Dear Editor:
Before Demarest Middle School commits itself to a program of paying students to read books, I would suggest taking a look at the work of Alfie Kohn first. Kohn, who was educated at Brown University and the University of Chicago, is a former teacher who lectures and conducts workshops for educators, parents, managers and researchers across the country and abroad. He also writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education and social theory, and his essays appear frequently in the op ed pages of the New York Times. In his critically acclaimed 1993 book Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes, Kohn points out that when you give a child a goody as a reward for reading a book, you inadvertently make the goody more important than the book. The cumulative message we give students when we need to bribe them to get them to read is that the innate pleasure of reading is not its own best reward. While this might work as a quick fix, it’s less likely to produce life-long learners with a genuine love of reading.
Kohn is part of a recent critique of behaviorism, the theory which supports a rewards based approach to learning. Behaviorism was primarily the invention of one man, B.F. Skinner, who wrongly applied the results of experiments involving rats and pigeons running through mazes to a theory of human behavior. Though it once held a suffocating grip on the consciousness of the 20th century, today behaviorism is everywhere in retreat. This is even true on the parenting front. Today a caring parent is much more likely to talk to their crying child to find out what’s wrong, whereas the old behavioristic model advocated bribing a child to “be good” with a reward, like a piece of candy. Not only does this demean the child by placing him/her on the same level as the family pet, the real problem which caused the child to be upset in the first place is ignored.
In educational circles, the learning strategies supported by behaviorism, like paying students to read, are wisely being re-evaluated. And isn’t the fact that the business person who brought this reading program to Demarest, and who is financing it, says he was inspired by an idea from Newt Gingrich a cause for alarm in itself? In a society in which greed has become a social problem that schools should be trying to remedy rather than exacerbate, paying students to read would only reinforce the notion that all good things in life are connected with money. Sadly, young people today seem to have learned this lesson all too well already. While substitute teaching in Hoboken’s public schools a few years go, I used to hear students say, “It’s all about the Benjamins,” a lot, which was a reference to Benjamin Franklin’s face on the hundred dollar bill. If we pay them to read, we risk confirming for them that yes, you’re right, it is all about the Benjamins.
Though I’m sure Demarest educators began this program with the best of intentions, they owe it to themselves (and their students) to be mindful of Kohn’s ideas before implementing it.
John Bredin