Is it a bribe when your employer cuts you a paycheck for doing your job?
We are all motivated by reward, especially when that reward is money. Most people will not work without getting paid. School is work. I’m not advocating for every kid getting paid for good grades, but I fail to see how this is functionally different than any other reward scheme, including basic employment as an adult.
I have no plans to pay my kid for grades. But if my kid’s grades were slipping I’d do just about anything to get him to work harder at school. Kids at that age have no concept of the consequences of poor grades.
I think you’re overestimating how much other kids would care about this. I was not paid for grades growing up and I couldn’t have cared less whether other kids were. And yes, we were poor. And I was a straight-A student, if that somehow changes anything.
One significant difference, which I mentioned upthread, is that “basic employment as an adult” is getting paid for doing something that benefits someone else. That’s why you could get a paying job as a maid or a dishwasher, but nobody’s going to pay you for cleaning your own house or washing your own dishes.
Although it’s true that adults sometimes resort to somehow rewarding or “bribing” themselves to do their own chores, or people who live together sometimes do something like this for each other.
And it’s also true that, if you go to school and get an education, that benefits society, not just yourself. (Which is at least part of why society pays for schools.)
“At that age” what are the consequences of poor grades? The grades themselves?
I guess in extreme cases not advancing into the next grade level. But the “for all As”, or even “for each A” such is not the bit that applies there.
At what age do grades have lasting consequences? Maybe High School? And there … maybe. But someone getting more Bs than As, even no As, can still get into a decent college. And no one is going to later hire you based on your High School GPA. College? Mainly if you are going to apply for some graduate education.
ISTM that grades are the (very imperfect) payment, the reinforcer, for having demonstrated that you are learning, both information and skills being assessed. But for most values of “at that age” they actually have little importance themselves.
Honestly I see more kids harmed by the belief that they need all As than likely to benefit by payment to achieve such.
How best to motivate extremely short-sighted kids towards the long-term goal of being a good student that leads to the opportunity for higher education that leads to the opportunity for a more successful and fulfilled life. Both intellectually and materially.
Whether / how grades are useful metrics of learning and whether / how they act as gatekeepers to those later steps up the ladder.
Unrelated to the above …
And that is exactly what I’d expect of a poor school drawing kids from a poor community. And the polar opposite of what I’d expect from a more prosperous school drawing kids from a prosperous community. Well-off suburbanites teach their kids runaway materialism very very early.
I believe offering young grade-schoolers a small, non-extravagant gift (including a small cash reward) for good grades can encourage them to associate academic success with positive reinforcement. For older kids, though, a sincere acknowledgment or pat on the back should suffice. I did so with my kids and they turned out to be hooligans good citizens.
ISTM that in this discussion the second is a sub question of the first.
Grades can be an imperfect, delayed/intermittent, but useful metric of learning assessment throughout. And at the High School level they are a gatekeeper to which higher education opportunities a student has, but for the majority not to having higher education opportunities.
IMHO myopic excessive focus on grades as the goal, rather than a very limited means of assessing progress towards the real goals can be counterproductive more often than useful. It is of the same flavor as the excessive reliance on standardized testing to determine school and teacher quality with response of teaching only to and for the test.
I just want to make sure everyone remembers that $100 a semester these days truly does not buy you much. That like, barely covers a Netflix subscription. It’s like, a decent burger meal and a movie ticket with a friend. It’s far more a symbolic gesture than a meaningfully motivating amount of money.
This board has trended older over time and I just want to make sure we don’t fall into the tendency we all swore we would never succumb to when we age which is the “back in my day, a coke used to cost a nickel” out-of-touchness with modern prices.
Like, according to the inflation calculator, giving the kid $100 for all straight As would have been about the same as your parent saying they’ll give you a buck for every A you bring home. I think you would have understood as a child that the dollar was more of a symbol of their pride for you than any meaningful form of compensation.
For me this is not a question of remembering. I really have no idea if this is a large or small amount of money. How long is a semester? How hard is it to get all As? And in the ‘buck for an A’ offer, how often do you get a grade, and is it one per subject, or what?
Pay or not pay your kids for good grades, I don’t care. But the argument that doing so somehow turns what should otherwise be a pure and altruistic love of learning into a cold transactional arrangement is stupid because it is already done, in a myriad of ways. Students are, and have always been, rewarded for good grades, both institutionally and personally.
I received a merit scholarship for college that was based, in part, on my good grades. That scholarship equated to a certain dollar value. To maintain that scholarship year over year, I was required to maintain a 3.0 GPA. Did that scholarship defile the purity of the learning process? Was it a bribe for me to get good grades? Should scholarships based on academic achievement be discouraged?
