Incentives or Sellouts
Today I read an article from SFGATE entitled “Critics Target Pizza Hut Reading Program.” In the article Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, calls on all parents to end participation in the Book-It program. I helped teachers participate in this program in Iowa, Illinois and Kentucky years ago, but when I came to Nashville the teachers didn’t want to participate. While the concept of rewarding students who meet reading goals with a free personal pan pizza is exciting to that child, most of my students’ families cannot afford to go with them to purchase their own food while the winner reaps his/her reward. For every program we promote, I have teachers who choose whether they will participate or not based upon whether this will put extra pressure on the families or not.
Think of how many times we give out food coupons, movie coupons, bowling coupons, etc. Read the fine print to see if the families are expected to make additional purchases. While my own children attended school in a different district during their elementary careers they came home with as many as 10 coupons after a 9 weeks’s award program. It was actually difficult for me to use up all the coupons and frequently became difficult to balance providing equivalent amounts of food & fun for all 4 boys. Not all teachers awarded equally or fairly.
I was actually relieved when the boys outgrew their excitement over extrinsic rewards. Because they saw no correlation between their actions and their rewards, the random awarding of prizes meant nothing. The Book-It program does allow students to set goals to reach. If students could get their pizzas to go, perhaps families would find it easier to participate.
Awarding prizes for doing things we should intrinsically enjoy is flawed. This year my P.T.A. is running an A.R. store every 6 weeks. I cannot passionately support this, but I do contribute prizes to help - books, shampoo, necessities. I will help announce our local minor league baseball team the Nashville Sounds'’ reading program. In years past the highlight was a ticket to the game for the child (parents had to purchase their own). Last year they changed the program so the homerun highlight was a free book at Barnes & Noble while the ticket was a base prize. How do you personally feel about prizes and corporate promotions?
