Back to school time has resurrected a time-honored debate and, for me, an old wound.
“Back-to-school math for parents: What’s an A worth?” read the Reuters financial column in August 2013 about motivating children to work hard in school (or at least get good grades), incentivizing practice for their violin lessons (or at least fake the time), and making it attractive to spend less time on their digital devices (or at least imitate reading a book instead). It’s a seasonal roundup of views on parenting techniques to motivate accomplishment in the young. There are myriad rewards systems out there, almost like frequent flyer miles for travel, to leverage better grades, room cleaning, or better behavior.
But there’s one voice missing.
I was deprived of an appropriately coercive upbringing by my parents’ refusal to imitate these other parents. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have bribed me with a modicum of filthy lucre, a few new electronic appliances, or that gold 10-speed bike I coveted — like my friends’ parents did? Life would have been so much easier — and lucrative — with this simple cause-effect relationship between school achievement or manners and money.
What were my parents thinking? There’s a work ethic implicit in giving dollars for an “A,” or television privileges for good report cards. What’s so wrong about connecting the dots between obeying the rules and having treats? Is it not a form of bonus pay or working on commission?
Oh, the burden of growing up with intrinsic motivation held aloft as virtue — before such a concept found modest traction in the education culture at large. But no — we had to be raised on Socratic values, on the conundrum of a question like, “If something isn’t worth doing, is it worth doing well?” Take algebra, in my case: No! And yet….my answer cost me a second year in Algebra I. I showed them, all right!
If an “A” in English happens in 10th grade, and no one gets a little moolah for it, is it really worth it?
A wholesome hierarchy of thinking skills, personal honor, reflection and self-knowledge were my parents’ weapons of choice. The lessons embedded in literature, and philosophy, and history were apparently priceless. Even Miss Burt’s ninth grade Shakespeare class was building character and a worldly set of values beyond the reach of the parent-child marketplace.
Add to that a culture in our home of reading for pleasure, even inspiration. Quotes galore suggesting that school in general had something to do with the pursuit of wisdom were left lying around indiscriminately in the view of the children. There were even poems suggesting that learning how to think was a reward and an end in itself. Mom and Dad cruelly impressed on us that we kids should work merely for the reward of insight and joy, for the assured payoff of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. They actually felt that learning was about self-improvement. They smote us with the love of learning.
How warped. “This is America,” I wanted to say. “Here too in Capitalist Arcadia, an ‘A’ in English or social studies class, at the local rate of exchange (1960s), should be worth $10.” It didn’t work on them, and it didn’t even work on me, so insidious were the parental arguments. I had been brainwashed into thinking that academic work had a worthiness for its own sake. I had internalized their appeals to my sense of honor, disguised as my own thoughts.
“I think therefore I am.” Mom! Please! Where’s your wallet?
“Song of myself,” by Walt Whitman, for a Christmas present? Dad! You’re killin’ me here!
“To Thine own self be true!” Get thee behind me, Mom. Show me the money!
All three of us kids were English majors in college. You’re welcome! Now pay up!
So how did I earn the money to buy that 10-speed bicycle back in seventh grade? I worked for it — mowed lawns. No shortcuts or cheating. School was about learning; mowing was about earning. Never the twain shall meet, unfortunately.
Yup, Mom and Dad really failed me by not using cash and tawdry gifts as motivational tools. But I suppose it’s made me the man I am today. And the parent I’ve tried to be for my kids. I’m afraid I’ve passed on the suffering to the next generation. What a twisted fate. “What fools these mortals be.” D’oh! There I go again.
Todd R. Nelson is principal of the Brooksville Elementary School.