As LEGOOH we had our first meeting on December 11th, 2014. We came together to discuss a
trending topic: “Are rewards ok?” The topic was brought up by Aylin Geron as she came across Alfie
Kohn’s best seller PUNISHED BY REWARDS.
The presenter was Aylin and Simge facilitated and 4As was used as the protocol. Jasmine, Samantha
and Catherine were present at the meeting. The topic and the text was long as a result we couldn’t
really feel satisfied as we all had more to share.
The protocol is quite useful for starting discussions on challenging topics. 4As stand for Assumption,
Agree, Argue and Aspire To. We took turns to share our As. We mostly talked on the following:
Assumption: “We pressure students to learn what they do not want to learn, and then punish them
with low grades when they do not learn it…. The result … we lose them as learners”
Legooh agreed on the fact that the assumption of learners being so reluctant is a negative starting
point.
Agree: “We want students to become rigorous thinkers, accomplished readers and writers and
problem solvers who can make connections and distinctions between ideas.”
Who can object to that? That is the ideal learner model for all teachers.
Argue: We had a lot to say on this part. Each participant had different points to argue about.
Jasmine connected with American education system, Sam commented on the British style which are
both quite different from the “forever changing” Turkish system.
Aspire to: “Young children don’t need to be rewarded to learn. Desire to learn, itself, is natural.”
It’s great to know that and we all agreed that we should remember this fact once in a while and we
shouldn’t mistake them for adults.
As a result we couldn’t decide whether rewards are good or bad. Although Kohn strongly believes
that rewards for learning undermine intrinsic motivation and turns students to Pavlov’s dogs with
classical conditioning we have to accept the fact that assessment itself is a rewarding/ punishment
system.
As long as we grade our students we don’t really have to bribe them with candies and gold stars. And
if we do the ones who receive will just enjoy the moment!