or enjoyable" that is given to someone in order to control their behavior. This includes: grades, money, food treats, stickers, toys, empty praise like "good job!", or anything else you use to bribe or manipulate someone into complying with a demand or command.

Rewards, while effective in getting people to comply with a command or change a behavior in the short-term, or increase productivity in simple,  Straightforward tasks, are dismally ineffective in:

•  increasing creativity (they actually hijack our creativity and people are LESS creative when rewards are promised)
• Creating LONG TERM CHANGE (behaviors that are being rewarded tend to stop when the rewards stop, or once the person gets used to the reward)
• Creating moral or prosocial children (children who are rewarded for prosocial behavior like sharing or not hitting have been shown to do these behaviors MORE OFTEN when the rewarder is not present. A terrifying example of this is a study that  showed when children who were rewarded for prosocial behavior were shown a film about the Holocaust and later asked why they thought those terrible things happened, most of them responded that they Jews MUST have done something bad!)
• Motivating or creating interest (rewards cannot create interest or motivation, in fact, studies have shown activities are rated as LESS enjoyable or interesting after rewards were introduced into the equation)

So the question is, why do rewards produce such HORRIBLE results  when they seem so nice?

The author has 5 main points why rewards fail at bringing us the change we want.

1.)Rewards discourage Risk taking.

"When we are working for a reward, we do exactly what is necessary to get it and no more".pg. 63

First, let me begin with a personal story. When I was in the 1st grade, my teacher handed the students a random coloring sheet.  "Color this, then you can go outside to recess" said the teacher. Recess! I colored the paper as fast as I could and handed it in to the teacher, as did many other students. Still, we had to wait until everyone was finished. The teacher (whom I actually liked very much and was generally a kind and fair teacher) examined all of the papers. She got up and solemnly announced "I am very disappointed in everyone's work today. Many of you did a very poor job coloring these papers. Alex (made up name of a long forgotten fellow student) is the only one who took his time. See how he even took the time to carefully color the boys shirt to look like flannel? Alex, good job. You may go to recess FIRST."

Oh how my little heart filled with rage, shame and indignation all at the same time!!! "Unjust! Unjust!" it cried out. It may seem odd to you that I remember this incident, so long ago. And it probably sounds like I'm being very dramatic. I mean, nothing horrible happened to me. I have heard of much more humiliating, horrible things that happen to children at the hands of well-intentioned (or not) teachers. You may even think that my teacher was trying to teach me an important lesson and I'm a little brat for even bringing this up! (which may be true). Nevertheless this episode has stuck with me. After reading "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn, I am beginning to see why it has stuck with me. So what did this incident teach me?

(HINT: it WASN'T that I should always work my hardest)

What Rewards and Punishments Taught me in 1st gradE:

FLANNEL is the best way to color a shirt, and if you color a shirt with a flannel pattern the teacher will really like it and will probably reward you.

For WEEKS afterward I carefully colored each coloring page with a shirt on it with flannel, desperate to get my teachers praise, and hopefully the elusive "first to recess" prize. But she never seemed to notice….Failing to be rewarded had caused me to STOP being creative in future coloring assignments. I did exactly what got rewarded last time, even though I don’t much like flannel.

When rewards are given, people tend to focus so narrowly on the task (and the reward) they do not explore other options, take risks, notice small details, or act creatively. Not only is taking a risk not necessary, but it could possibly cost you the reward!

Being rewarded for a task led people in a study to elicit "stereotypical" and "repetitive" responses. They did the same thing over and over that got them the reward in the first place, never straying.It even led them to be LESS creative in unrelated tasks that were given later! Exactly like my 1st grade self, who colored everything with flannel for weeks! 

This is exactly what students do when they are graded or rewarded. A child who is rewarded is being forced to view their learning as something that is being evaluated by another. In order to get the reward, they will avoid risks, creative choices, asking challenging questions, taking on complicated tasks, engaging in skill-building activities that might include failure, just so that they can ensure that they get that prize. "Trying not to fail is very different from trying to succeed".

Rewards discourage risk taking; and what is creativity if not an intellectual or artistic risk? Study after study has shown that people who are rewarded for a behavior show far less creativity than those who are not. Artists commissioned for a painting produce less creative works than when they are painting without a commission.

Children being rewarded for creating art work also show less creativity, but also show more preoccupation with how other children "scored", in contrast to children who were not rewarded were more interested in WHAT the children DID.

Why are we destroying our children's natural aptitude for creativity by stressing grades or other rewards, when that is the most important skill they will need in their future?

 The best minds have been telling us for years that the jobs our children are going to have when they grow up, are not even invented yet. How then can our skills train them for these jobs? They cannot. The best we can do is help our children retain their natural creativity and adaptability. Yet, we are doing the exact opposite by grading, testing, bribing and manipulating them with rewards designed to control their behavior and rank their "learning". Rewards only encourage us to do what has worked in the past, it does not help our children develop the skills they will need in the future.

2.) Rewards Cut Interest and Intrinsic Motivation

E loves exploring the world around her, I want her to hold on to her natural sense of wonder and creativity, and not be tied down by focusing on whether her interests will be rewarded or not.

