5 Reasons to Not Use Incentives This Year (and 5 Things to Do Instead)
Classroom management and academic engagement are two of the most important aspects of getting off to a great start in the new school year. Though gem/marble jars, tickets, clip charts, and other incentive systems (including traditional grades) are common throughout US schools, they have some serious drawbacks that aren’t talked about enough. With that in mind, here are 5 reasons to not use incentives this year (and 5 things to do instead).
1. Incentives Reduce Intrinsic Motivation
We all know that when first introduced, incentives seem to add a burst of energy and enthusiasm to students. (What?! We’ll get an ice cream party if we read a lot of books?! Awesome!) But how long does that energy typically last? And then what happens?
The first, and perhaps most important reason to not use incentives this year is that they tend to reduce students’ intrinsic motivation in the long run. Study after study after study has demonstrated this phenomenon. Though at first it may seem counterintuitive, when you think about it, it makes sense. Though the prospect of ice cream is exciting, there’s a subtler message at work. (If reading were something worth doing, teachers wouldn’t have to offer me ice cream to do it. It must be something I don’t want to do.)
Do you have students who are exposed to incentives year after year (stickers in elementary grades, extra privileges in middle school, traditional grades in high school)? You’ve likely noticed them become less motivated about learning the older they get. If incentives actually worked in the long run, wouldn’t students become more enthusiastic learners, not less?
2. Incentives Diminish Learning and Performance
If incentives dampened students’ joy for learning but those students actually learned more, perhaps we’d be willing to take that trade-off, but that’s not how they work. This brings us to the second reason to not use incentives this year. Kids learn less when they experience extrinsic motivators.
Decades of research bears this out. When students are self-motivated, they learn more and learn more deeply than when they’re motivated by grades or other extrinsic rewards. Again, you don’t need studies to tell you this is the case. You’ve seen how much more your students learn when they’re excited or when they’re learning with real purpose. If extrinsic motivators diminish intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation leads to greater learning, it’s stands to reason that extrinsic motivators diminish learning.
3. Incentives Lower Moral Reasoning
We all want kids to do the right things (be respectful and kind, be responsible, etc.). Don’t we also want students to do the right things for the right reasons? I know I do. I want students to pick up trash on the floor because they feel a shared responsibility to take care of the classroom. I want them to be kind to others because it feels good to be nice and out of a sense of community. So here we have the third reason to not use incentives this year. Incentive systems make “doing good” about getting something–about being self-centered.
Doesn’t it frustrate you when you ask a student to pick up something on the floor, and they ask, “What will I get for it?” Doesn’t it bother you when you’re walking through the classroom and a student says, “We were just cooperating! Don’t we get stickers?” Kids don’t come into the world this way. In fact, there’s compelling evidence that humans appear to be hardwired to help others–to be altruistic.
Instead of thinking about helping others, incentives get kids thinking, “What’s in it for me?” and “Is it worth it to help?” Good behavior becomes transactional. I might do the right thing if the payoff is worth the effort. It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? We use reward systems to “teach” kids to do the right thing, but these very systems may be teaching a value system that’s completely antithetical to our purpose.
4. Incentives Reduce Creative Thinking
We know that creativity is highly valued in the workplace. In fact, according to a recent Forbes article, more than 70% of employers consider it a top priority in personnel–and predict that this skill set will get even more important in the coming years. So, our fourth reason to not use incentives this year is that they reduce creative thinking.
This is highlighted beautifully by Dan Pink in a TED talk. (The whole talk is worth watching, but if you want to watch this one small section, check out his description of the candle problem from 1:39-4:55). In short, incentives seem to boost performance on low-level boring tasks that aren’t worth doing otherwise. But once creativity is needed, incentives backfire. They sharpen focus and raise anxiety–which usually get in the way of creative thinking.
This, sadly, might explain what George Land discovered years ago–that most five year olds (98%) test in the genius range for creativity but very few (2%) adults do so. Why? In his brilliant TED Talk Ken Robinson explains: They’ve (children have) spent 10 years being told there’s one answer–it’s at the back. And don’t look.” Kids who have attend school–with its emphasis on incentive and reward systems, get less creative–not more–as they get older.
5. Incentives Damage Relationships and Morale
We often use incentives to create a great atmosphere and give kids something positive to work toward. (Again, notice the subtle messaging going on–good work and behavior aren’t worth doing on their own.) Would you be surprised to hear that incentive systems can do the reverse? Here is our fifth reason to not use incentives this year.
