You are bad, and you deserved to be punished! That is what students hear from this year’s Learn policy. Having D’s in a class will get you the liberty of Learn snatched away. No more library for you, buddy!
But what we don’t hear is “Good job, kid. Here, have a reward.”
There are three statuses one can have: “Statesman in Good Standing,” “Monitored” or “Scheduled.”
We need to create a new designation of “Statesman in Great Standing.” Students with a GPA of or over 4.0 would receive a reward. I suggest as a reward permission to leave during lunch. The program could be called “Steak for Stars,” or something similarly irreverent. Imagine what an incentive it would be for the student coasting with B’s to strive for the chance to head out to China King for dumplings and return for math.
We can either be doing fine, poorly or badly. For doing poorly or badly, we can be punished by the loss of our library or cafeteria privileges. “Good” students get to use the library and cafeteria. But what about students who are doing great?
Marshall wants to stop students from doing poorly, so it institutes punishments for such achievement. But doesn’t Marshall also want students to go beyond “fine” and to achieve more than that, taking challenging classes and pushing themselves?
We already have the negative reinforcement. There are plenty of bad things that can happen when one’s report card starts to dip into the D range. But where is the positive reinforcement? Students who are truly challenging themselves are doing more than “okay.” These kids are doing great, and they should be recognized as such.
“People respond to positive incentives more than they respond to negative incentives,” Psychology teacher Andrew Freeman said. Lets give students goals, things to work for.
They can already get academic letters, but a faster, more immediate reward would be even better motivation. The high achievers would see the payoff and reward for their hard work and the good example they set. The plain old achievers, the “good” ones, would see the possible benefit of being a “great” one and step up their own game.
It’s a win-win situation. Positive reinforcement helps students to maintain their own high standards, and a tempting incentive would help all students to strive to do better, perhaps reinforced with the threat of “monitored” status looming behind.