From the archives

Today has been busy but not terribly blog-worthy. Here I am with only 4 hours left before midnight, and I feel a mild sense of panic that I might not get my post in for the day. I've decided therefore to tap the archives. If you were reading the San Antonio Express News back on September 29, 2002, you've already read this, so feel free to move on to another blog:

Schools churn out reward junkies
Irony is at work in our public schools. Numerous studies show that when you offer children rewards (such as stickers and candy) for important behaviors and values (such as reading or good citizenship), you get incredibly good results - in the short run. Over time, however, outside rewards actually diminish the likelihood of the desired behavior continuing.

Yet our schools are hooked on the myth that if they just toss out more pizza, more candy, more stickers, they will create children who naturally do all the things we want them to do. Instead, they destroy inner motivation and risk turning children into reward junkies.

My daughter attends second grade in an exemplary-rated, Blue Ribbon school. Last year I saw Popsicles handed to children for parent participation in PTA; stickers doled out for good behavior; ice cream traded for art contest entries; cookies and candy offered to promote recycling; and pizza and other prizes for reading.

Food is a popular motivator in our school. After all, what child doesn't enjoy pizza, cookies and candy? But if stickers and gold stars are potentially damaging to a child's natural enthusiasm for a task, food rewards are even worse, for they mess with how children view food.

Here in San Antonio (named America's seventh fattest city by Men's Fitness magazine), we worry about the nutritional value of school lunches. We fret over the presence of soda machines on campuses. Our mayor wants us to transform this fat city into a fit city.

Yet we have no qualms about teaching our children that food - especially junk food - is what you get when you're really, really good.

When rewards fail to achieve our desired goals, we flip to the other side: punishment. What can you do now that you can't send a misbehaving child to the principal's office for a paddling? You take away recess! Carbs for good behavior; inactivity for bad.

In our school, second-graders receive stickers for doing their homework. They also know that "failure to complete or return homework will result in the loss of Friday's recess."

I want my child to do her homework. I want her to do it because the homework is a meaningful part of her educational experience and because she enjoys learning. I don't want her to do it to get a sticker or "earn" the chance to run with her friends in the fresh air for 20 minutes.

Children should behave because it's right and because it feels good to get along in one's community. If a child misbehaves repeatedly, it's not because of insufficient stickers or an excess of recess. We are fools to think that these manipulators will solve the problem.

Until we stop treating our children as raw material to be molded into a superior product, we will continue to miss the boat in a very tragic way. And all the exemplary ratings and Blue Ribbons in the world can't change that.

Bonnie Taylor, a stay-at-home mother, runs a free-lance indexing and editing business. She is the author of "Education and the Law: A Dictionary."

If you're very, very good, one day I will tell you all the details that led up to my little temper tantrum in the newspaper. I might even give you a cookie. But you have to be good.