While most educators try to create a classroom environment of collaboration, incentives often create competition and even resentment. I remember when I first used these systems early in my career. It wasn’t uncommon to hear kids say things like, “Thanks a lot, Billy (in anger)! Now we’re never going to get our pizza party!” (after Billy forgot to bring in his homework and didn’t earn a token for his table). Or, “Hey! Why is Carradine always getting tokens! I was doing the right thing too!”
A buddy of mine from Australia says that back home there’s a saying for what happens when you put one person up above their peers. They call it the tallest poppy syndrome. The tallest poppy in the field is the first one to be cut down. People sometimes get jealous of others who receive public praise and rewards.
Here’s another uncomfortable aspect of incentives when it comes to community and morale. These systems can often exacerbate inequities in schools. It’s not uncommon to see kids who are comfortably in the middle class receiving the most awards/rewards while kids from lower class households getting less. This is, of course, not what we’re going for.
So what should we do instead? Here are five ideas to consider.
1. Make the Work Worth Doing
Kids should be unmotivated to do unmotivating work. It would be weird if they weren’t. So make sure the work is worth students’ time and energy.
If we want the work itself to be rewarding, instead of leaning into extrinsic motivators, let’s lean into intrinsic ones. When academic work meets students psychological needs for autonomy, competence, purpose, belonging, curiosity, and/or fun, they can be much more authentically engaged in their work.
Even if you’re saddled with overly prescriptive programs, you can still find ways to make learning more engaging for students. You might shorten the direct teaching portion of a lesson, skip a lesson that’s not needed, or add a simple game to boost students’ energy. Or, you might get a bit creative and try giving students a bit of choice about their learning. Which brings us to our second idea to try…
2. Give Students More Choice
This past year I was working with a high school program that serves kids who are struggling to stay in school. These are students who have a wide variety of challenges that make school difficult. They’re smart, but they’ve got barriers. This year, the teachers took a risk and offered their students more choices about what they learned or how they learned it. Choice wasn’t a panacea by any means. They still had some kids with their heads on their desks or ones who actively resisted learning. But a bunch of kids perked up and responded well. One student admitted that he had just read the first new book since fifth grade. Others started resisting closing their books and moving on at the ends of reading periods.
I’ve seen this happen again and again. Kids given more choice in physical education participate more. Students work harder and are more personally invested in math assessments when given choice. Students become more engaged in music education when they’re given voice and choice.
To be clear, though big projects and open-ended choices can be fine, even simple and easy-to-manage choice for students can yield better engagement and learning.
3. Talk About Learning Like Students Own It
The way we talk about learning has a huge impact on how kids feel about their work. Consider the chart below. How might some of these simple language shifts change how kids feel about work?
This is just one simple shift to consider. For tons more ideas, check out this free LiveBinder.
4. Teach Students Skills of Self-Management
Though incentives might help manage kids in the short term, they don’t teach skills. It’s similar to circling students’ spelling mistakes on a draft of writing. It might help fix mistakes in the moment, but it doesn’t help kids build word-work skills.
Students need direct instruction in the social skills and emotional skills needed to navigate the school day. This is not just important in the first weeks of school. It’s something students need all year long. If they’re going to help each other solve math problems or give each other feedback as writers or play math games together, there are a bunch of skills they need to be successful. How should they take turns? What strategies can help them help a partner without taking over? How should they be direct without sounding harsh?
It was once believed that parents were supposed to teach kids behavior skills and teachers were supposed to teach kids academic skills. Decades ago, when work was mostly rote and solo, this might have made more sense. Not now. When my own children were in middle school, how was I supposed to teach and coach them about working effectively in a science group?
So, weave small modeling sessions into your daily academic lessons. Show kids how to breathe deeply when feeling test anxiety. Model how to resist the impulse to click on a non-related link when doing research. Or you might elicit ideas from students about how to do these things, drawing on their prior knowledge–like I do with this group of readers.
5. Breathe
Teaching and learning is hard work. Kids will make mistakes. So will you. Incentive systems send the message the behavior mistakes are bad. You don’t get a reward if you mess up. We know that kids can’t learn to read without making reading mistakes. Isn’t it also true that kids can’t learn better self-control without making self-control mistakes?
Kids will have rough days. They won’t want to work sometimes, even when the work is awesome. They’ll be tired. They’ll make mistakes. Let’s help students see opportunities for growth and learning in their mistakes instead of their mistakes being cause for losing (or not getting) prizes pr privileges.
Remember to have empathy and patience, especially for kids who really struggle. It might be hard to be their teacher somedays, but I can promise you–it’s way harder to be them.
Want to explore these ideas some more? Here are a few more resources that can help:
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