Rhetorical Questions on "Punished By Rewards" by Alfie Kohn
Pg. 66: "… we assume that people naturally avoid
challenging themselves, that it is 'human nature' to be lazy. The evidence shows
that if anything deserves to be called natural, it is the tendency to seek optimal
challenge, to struggle to make sense of the world, to fool around with unfamiliar
ideas. Human beings are inclined to push themselves to succeed at something
(moderately) difficult." The endnote cites studies that show children intrinsically
motivated for tasks within their reach but "developmentally just beyond their
current level" which suggests "constructivism" (as a fundamental desire to make
sense of the world) refutes theories of "tension reduction," or homeostatic
models, that organisms 'always' seek a state of rest. In opposition to innate
laziness, the reference cites other researchers and various needs; to attain
competence, self-determination, satisfy curiosity, or to actualize our potential.
Does this academic language paraphrase a basic, intrinsic, genetically-favored
tendency for organisms to explore and often receive (intrinsically 'learned'
OR extrinsic) rewards when they 'get naughty' and test limits, as young mammals
do in play, as a cat will get up on the table and lick the butter when alone
in the house?
Pg. 184: People defend Performance Evaluations on
four principles: the need to determine pay, as a performance incentive, to sort
(employees / students), and provide feedback to diagnose. Pg. 206: "From Degrading
to De-Grading" suggests that teachers should minimize (sic) the "salience" (prominence)
of grades by; A limit on the number of graded assignments, Limit the number
of gradations (even to A or Incomplete), Never grade while students continue
to learn (what happened to feedback!), Never grade for effort, Never grade on
a curve, and to "Bring Students in on evaluation process to the fullest extent."
Doesn't this fail to recognize that some people's intrinsic and extrinsic factors
prime them to become sociopaths, that some seem to thrive on mind-numbing work
in punitive environments for substandard reward, that some people benefit most
from Vocational Training that matches their talents and interests, and that
only a subset of students will benefit from an educational process that imparts
the tools necessary for "constructivism" as a self-directed (curious) search
for competence, self-determination, and to actualize potential, i.e. to become
a member of a "Self-Actualized" and possibly altruistic subset of people involved
in the betterment of their societies, once freed from traditional limitations
on knowledge and class mobility?
Pg. 211: The book suggests teachers can "tap students'
motivation" when they; Allow for active learning, Give reasons for assignments
("if a task isn't heuristically (helping to learn, as by rules, etc.) valuable,
it shouldn't be assigned" ?!?!?), Elicit curiosity, Set an example, Welcome
mistakes. Do academics who specialize in educational theory ignore, or refuse
to recognize, the obvious analogy of the teacher - student relationship as a
basic Social Learning function of animal behavior, parentis loco, i.e. (my mom)
the dog lady characterizes training a champion obedience dog and raising children
with the observation that "Both children and dogs want to please, because they
love and respect you. Once you lose that, you've lost."?
Pg. 68: "If the goal is quality or a lasting commitment
to a value or behavior, then no artificial incentive can match the power of
intrinsic motivation." In the interview with B. F. Skinner, he ends by saying
creative people do not deserve credit for their accomplishments. Instead, their
personal life, their "exposure and training", the criticisms, etc. deserve responsibility,
and thus Beethoven wrote because "he was highly reinforced for writing." This
ignores evidence that Beethoven recognized frequencies (perfect pitch) and in
other ways, functioned exponentially beyond the capacities of most humans, all
the more obvious when we consider deafness did not halt his productivity. When
Academic researchers seek simple, mathematically reduced, rule-based algorithms
for descriptions of human realms, isn't that like studying music by throwing
bowling balls at pianos?