What about offers of employment, or admittance to professional schools (law, medical, etc.) that require a minimum level of academic success to be a successful candidate? Are those also “bribes” for good grades?
The fact is that good grades are always rewarded in society, in one way or another, and the idea that adding some nominal cash payout from your parents somehow takes this idea too far is silly in my opinion.
I’m not sure anyone is going that far. Certainly not me, even though I would argue that it does not facilitate a love of learning (which has nothing to do with altruism, no idea where that comes into it), nor is it particularly effective at rewarding the day in day out behaviors that in my mind are the actual target. (Again very similar in my mind to focusing on everyday nutrition choices and exercise habits, not on what the scale says.)
Clearly acknowledged that grades can matter in High School and college. The OP was describing in Middle School. Developmentally a completely different beast. And as parents neither my wife or I gave a shit if any of the kids made the 90+ (or 93 depending on the class) that was an A or were 87 and a B, or whether the kids themselves cared much. We only cared that they were making a decent good faith effort (not an obsessive one) and we were joyous if occasionally at that age they would share a bit about what they were learning or ask “Dad, did you know …” about what was being covered. I would be annoyed at Cs only because I knew that meant a lack of any reasonable effort; they each were clearly capable of A/B work.
Why should any parent care if their child is the straight A student in Middle School? Bragging rights? What is the likely lesson learned by a child working hard and not getting the reward because despite their hard work they still got a B?
We’re missing the bigger debate.
What are grades?
Why would a kid care what letter or number was on top of his test?
Some don’t.
Some do.
That starts at home. Before school ever starts. Kid picked up his blocks, star on the chart. Ate his veggies? Dollop of whipped cream on dessert.
I do believe its been a barter/trade/deal system, forever. Then turned into I’ll trade now but I can’t give you the eggs til my chickens lay them. So…credit.
Then paper or coins(I guess after shiny stones or magic sticks).
Doing to get/expect nothing in return is a learned behavior. It’s called volunteerism. Generosity of time, heart, spirit and yes, dollar bills.
If you think of it as wam-pum or trade spices, cash money is just another trade good.
He counted the 'A’s in a dramatic flourish at the dinner table. By age, youngest to oldest.
He had a little notebook. By each name he wrote the number. Made mention if my stupid brother got one more A than last time.
Never compared children.
Clearly, I was the smartest. He didn’t wanna embarrass me(jk)
I doubt it occurred to him to make an upgrade for an All A report card.
I get your point, and it’s well made. But while my post was indeed focusing on HS and college, the fact is that good grades are rewarded at every level, even in grade school. You made the honor roll, you got a blue ribbon, you’re in the special “young engineers” class with the other smart kids, etc. Each of these is intended to honor the kids and make them feel special and good about doing well in school. My opinion is that parents throwing a few bucks to the kids for straight A’s is probably pretty far down the pole of what motivates them to get the good grades in the first place.
I’m a parent and a teacher and the devil not only is in the details, but the personalities of not only the child but also the parent or teacher.
Some systems work with some kids, others don’t. Some systems work with one teacher or parent but not another.
I saw an interview with John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach, and he was talking about what motivated different players. He was such a good coach and was fantastic at finding the particular things which got the most out of each of his players.
I think that the choice of words for the title is telling. What if the title were “Should kids be rewarded for good grades?”
I wonder if the OP would object if the reward were something else. What if the parents were to take the kid out to dinner if he got straight A’s? Would people have the same objections? What if the reward still is cash, but less money?
IANAT, but I have kids and I remember being a kid myself.
My parents never gave me a physical reward for good grades, but they were good parents. In grade school, just hearing “good job!” was motivation enough to keep me studying, and “you can do better” was motivation enough to try harder. Sure, I’d rather have been out playing baseball with my friends, but pleasing my parents was important to me and helped me realize school was something to take seriously (or as seriously as a grade-schooler can).
By middle and high school, I didn’t need my parents’ approval or disapproval (I still recall their disappointment when I got a D in chemistry—what can I say, I had girls on my mind), but it was still appreciated and gave me a little push to improve. By then, I realized good grades would help me do what I wanted later in life, so I was self-motivated.
I don’t think it’s the size or type of reward kids get—especially young kids—it’s the positive reinforcement they receive from family and friends, even if it’s just a nod.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t have loved a cash reward for good grades (or a Mercedes-Benz, like some fancy prep-school kids nearby got), but it wasn’t necessary.
I think it’s the monetization or quid pro quo-ization of learning which should be a thing that kids want to do because they’re curious. Kids should want to do well and learn without it being part of a transaction.
My view, though, is that love of learning is one thing, sitting at the table doing a dozen polynomial graphs for homework is something different. Even if you like math it’s an awful lot like work.