Rewards in the Classroom

I think that rewards have a place in a classroom, but they need to be just one part of a fully-realized philosophy of classroom management. Tangible rewards seem like a pretty bad idea to me; the best rewards are probably privileges: some teachers I have worked with use a communal "marble jar" where any good act--but especially good acts by the class as a whole--can be rewarded. Then, when the marbles reach a certain point,the kids select some kind of reward, like a party or movie day. This system sounds OK, but the teacher has to stay on top of it--it often falls apart in practice: teachers sometimes forget about the jar and the adding of marbles can become very arbitrary.

Another idea I've seen was a teacher who had his students seated in "pods" of four or so desks. When pods got cleaned up quickly, or were working well, he would add points to that pod's score. At the end of a nine-week period, he would see who had the most points and that pod was allowed to choose their next seats. This reward was odd because the kids were not really choosing who they were going to sit with, just where they would sit--the teacher would assign seats to everyone else. Nevertheless, the kids responded well to it enjoyed the idea of choosing their seats. My only problem with this system is the inherent competition. I think setting up this contest could be problematic and possibly create negative feeling (for the other students and the teacher) in the long run.

This is somewhat related, but one of my favorite things I've seen in a class was something the first teacher I ever worked with did: for little jobs and tasks around the class, she had a bucket she referred to as "the fates." Whenever a job needed to be done, she would "let fates decide" and select at random a name from the bucket. This way, it wasn't always the eager or "good" child who got to contribute.

Some teachers I've seen have deeply ingrained--but possibly unconscious or unintentional--ideas about specific kids, which can make any reward system problematic if it's not thoughtful and truly fair. Are you rewarding kids for something that every kid can actually do? The rewards become pointless if only certain kids have any hope of getting rewarded.

Having said this, I think the jar might be something I would try in my class. I like that it rewards group efforts. Even kids who may not always "have it together" can benefit and may see value in participating in positive acts when the whole class wants to succeed. I like that their is no real competition built in. I like that it does not punish or humiliate (obviously I would not remove marbles) anyone. The only caveat is that I would have to be consistent throughout the year. This is not to say that would reward every single good act, but I would try to keep the same frequency throughout the year. (In classroom management, we heard that intermittent rewards have the most long-lasting effect, but they cannot taper off completely, or the connection is severed).

More important than this, though, is the "reward" of reinforcement. That is, the consistent, very low-key verbal recognition of a job well done. After sufficient modeling and practice, consistent reinforcement is a small emotional reward that children crave--and lets them know they are doing well.

I think the key is to consider children's motivations: they mostly want to succeed want to please adults on some level. With this in mind, there are several ways to organize a classroom. The main point is that it needs to be thought out, fair, consistent, and emotionally tempered--not simply thrown together from memories of "what happened to me in elementary school."