Drive Responses

Discuss a time when you’ve seen one of the seven deadly flaws of carrots and sticks in action. What lessons might you or others learn from the experience? Have you seen instances when carrots and sticks have been effective. 

As you think about your own best work, what aspect of autonomy has been most important to you? Autonomy over what you do (task), when you do it (time), how you do it (technique), or with whom you do it (team)?...

1.They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
2.They can diminish performance
3.They can crush creativity
4.They can crowd out good behavior
5.They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior
6.They can become addictive
7.They can foster short-term thinking

As a product of twelve years of Catholic school, I gotta love the term "7 deadly flaws of carrots and sticks".  I do agree with the term because carrots and sticks deaden so much of what makes us truly special.  I love the Yeats quote "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire".  When students work towards extrinsic rewards, they do only what is necessary to obtain the short term reward.  This reminds me of the questions that Wesch recorded in his video: "What do I need to learn?  Will this be on the test?  How much do I have to do?" in order to earn the grade.

Kohn speaks about this extensively in his book entitled "Punished by Rewards".  He goes so far as to call grades the ultimate in meaningless rewards.  Do rewards work?  I've used rewards in my classroom intentionally for short-term goals on non-cognitive tasks.  For example, before  Open House and Back-to-School nights, I would tell the students that if we all worked to clean-up the classroom, we could have extra recess.  

My best work has been in environments that supported autonomy while also providing structure.  I am most proud of my work shaping and creating authentic Montessori learning environments over the past twelve years.  The charter school movement has provided the structure and the accountability needed to ensure that students receive a standards-based education while giving administrators and teachers a way in which to use non-traditional methodologies and philosophies.