Punished By Rewards, By J. Kohn

Encouragement rather than the rewards and praise system, is more likely to be effective as a means to motivate learners and keep learners motivated in the foundation phase classroom.

Background of study

Introdudution:

In many social contexts (relationships, at work, in sports and our communities), humans often use praise and rewards as a predominant motivator towards a certain goal. The conventional foundation phase classroom is no different as praise and rewards have been used by many teachers for decades as a means to motivate learners in their school work and other social issues. This is done by recognising and appreciating learner’s achievements and good behaviour by giving good remarks (well done) and rewards (a golden star) if the learner

In the book Punished by Rewards, Kohn (1993) asserts that, our basic strategy for motivation as humans in parenting, educating learners, and even in the work place can be summarized literally into six words “do this and you’ll get that”. In his book Kohn demonstrates that manipulating people with incentives might seem to work for some time, but in the long run it is doomed to fail and might even cause damage in future. He argues that motivation in the classroom will continue to decline, up until such a point that we realise that we cannot rely on a theory of motivation resulting from laboratory animals (behaviourism). After undertaking numerous research in this field, Kohn has in his book demonstrated that individuals actually do inferior work when money, grades, or other incentives are used as means of motivation. Dreikurs et al. (1998, 1972, 2004) asserts that there is a huge difference between encouragement and praise. He comments that, where encouragement focuses on effort or the process, praise focuses on achievement or the end result as a means of motivating

In order to test this hypothesis I will go to a grade 3 foundation phase classroom, at a public school in Soweto, which has a group of 45 learners from diverse backgrounds. For the first three weeks in the school I will observe learners while I use praise and reward strategies listed in the table below to motivate my learners while teaching and giving feedback in the classroom. For the following three weeks I will observe learners while using encouragement strategies listed on the table below to motivate learners. For the four weeks after I will use both strategies and then give feedback on which strategy kept learners motivated longer and why. This study will be conducted to better understand how encouragement rather than the praise and reward system, better serves as means to motivate learners in the foundation phase classroom.

2. Statement of the problem:

Foundation phase teachers often find themselves using praise and rewards as a predominant motivator in the classroom, not realising that this system if motivation can demotivate learners “due to their sense of autonomy being threatened” (Dreikurs et al., 1998, 1972, 2004).Educators should rather be encouraging learners, as opposed to giving rewards and praise as a means to motivate learners in the foundation phase classroom.

3. Purpose