This is the one that as a teacher, concerns me the most. Children do not have to be rewarded to learn!!! How many 3 year olds  do you know that constantly ask "Why? Why? Why?" (the age of children who aren't in school yet, hmmmm, coincidence?) They love to learn about everything and anything! Yet, once they enter school, we think we have to give them gold stars, high fives and grades for every minute action.

When we reward someone for doing something (and remember, GRADES are both rewards (a's) and punishments (f''s) we are sending a very clear message:

"What you are learning has no value in and of itself, so I must bribe you to do it. It is not interesting, and I do not trust you to do it without me measuring you, judging you and manipulating you. So please memorize only what you have to in order to get a good grade, deep understanding is not important".

The author cites study after heart breaking study that showed how well intentioned teachers and programs that were designed to get kids to read more, actually killed the children's interests in books. Research showed that while kids might participate in programs that reward them for reading, they chose easier books than children who are not rewarded, showed less reading comprehension, and read less when the rewards stop.

The same goes for nearly any other activity. Not only does it kill motivation because by saying "do this and you'll get that" you have taken the focus off of the activity (learning) and placed it onto an artificial reward (the A, or the "good job!"). When in fact, when the focus is on the task itself we are able to enjoy the task for its inherent properties.

Children are being taught by rewards to focus on "what do we get", and not the joy or the value of the activity in itself. Not only that,  when children are GRADED by teachers  they have fear put into the equation. For example, I know many students, myself included, who love to learn, but were so afraid of damaging our GPA's we did not take challenging courses. Instead we puffed up our resumes with the easiest "blow-off" classes we could find, where the teachers would tell us exactly what would be on the test beforehand so that we could memorize it, forget it, and walk away with that diploma.

Don't we want our children to come into school eager to learn? Confident in their natural creativity to guide them to interesting questions and their natural ability to learn and tenacity in the face of failure to come to a solution? Don't we want our children to become so enthralled in a topic that they obtain deep conceptual learning, and not just memorizing facts for a test (that will be forgotten soon after?)

 The author cites numerous studies again that show students who attended schools that do NOT emphasize grades get this kind of experience. Children who are graded tend to only look at the surface, children who were not, and were given the freedom to become deeply engaged in a task, showed much better conceptual and deep learning and better retention. However, the vast amount of children in America have the promise (and threat) of grades constantly dangled in front of their faces, that they can't help but try to learn only what the teacher wants them to learn, and regurgitate it back in the form the teacher wants to hear it. It's no wonder that the 3 year old rapt with awe about the world quickly becomes the 7 year old who dreads school, complains about teachers and throws tantrums over homework.

3. Rewards Punish

The author points out that nearly everyone, even behaviorists agree that punishments are VERY ineffective, usually resulting in MORE of the behavior you do not want, and extremely damaged individuals. But what we don't seem to understand is that rewards are not the OPPOSITE of punishment, they are in fact just the other side of a two-sided coin. You cannot separate them.

The author states "rewards punish" for 2 reasons. First, what is the difference between punishing someone for not doing a behavior and not giving them a promised reward for failing to do the behavior? You might say "Well, they didn't do the behavior so they don't DESERVE the reward." This may be true, but if we agree with behaviorists and virtually every other person who deals with children, that punishments do not get the intended results, there is no difference. Not getting rewarded has the same connotation as being punished.

Secondly, rewards punish because they are used to CONTROL. The author uses a great analogy, you may catch more flies with honey than vinegar….but you're still CATCHING them, and this doesn't feel great to the fly. Rewarding someone for a specific behavior sends an very important message. The message being, I am in charge, you are not, I am watching everything you do and it is being judged by me. If someone feels manipulated, controlled or generally without choice the experience will be viewed negatively, even if they did receive the "prize". Therefore, even being rewarded feels like a veiled punishment, the punishment of being controlled and manipulated.

Back to my coloring story, I learned that

 everything I do is being judged (and not by me), I was being controlled.

-This seemed so unfair to me as a child because the teacher never told me that the QUALITY mattered! She had said "Do this, and then you'll get that." One of the problems with rewards and punishments is that it makes the person being controlled  so narrow-minded on the reward (or escaping punishment) that they think of nothing else. I was doing exactly what she said was necessary (no more, no less).

-It didn't matter if I had thought I had done a good job or not, what matters is what my teacher thinks is a good job. Therefore, do no more, no less, and certainly no different from what the teacher thinks.

-Even if I had done my best work, only one student was praised. Only 1 was rewarded with the elusive "first to go to recess" prize. I'm sure there were other students who really had done their best, and they learned that day that it didn't matter what they thought, only what others (more powerful than they) thought.

4.) Rewards rupture relationships

The author cited several studies that showed that children who were rewarded by parents and teachers were quick to go to the "rewarder" with the right answer, or to show them something they had done well, but hesitated in going to them when they had problems, questions, concerns or were confused.

