The Two-Edged Sword of Reward

My oldest son received a reading award today at his school for reading a set amount of books in a certain time period. I was very proud of his achievement and happy to be there to see him receive his certificate and frisbee. He was happy to get the frisbee. This award was particularly special because of the amount of work he had to do in a short time in order to qualify for the award. His mother and I are beaming with pride.

There were several awards given today and many children went home with the spoils of victory that come from hard work and dedication. I couldn't help but notice, though, that there were more children who went home with nothing than there were children who received awards. That got me to wondering about the whole concept of awarding those who achieve and giving nothing to those who do not acheive in the specified methods. Certainly, I understand that achievement should be noted and I do believe that rewarding one for achieving can be a powerful encourager to further success. I'm also thinking that repeated failure to award might be more powerful and do more harm that awarding acheivement does good.

My other son is playing tee ball in a league where no score is kept and no one is gotten out and parents clutter the field of play. The league leader told us all of this up front and made the comment that if we were there to win a game, then we were in the wrong league. The purpose of the league is to teach children team work, fundamentals of the game and things of that sort. So...after the first game, all the kids wanted to know who won. You should have heard the parents trying to explain who everyone was a winner and no one was a loser. It was interesting.

This concept of there being a winner and a loser and the idea of awarding those achieve and doing nothing for those who do not acheive is etched in our collective pschy. What might be better, though, is if we could teach every child to do his personal best and to compete with himself, then everyone would truly be a winner. There would never be a kid left out. There would never be a kid ridiculed for not excelling. Every person would be free to become his or her personal best and that is all any of us should hope for.