Is saying “Good Job!” a good thing?

This last week I read an article by Alfie Kohn entitled “5 Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job.’” I must say that as I began this article, I was skeptical. How could encouraging others in their success be a negative thing? But during the course of time it took to read this piece by Kohn, the author had me reevaluating when and how I give praise.

Kohn begins his article by pointing out that most adults see nothing wrong with what he terms as “giving praise.” Why? It is simply because many of us were praised as children. It seems innate to us to verbally reward someone for making their first basket or passing all their classes with high marks. But Kohn challenges his readers to look deeper into the reason why praise is given, how it is used, and makes the suggestion that it is not as positive a response as we may believe it to be.

Kohn makes his first argument by quoting Rheta DeVries, a professor of education from the University of Northern Iowa. When exclaims that praise is nothing more than “sugar-coated control…[that is a way] of doing something to children to get them to comply with our wishes” (1). Kohn goes on to say that this may indeed be effective when children are young and seeking to please their parents, but it is not long lasting and may leave children feeling like they have been manipulated (1).

The second point states that giving praise can produce praise addicts. Kohn makes his case clear that he is not saying parents or teachers should ignore the success of children, but rather should sparingly make value judgments of them (2). The more children are judged, the more it makes them insecure. The more insecure they become the more they will be hindered by apprehension. Praise, one of the most common motivators is actually a deterrent for positive growth.

In the last three points, the article argues that praising negatively affects and hinders children’s progress by stealing their personal pleasure of success, causes them to loose interest, and reduces their achievement. These digressions are caused by the inability of external motivation to produce self-satisfying and long lasting results. Children who are aiming to please, when they no longer receive praise, quit.
In response, Kohn proposes three alternatives to praise giving:

1) Say nothing. Often, people give praise because they don’t know what else to say. This does not mean that you never give positive or encouraging feed back. It just means that you should sparingly make a value judgment. Try encouraging in other ways that automatically saying: “Good job!”

2) Say what you saw. Giving a descriptive statement lets the child or learner know that you saw them do it. Kohn says that this allows the child to take pride in what they did (5).

3) Talk less and ask more. Get the student or child to reflect on what they just accomplished. Help them find their voice by leading them to make an evaluative conclusion.


Finally, Kohn makes is clear that he is not discouraging encouragement. Rather, he is getting adults to consider their motives: “Are our reactions helping the child to feel a sense of control over her life—or to constantly look to us for approval” (5). Praise-giving has become an almost mindless response to anyone who performs well on any task with possibly the classroom being the most prolific of locations in which it is given. In order to ensure that children are able to make confident, analytical and responsible decisions, it is important that they move beyond pleasing to thinking for themselves.

The most impacting portion of this article for me personally was the section on becoming addicted to praise. There have been times in my life where I craved the praise of others more than I cared about my own thoughts or feelings. I did not understand how this developed, but I knew that it was a problem that interfered with my independence and stability as a person. I see now that much of that has been shaped by society and has been constantly reinforced with praise. I am not yet sure that I will completely eliminate praise from my speech, but I am going to be more aware of my tendencies to give it, and will probably be more intentional in seeking other ways of encouraging and motivating others than by mindlessly saying “good job!”

Memory

Memory is fallible, but we can do things to improve our chances of remembering. Conduct the three experiments in the back of the article you have as well as these two experiments. What can we learn from these?

Role of Organization
1. Tell your group “The words you will hear are organized into four categories: fruits, flowers, cities, and countries. I will read a list of words aloud. Each set of four words will include a member of each category: fruits, flowers, cities, and countries. In addition, each word in a set of four will begin with the same letter.”
2. When you are ready, read the following words aloud from left to right and remember to give your group the following hints
a. The words you will hear are organized into four categories: fruits, flowers, cities, and countries
b. Each set of four words will include a member of each category.
c. Each word in a set of four will begin with the same letter.

Tomato Tulip Toronto Turkey
Raspberry Rose Reno Russia
Lemon Lily London Luxembourg
Banana Bluebonnet Boston Brazil
Cantaloupe Carnation Cancun Canada
Grape Geranium Geneva Germany


Once you’ve read the words, ask your members to write down as many as they can remember.

Performance on this list usually exceeds the typical five to nine item recall found on the initial list. Discuss the importance of organization.




Short Term Memory
1. Ask your group members to listen to all of the following words but not to take notes.


