Student of the Weak
(And no, that’s not a typo)
Le cours de français
When I was in grade three, our French teacher had a “Student of the Week” program. Each Friday at the end of our French lesson, she would award one of my classmates a certificate purportedly acknowledging their positive behaviour throughout the preceding five days.
I say one of my classmates because I never earned this designation. Not once in the entire third year.
Every Friday when it was the end of French class, I would sit up a little straighter in my seat and fold my hands neatly on top of my desk. I would hope.
I remember making it my goal to earn this coveted certificate one week, making an extra effort to be “good”. On Thursday I asked the teacher if she had chosen the student of the week yet, with all the innocence and hope only an 8 year old can display.
I didn’t get it.
I never did.
I now know that I was a spirited child with as-yet undiagnosed ADHD. I wasn’t diagnosed until age 36, so I had a long way to go before even beginning to have some understanding of my differences.
Presumably the goal of having a Student of the Week award was to encourage “good” behaviour (aka compliance). The students would be motivated by the possibility of having this honour bestowed upon us at the end of the week, and we would therefore take great pains to behave ourselves.
If we didn’t get the certificate one week, we would look inward, taking stock of our choices that week. We would scroll back through the mental movie of our lives, seeing the ways in which we had erred. We would learn from our mistakes and resolve to do better next time.
Sounds entirely reasonable for an eight year old child, right?
Nah
Based on studies of neurodevelopment, we know very well that children of this age do not yet have the neurological maturity to self-reflect in this way, nor make connections between present consequences and behaviour from days ago.
“Oh, so just give the reward daily instead of weekly,” you might think.
Also no.
Rewarding children (or anyone) for behaviour they are already doing anyway does the following:
- Changes their source of motivation from internal to external, making people more focused on the reward than on continuing what they were already doing in the first place
- Reduces the quality of the work or behaviour being externally rewarded, as people will perform just enough to receive the reward and nothing more
- Discourages creativity
- Diminishes both relationships and autonomy
Punishing children for being unable to do something:
- Further harms the adult-child relationship
- Unfairly punishes children for lacking the skills needed to meet an expectation
- Often results in children blaming their peers or the adults, rather than connecting their behaviour with the consequences
Note this is not because children want to cast blame, this is a natural result of being neurologically immature. When we can’t find a reasonable explanation for something we tend to look outward rather than inward.
Especially when we’re 8.
Weak but willing
One synonym for weak is powerless, and I think that is a perfect word to describe how children and students often feel.
Adults wield power and authority over them, able to reward and punish as they see fit, whether it’s fair and reasonable or not. If an adult has misjudged a situation, made assumptions, is biased, or just plain wrong, children have little recourse.
I want to share a list from Dr. Thomas Knestrict in his book, Controlling Our Children. This list focuses on the social (in)justice aspects of behavioural programming in schools, such as PBIS and ABA:
- ABA emphasizes difference and is premised upon unequal relationships of power.
- Special Education further supports these unequal relationships.
- ABA values obedience over autonomy.
- ABA constructs normalcy using a white, middle-class framework that emphasizes compliance.
If teachers and school staff are enforcing policies embedded with issues of ableism, racism, classism, and other inequities, they are inadvertently punishing children for not being cis-het, white, middle-class, non-disabled, and/or neurotypical.
More to come on these latter points, stay tuned.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
Related articles
Ways to support my work
You can leave a “tip” on Ko-Fi at https://Ko-Fi.com/NeurodiversityMB
Become a paid subscriber to my Substack publication
Check out my online store at https://NeurodiversityMB.ca/shop
Read and share my articles from twoemb.medium.com
Learn more
References
Miller, A.T., & Hom Jr., H.L. (1996). Conceptions of Ability and the Interpretation of Praise, Blame, and Material Rewards. The Journal of Experimental Education, 65(2), 163–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1997.9943790
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (2001). Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation in Education: Reconsidered Once Again. Review of Educational Research, 71(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543071001001
Gorski, P. & Swalwell, K. (2023). Fix Injustice, Not Kids: and other principles for transformative equity leadership. ASCD Books.
Greene, Ross, W. (2021). Lost & Found: Unlocking collaboration and compassion to help our most vulnerable, misunderstood students, and all the rest. (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Hennessey, B. A. (2000). Rewards and creativity. In C. Sansone & J. M. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: The search for optimal motivation and performance (pp. 55–78). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012619070-0/50025-8
Knestrict, T.D. (2019). Controlling Our Children: Hegemony and deconstructing the positive behavioural intervention support model. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Kohn, A. (2018). Punished by Rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Publishing.
Schunk, D.H. (1994). Self-Regulation of Self-Efficacy and Attributions in Academic Settings. In Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman, B. J. (Eds.). Self-regulation of learning and performance : issues and educational applications. L. Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203763353
Unterrainer, J.M., Kaller, C.P., Loosli, S.V., Heinze, K., Ruh, N., Paschke-Müller, M., Rauh, R., Biscaldi, M., Rahm, B. (2015). Looking ahead from age 6 to 13: A deeper insight into the development of planning ability. British Journal of Psychology, 106(1), 46–67. https://doi-org.uml.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/bjop.12065