SAT Essay: Is learning Its Own Reward?

Learning and doing are their own rewards. No external rewards are required. However, when external rewards are introduced—whether attention and praise from parents or prizes from teachers—these rewards influence kids a lot. Instead of reading books to find out about the world, kids read to win prizes. Kids produce work and projects for rewards, but are they interested in learning or in the prize???


ASSIGNMENT:


Is it wrong or harmful to motivate people to learn or achieve something by offering them rewards? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

MY ESSAY:

Rewards can be a distraction from learning because it takes the focus off of the goal and puts it onto an object. When someone is hyper-focused on a reward, they are not as focused on the task at hand, which is learning and integrating new knowledge.

When you motivate learning with the proverbial "carrot on a stick", people begin behaving like pets. "Sit, Fido." Here's a treat. "Do your homework, Jenny." Here's a reward.

When you lose interest in learning, studying becomes boring instead of enjoyable. Reading feels like drudgery instead of being whisked away on an adventure in your own mind. Many kids think that school is boring and they're right! Traditional school is HORRIBLY boring because the focus is either on the grade or the prize, no where is the focus on the pride of learning something new. When we learn new things, we can apply them in other areas of our lives. In this way, learning should feel like opening up a magic box within yourself.

While some people argue that rewards are appropriate for short-term projects, experts say that the reality is different. Even for smaller projects, when the focus is taken off of the assignment and transferred to the reward, people lose interest, which diminishes the quality of their work. Rewards also stunt the creative side of people, it turns something fun into stress over whether or not you will be rewarded. When stress is on rewards and punishment, emphasis is never on learning.

If you are being rewarded with a prize instead of the thrill of learning, your punishment will be that you don't end up learning what you set-out to learn in the first place.