There Has to be More Than the Carrot or the Stick

So much of our society is based on a carrot/stick motivation, and the most obvious purveyor of this method of motivation is the educational system.

For those not familiar with the metaphor, it is based on plowing.  You may have seen the cartoon with the donkey plowing with a stick dangling a carrot on a string out in front of him.  That might be one aspect of stick/carrot, but it is not the one I have in mind.  The one I have in mind is the reward/punishment aspect.  If the mule plows well, he receives a carrot.  If he doesn't plow well, he is beaten with a stick.

Our entire grading system is set up this way.  Students are offered an A and accolades for performing to teachers' expectations, and receive an F for not meeting those expectations.  This in turn translates to positive or negative treatment at home.

Punishment is meted out when students receive an F.  That is the stick.  Of course, studies in conditioning show that once the negative stimulus stops, eventually the student will return to the state of affairs prior to the punishment.

Rewards are given if students meet or exceed expectations.  This is the carrot.  Those same studies show that once the rewards stop, often the behavior which merited the reward.

Of course, we also can incorporate the dangled carrot metaphor as well.  We tell students that if they make good grades, they can get scholarships, etc.  Nice carrot.  If they get scholarships and go on to college, they can get a degree and then get a good job.  Nicer carrot.

Educators will tell you that in an ideal outcome of those scenarios, eventually students will internalize the motivation through some magical process, and become intrinsically  motivated.  And this does happen for some students.  Often, these students go on to become teachers, and, since it worked for them, they will also apply it and perpetuate the process.

I'm more concerned with those students who do not.  Students should not be treated as mules.  There are many students who immediately understand that the dangled carrot is not the promise of the carrot.  There are students who never internalize the motivation and who stop performing once the stimuli, positive or negative, stops.

There are also students who learn to always expect the stick.  Just as students internalize the positive aspect of the reward, there are others who internalize the negative aspect of the stick.  They come to believe that they will always, eventually, get the stick.  I believe the term for such students is oppositional defiant. 

Of course, developmental studies show us that younger children are not complicated enough to think beyond the carrot and the stick.  They perceive the entire world based on the effect on themselves.  That is a given.

But shouldn't an aspect of education concentrate solely on reaching those students for whom the carrot and the stick don't work? 

Students should be encouraged to develop into the people we want them to be.  Not mules, whether they are good mules or oppositional defiant mules.  That is what our current system does.  There has to be a better way.