The Rights and Wrongs of Learning Incentives

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments on my last post!  You helped me come up with an answer that I feel happy with.  The "inspiring" thing can be a bit tricky sometimes.  I'm not saying my present solution is right for everyone, but I think it's what we needed right now.

So, I've never liked the idea of giving children "learning incentives".  The "A.R" prizes at school for reading certain books, or the reading programs at the libraries seemed a little off to me.  I saw children reading books that were too simple for them in order to read more pages and earn a prize.  The biggest problem with it though is that children read for the sake of something other than reading.  I wanted my children to fall in love with reading.  Those programs didn't seem to promote that.

I feel the same way about grades.  A child is not going to learn science for the sake of getting an "A" on a report card.  They may do the requirements needed to earn that grade, but they are not going to really learn science.  They are not going to be fascinated and intrigued enough to really understand it.  Those ulterior motives seemed rather counter-productive to me.

Those are some of the reasons why I wanted to homeschool.  I didn't want my children being motivated by something that would distract them from the real motivation of seeking for beauty and truth.

The Demilles talk about using a bean jar as an incentive for children when they need an incentive.  I used it for teaching children to work and it was a fun little incentive.  I  recently read a great post with some great ideas about how to use it.

I didn't want to use a bean jar for learning incentives for the reasons stated above, but as I've thought about the difference between acquiring knowlege of truth and acquring skills (see my last post), I realize that using incentives is a great way to help children learn basic skills!  Thank-you to Beth for posting about the following video on my comments:



Skills are often mechanical, basic actions that need to be practiced.  The intrinsic rewards for practicing the skill are not usually immediate and therefore hard for a young child to do the hard work that is necessary.  Little incentives to help them with these skills could be really helpful - especially if the incentives are tied to the intrinsic reward in some way.

In my home, I don't have a need to offer incentives for learning to read.  I guess the children have been exposed to stories often enough that they are anxious to do it themselves.  That and example have been enough for my four year old.  He sees his brother and sisters doing it so much that he can't wait to be able to read.   So far, I have not needed to offer arithmetic incentives either.  There is enough arithmetic around the home that they get curios and ask questions.  The placemats have inspired the older kids to work on their times tables.  I have, however, found a need to do something about Bud's penmanship!

As I was cleaning under the couch in the basement yesterday, I stumbled upon the perfect thing!  I found a beautiful, leather-bound Hogwart's journal.  I asked Spice where it came from and she said that grandma had brought it over last weekend for Bud to write his stories (my mom had just returned from Florida where she had been to the Harry Potter theme park).  I said to Spice, "Bud isn't ready for something this nice yet." (And obviously, he didn't value it as it had been laying under the couch for a week).

After I finished downstairs, I took the book upstairs with me and found Bud.  I said, "Bud, I found this beautiful book that your grandma gave you!  I'm going to put it up to keep it safe until you are ready for it."

"What do you mean?  I'm ready for it now!"

"Well, this is a beautiful book and you need to have beautiful handwriting to go into it."

"I already know how to write."

"Yes, you write well, but you need to write really great for a book like this."

"Are you saying that I'm not a good writer?"

"The things you write are excellent!  I'm talking about the way you form your letters.  Sometimes, some are backwards and sometimes you forget the spaces - little things like that.  You are really close to mastering it, so I'm sure I won't have to put it up for very long."

He hugged me and cried (it's a amazing how desirable a thing becomes once you are told you can't have it!), and complained that it was his, because his grandma had given it to him.  I explained that it was still his, he just wouldn't be allowed to use it until he was ready.

"If we work on one letter a day, you can have it in a month - maybe sooner."

He wiped his tears and said, "Okay."

Later that day, I asked him if he wanted a cursive handwriting lesson (because cursive looks nice and it will help him write faster once he masters it) - he did.  I showed him how to form a cursive "a".  He got it looking really nice and I told him we'd move on to the next letter tomorrow.  Little Miss also wanted a cursive writing lesson.  She didn't want to stop with one letter so I showed her two.  She still didn't want to stop, but I told her we'd wait.   I wanted to make sure she was hungry for more (those two have very different personalities!)

Bud got out his old story and decided to keep working on it.  I worried because I knew he would keep practicing his letters wrong, but I couldn't take that away from him (I'm not as harsh as I may have sounded above!)  I was happily surprised to see him being more careful with how he wrote his letters.  He showed me the difference from how he "used to write" and how much nicer he writes now.  What a trooper!

Thank-you all for your "requiring" stories and wisdom!