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Mar
17
The carrot or the stick? That’s an argument I have with myself all the time. Is it more effective to bribe people to get them to do what you want or is it more effective to threaten people to get them to do what you want? Is it more effective to get students to come to school by bribing them with courses, programs , extra-curricular activities etc. that will make them want to come to school or is it more effective to threaten to punish them if they don’t come to school?
I’ve always wondered about the practice of punishing kids by suspending them for skipping school. Suspending kids for skipping school has always seemed to me like rewarding them for skipping school. It’s giving them more of what they want- less school. Oh, I know that suspending a kid from school is supposed to get parents to pay attention and do something to kids to make them shape up, and of course not being able to come to school for entire days is hard on kids who come to school for social reasons, which many kids do. I guess that’s some type of punishment. But, I’m not convinced suspending a kid is the most effective way to get him or her to attend classes.
I want to be able to say with conviction that the carrot is better than the stick. But, I can’t because back there in my mind, always lurking, is Kohlberg and his stages of moral development. From my understanding of his theory of moral development, it seems that the carrot will work some people and the stick will work for other people. Like so many things in life, it depends.
I hate that about life. Why does it alway have to be: it depends. I can’t handle that part of life when I’m sick with a cold, like I am now. I want the answer to be what I want. What stage of life is that! It’s the terrible two stage of life. I want what I want and have great difficulty when I don’t get it- something like my two year old granddaughter. How pathetic is that!
I have come to believe that we’ll do whatever we think it takes to make us happy.
Lisa Rein’s article in washingtonpost.com makes it clear that the stick approach is alive and well. She tells us that Maryland’s law makers are taking the stick approach with kids who skip school and their parents:
The House of Delegates approved a bill that would deny driver’s licenses to students with 10 or more unexcused absences in the previous calendar year…The bill would require school districts to report each case of truancy to the Motor Vehicle Administration, and the student would have to present an attendance record to the state to get a permit… the state punishes parents who let their children skip school — criminal penalties can include as many as 10 days in jail or a fine of $50 a day
Twenty four states in the USA have tied student attendance to driving license privilege’s. Here in Ontario, we’ve done that too. If kids dropout of school before they’re 18 and have graduated, their driver’s license permits will be suspended.
Some law makers want to use even a bigger stick:
Prince George’s lawmakers this legislative session would have forced the worst offenders to wear ankle bracelets and other electronic monitoring systems. A pilot program in the county would have allowed the courts to issue these and other sanctions against truants. But a backlash against the measure from public defenders and civil liberties groups pushed the sponsors to withdraw it. Opponents argued that placing monitors on children would not stop truancy but rather criminalize it.
Thank goodness saner heads prevailed.
Why all the fuss about kids not attending school? Well, it’s more than being concerned about kids not getting a decent education. The The concern is that
Truancy does not affect just the student, Levi (Del. Gerron S. Levi) said, adding that teenagers who skip school are more likely to commit daytime crimes such as home burglaries and vandalism. “This is a way to get their attention,” she said. “The bottom line is it’s not only an issue of missed classroom time. We’ve seen a surge in stolen vehicle and vandalism when kids are out of school.”
Unfortunately that’s true. Kids sometimes do get into trouble when they skip school. I hear stories all the time about what goes on when kids skip classes. Sadly it seems that teachers not only educate kids during school hours, but we also protect the community.
I written here and here about ways to motivate students to come to school that don’t involve threats. Make them want to come to school because there’s something at school that makes them happy. What makes kids happy at school- good adult-student relationships, participating in extra curricular activities that make the classroom part of school more bearable, and more programs for the 70% of students who aren’t planning on going to university.
When all is said and done, maybe there has to be a carrot and a stick. I only know one thing for sure: There are no easy answers- at least that’s the way I see it.
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6 Responses to “The carrot or the stick?”
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Elona, I think your last paragraph sums it all up very nicely.:)
I also wonder if it’s different things for different people. There is no research to prove what I’m about to say… but I wonder whether pessimistic people prefer to be under-the-gun and have everything-be-a-fire, and to have the stick, and I wnder if optimistic people will underperform unless it’s a carrot. Hmmm, who knows? Best,
S.
Senia, what you say is interesting. I took a little survey of two people tonight. The pessimist favours the stick approach; the optimist favours the carrot approach. You may be on to something.
The affective piece of education is definitely overlooked too often; however, I believe that affect is the carrot.
Too often, I hear adults comment about their own experiences and consequences for behavior when they were adolescents. Many of them naively believe that the same consequences should be dished out today, even if the approach and method is disrespectful and demoralizing. Kids just want respect too.
In my school, the consequence for ditching school is in-school suspension. I don’t know if that’s much better than out-of-school suspension.
Elona,
I think that we are going to have to rethink what we do in schools so that kids see school as a place they want to be not a place they have to be. A grade 12 is needed for almost every type of job or post secondary education. We need to look at bridging between highschool and the work force, give kids that want it an avenue to explore different options. As we wade through this landscape of change brought on by so many different factors, we should be turning more and more to finding the creative in each student, exposing them to information and asking them to create with it. Help the student to find relevancy in topics and let them create the links.
Kelly,
Help students find the relevancy in topics and let them create links. I think for some students that can’t happen in a regular classroom. I think that a half day co-op where the kids are in school and in the workplace would be better for my grade nine math students. They have no idea why they should be learning anything. When I try to get them to see why, they can’t appreciate the why because their life experience doesn’t support it. Being out in the real world of work for half a day, working with people other than teachers would help these kids. There is a half day co-op program at our school, but not for grade nine and ten.