Tulip
Center
Carpet
Book
Window
Pony
Russia
Lime
Disk
Sidewalk
Table
Salad
Phone
Coffee
Pillow



2. Ask your group to write down as many words as they can. See how they did.
3. Now read the next list to your group members and ask the students to DO the things you say.


Blink
Cough
Clap
Lean
Sneeze
Scratch
Squint
Twist
Squeeze
Wink
Yawn
Reach
Stretch
Gargle
Kick


1. Ask your group to write down as many items as they can remember.
2. Once written, give your group members information about the words read aloud in both groups.
3. Ask them how many they had correct.
4. Discuss the performance on the two tasks.
a. What is the role of the serial position effect?
b. The benefits of organization?
c. The role of elaboration?
d. The role of interference?
e. What is rote memorization and how does it apply here?
f. Why would distributed practice be better than massed practice?
i. Distributed practice: breaking a list of rote learning items into shorter lists
ii. Massed Practice: Practice for a single extended period

What I thought I knew about Behaviorism

For many years now I have been aware of the behavioral practices of Skinner and Pavlov. Their names recall in my mind common strategies for training pets or conducting scientific studies on animals. I was first introduced to behavioral learning in my TESL courses during my undergraduate studies. During that time I became aware of behavioral psychology, but I did not give it much credence because it seemed to be a shallow theory, one which ignored the cognitive and social aspects of learning. I did not (and still do not) think that humans are robots, and so I took note of the general aspects of the theory and then stuffed it somewhere in the back of my mind in a file that I don’t access much.

When reading through the possible syllabus for this course, I thought that I could very well skip over that chapters dealing with “Behavior Psychology” because I had already been introduced to those ideas. Well, little did I know that this chapter would open the door to a skeleton in my closet that has deeply influenced and affected not only my academic life by my social development as well. As it turns out, there are parts of my human existence that have been the product of behavioral practices, and if I am not intentional with my instruction of students, I may as well pass on many of these same manipulative and controlling tendencies –all in the name of education.

Behavior is an essential part of life. Our social interactions are affected by it. And there are reasons why people behave and act the way that they do. But is focusing on behavior an affective way to approach a relational situation? Possibly. At least for some aspects. But can a responsible model for education be solely concerned with external behaviors? Personally, I believe that to do so is not only to diminish an individual, but will but a severe roadblock in that person(s) future. Current research has show that an educational model that is only concerned with the positive and negative behaviors of children is ill equipped to properly motivate students to learn and in fact does act in some cases as a deterrent to learning. In my following posts I will unearth my own discoveries as to how deeply I have been affected by behaviorism as well as analyze and critique a few studies and models that relate to and challenge this school of thought.

Test run

Paula,

Thank you for the blog tips and for the discussion questions. I am working on them this morning, hopefully my post will be up this afternoon. If not, it should be by tomorrow morning. This is a test post to see if the email notifications are being sent.

jdf

First real day

And so here I am in the computer lab, trying to figure out how to allow others to post to my blog...thought this would be easier to figure you out, Blog! Perhaps my trouble with technology is nothing more than a lack of patience. Learned helplessness fits in there somewhere as well, I'm quite sure of it, but that is an entirely different discussion. Or maybe not. Maybe that is the discussion. Time will tell. But in the meantime, I'll be working to figure out how to structure manipulate this virtual wall of words.

recant

Today is a beginning of sorts.... For many years now, I have been aware of blogging and have avoided it like the plague. I heard mention of it made by various professors and friends over the years; and I readily dismissed such virtual nonsense as nothing more than a hopeless and senseless communicative act carried on by, "Those people who were attempting to make their voices heard amidst this endless vacuum called the net; those who were ‘bogging’ because they would probably never be published." (There is a certain snobbery that is possibly inevitable if one spends tens of thousands of dollars for an education spent reading the ‘authoritative’ classic and contemporary novels published in the English language.) Needless to say, I have recanted my judgment. My aversion to blogging has stemmed from my personal ignorance and struggle with computers and technology, an avoidance that I have now determined to rectify. So...here I am…beginning this virtual exploration of self, learning, and teaching. “Musings” is a personal experiment in educative journaling and dialogue designed to stretch and expand my creative and linguistic exploration of the theory and practices associated with professional education. Please feel free to comment, disagree, and provide input into my journey as I make my way towards becoming a certified teacher.

j.d.f.