Kicking the Sticker Addiction

Michelle Khouri

When Richard Curwin began his session, “How to Motivate Children Who Refuse to Learn,” his first question was “How many people in here have students who don’t want to learn?” An astonishing majority raised their hands, many while shaking there heads in chagrin. Curwin went on to explain that pride is the greatest motivator, driving kids to want to do things.

In general, educators don’t have a problem trying to induce pride in their students. The problem lies in the strategies used to make these students proud. Curwin pointed out the most common mistakes educators make when trying to elicit pride from their students:

• Giving students constant rewards results in rising expectations, and eventually no reward is good enough. If you keep giving students stickers for everything they do right, the minute you run out of stickers, students will stop seeing the need to put in effort.
• Using rewards as manipulation is never a good thing. “There is a difference between manipulation and genuine appreciation,” Curwin stressed.
• Setting standards that are too high sets students up for failure. Setting standards that are too low makes students feel like they have nothing to gain (they don’t feel pride when they succeed since it’s so easy) and everything to lose (if they don’t succeed at something addressed as “easy”).
• Employing the same technique on students too often results in satiation, which is when the effects of your strategy no longer work, because it has become trite to them.

Unmotivated students can be stressful. They can make educators feel hopeless and frustrated, telling themselves, “There is just no way to make this interesting for him/her.” According to Curwin, everything can be made interesting or inspiring. He advises teachers of four ways that may change students’ attitudes:

• Make the class relevant to what the student cares about.
• Build a personal relationships with the student.
• Make success attainable, but not too easily attainable.
• Show love and passion for what you teach.

“Any course can be motivating. It is never what is taught; it is always how it is taught,” said Curwin. Finally, he reminds educators that achievement is a product of effort, and students need their instructors to provide support and encouragement, while also providing a challenge.