After all, kids are exactly like dogs, aren’t they? Well, not in my mind, but in an operant system you have to concede that their faces look a little like dog faces, and their brains are a little like dog brains. Also, kids will eat junk food and jump around a lot. So do dogs! Aha!
So don’t be surprised be surprised that in this system when you ask why your child’s bed hasn’t been made, the child will have become operant-smart enough to come back with “Where is my operant reward of salivating food that will convince me to make my bed?”
I always thought the proper answer to this kind of question was “Your reward is breakfast, lunch and dinner.” But increasingly in our schools, the operant reward is more immediate. It is an immediate piece of candy to be put into the student’s hand, when he or she does something right. Effectively, it is the way to teach that doing something right should not become a habit, but as a bargaining point for a reward of candy.
Keep in mind that in most cases in elementary schools and often in middle schools, this is the cheapest, hardest and least digestive food reward a teacher can afford on an uneasy budget. To make it more affordable and to reward a maximum number of students for acting correctly, the candy is usually bought at a bulk rate and brought into the classroom to be stored in a closet space near the teacher’s desk. Usually the bag will stay there until close to the end of the day when the teacher rewards her “good” students.
In other cases, the candy might be given out immediately for answering a question correctly, like where the dog gets a snack as soon as he barks tonally.
Unlike the close laws and restrictions governing the food issued at school cafeterias and snack posts, there is no one checking all the food being distributed today from a classroom closet. There is no FDA checking for E coli, or locating the source of the food. Also because this type of candy is the cheapest of all refreshments, it is also like all cheap food the most dangerous, with hard candy sometimes coming in sizes that – were Jawbreakers small toys that could get stuck in a child’s throat – would not be issued without a warning to supervise its use.
The hard candy then becomes the main reward of today’s classroom. If say Booker T. Washington had written about the rewards of schooling today, it could not be about presenting learning as a reward, as it was called in Washington’s book, “Up From Slavery.”. It would be about having Tootsies Rolls as the school’s reward for its finest students and its modern Booker T. Washington’s.
I don’t wish to blame the students for the candy culture in our classrooms, where sometimes an entire closet space might be filled with bulk bags of sweets instead of learning tools. In fact, if a teacher truly sees learning as its own reward, that teacher truly rewards students with learning.
It is interesting that the great teachers of young people on a genius level like Einstein and Mozart were members in their own family, who recognized that the young Albert and the young Wolfgang had potential that went far the operant rewards and consequences of a Pavlov dog. But what if Einstein’s uncle – after introducing the young Albert to the mysteries of a compass – had rewarded his nephew’s interest in his physics lessons by giving him candy afterwards? Would Einstein have ever learned to celebrate physics under the powerful celebration of sugar? Would the earthy Mozart – instead of finding pleasure in music everywhere – with imposed sugar rewards go instead from shots of sugar to shots of alcohol and drugs, as do so many children in our times?
In fact, every person in history who has shown the benefits of a classical education had never had to have their schooling sugar-coated with actual sugar. The fact so much sugar is used in classrooms today as payment to undergo learning is another dreary testimony that knowledge today is not generally understood to be its own reward.
Chris Sharp- Commentary
Chris Sharp is an Educator and a prize-winning professional writer. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.