10-second review: Too much in teaching focuses on punishment for not doing things; why not focus on rewards?
Summary: “There is too much emphasis in the world on trying to get people to do things by threatening them with punishment rather than by offering them positive rewards. That’s true in all spheres, including government education and child rearing.”
Source: BF Skinner. U.S. News and World Report (November 3, 1980), 79.
Comment: The message of Walden Two. The best reward in teaching is to show students that they can develop and master the skills you are teaching. When students realize that they can read and they can write, that they encounter and understand the words they have covered in vocabulary, that people enjoy reading what they have written, that they have gained new ideas in reading and can discuss them intelligently, that they can stand in front of a room and deliver a tightly organized formal speech, students will feel the glow of achievement. The best way to teach them these things is to show them how and watch them succeed. Punishment means failure. RayS.
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