 Isn't this EXACTLY when we want our children to come to us the most? Rewarding ensures that our children say "mommy look what I did!" every single time they think they colored a pretty picture (or a picture they think WE will think is pretty), but what about when they have a tough math problem? What about when they made a mistake and are scared about how to fix it? What about when a kid has asked them to ditch school and they are tempted to do it? What about when they have questions about sex, drugs or other things that are less than likely to get them praised.

The author cited a study were older girls were rewarded for tutoring younger girls. In the study, if the girl wasn't learning fast enough, she was seen negatively because she was seen as an obstacle to her reward. They also became less effective teachers. Another study was mentioned where even MENTIONING potential rewards for being in a romantic relationship led people to report feeling LESS LOVE for their partners!

Additionally, when children are rewarded, or graded (especially on a curve where extrinsic motivators are made artificially scarce) this detracts from an environment of collaboration. Children are discouraged from collaborating because tests are there to  "see what YOU can do, not your neighbor". But if schools are there to train us for the real world (which I would argue traditional schools are actually training our children for a world that existed 50-100 years ago!) then is this how the real world operates? Of course not. We are constantly working in teams, collaborating, networking. "All of us are smarter than any of us". So why are we encouraging cheating and de-emphasizing the power of team work and collaboration, in order to create a more perfect GRADE? Shouldn't we be focusing on the child, and not one measure of one type of aptitude?

Bonus:

 From a Montessori perspective, rewards do not build independent individuals.

One of the main goals of a Montessori teacher is to help the child to become as independent as possible. No one wants to feel dependent on another, we want freedom, dignity,  and autonomy over our own lives! Yet, reward and punishment do NOT work unless the subject is dependent on the rewarder.

Just like in my story, I learned that

 As a child, I had no basic rights:, I was totally dependent on my teacher

 In school, my basic rights (like the right for a young child to go outside and run around) is contingent upon unimportant tasks, and the discretion of someone in command.

• Traditional schooling is about control. The command was "color this, then you'll get to go outside". What if I didn't color the page? Would I be kept in? Probably, in order to teach me not to be so defiant! This taught me that I had no inherent rights, but was at the mercy of the person in charge, who could, make me jump through hoops if she wanted too. How many children are kept in from recess when "naughty"? How many children have to wait to use the bathroom until the teacher is finished talking, the test is done, or circle time is over?

People who train animals (in fact, most behaviorists who developed these theories worked mainly with rats and pigeons and not humans) will intentionally keep their animals hungry so that food rewards will remain effective. In turn, children have to remain dependent on us (that means withholding affection, food, or other rights) in order for the rewarder-rewardee system to keep our children under control.

This is NOT the relationship I want to have with my daughter, or any child. It isn't CONTROL we should be aiming to have, but a loving, trusting relationship with which we can teach a child the skills they need to have in order to have

 self-control.  Having a classroom that remains quiet because they are promised a treat if they do, is not the same as a child who chooses silence because they understand it creates a peaceful atmosphere in which they and others can do their best work.

I want my daughter to always come to me when she has problems, not just when she thinks she's done a "good job"

5.) Rewards Ignore Reasons

 The author's 3rd point is that rewards ignore reasons. Let me give you an example. Just this week, my daughter was having a tough time eating her broccoli. She usually loves it, but this instance wouldn't eat it! A behaviorist would say "every time she eats a piece of broccoli, give her a piece of chocolate!" sounds good right? But after remembering a study the author cited where children who were told they must first eat snack "a" before they could eat snack "b" ended up reporting they liked snack "a" less than they did BEFORE the experiment started! (this is true of almost all instances of rewarding someone to do something, the behavior being rewarded decreases and reported as less enjoyable than it was before the experiment started. For example, children who were rewarded for coloring, stopped coloring after the rewards ended.) Anyway, so back to the broccoli. I picked up a piece myself and bit into it, to show her how yummy it was, and realized it was still rather tough! So I broke it into smaller bite sized pieces for her, she gobbled it up. The next day, she was having trouble again finishing her dinner! I realized that she probably wanted to feed herself, so instead of spoon feeding her, I gave her the spoon and again, dinner was wolfed down!

Through these examples, it's easy to see why rewards and punishments are so seductive. Many problems-one solution! But in reality, one child, one problem-many solutions! It takes a lot more patience, observation, creativity and respect for the child to help them solve problems without rewards and punishments. But don't we want to help our children solve problems, not just follow commands in order to get a gold star, dollar bill or dessert?

Yes, "many problems one solution" is tempting. But honestly, our children deserve better than a snake oil cure all elixir! I have found addressing the reason, the cause behind the behavior and including the child in on the problem solving process is much more beneficial, and helps the child build the skills they will need in life.

Our Children deserve better than to be controlled and manipulated by rewards that do nothing to build self-control, self-motivation, creativity and problem solving.

It is my belief that rewarding a child is based on the belief that the child is inherently BAD, and must be bribed to be "good", and that activities like being moral, pro-social, learned, or healthy have no intrinsic joy or value to them, and must be puffed up by artificial rewards.

Lets move PAST rewards, and get back to helping children see the JOY in learning, the JOY intrinsic in helping others, become problem solvers who see the REASON and LOGIC behind correct actions! Let us EMPOWER our children, not CONTROL them temporarily with rewards and punishments!