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Mama used to tell me the story of an old farmer who was pulling his cart of vegetables to sell at the market with his donkey. About a mile before they reached town, the donkey stopped moving for no reason. The old farmer tried everything: he nudged his steed with his hand, he hollered at the old donkey, he even thought he might whack it with a nearby branch laying on the ground. Before the farmer grabbed the stick, he looked back in his cart and saw all the harvested carrots from his farm. The farmer had an idea, tied the carrot to a pole, and dangled the carrot just in front of the unmovable donkey. Suddenly the donkey started to walk—that carrot was mighty tasty looking to the old guy—and so they kept walking all the way into town. Once they arrived, the old farmer fed the donkey the carrot he had been following all that way.
Without going into advanced economic theory, I can tell you that the secret to getting motivated is incentive. Incentives can be positive, something we want to get, or they can be something we want to avoid (negative incentives). This is where the whole "carrot or the stick" thing comes from—as the old story goes; it's easier to make a donkey move by offering a delicious-looking carrot than threatening to beat the poor dude with a stick.
With that in mind, today, you are the donkey.
It's way better than being the carrot. Being the stick isn't so great either, to be honest. (Source)
READING: NEED CASH, WILL STUDY
Motivating students has always been difficult, and I totally get it. There are only so many algebra problems you can cram into your head before the sight of variables makes your head spin.
In some places, schools are actually offering cash money in exchange for good grades. That's one big carrot. What do you think? Would it be a good motivator?
Years ago, some schools used the "stick" theory of corporal punishment (like rulers smacking knuckles, not capital punishment like execution) for students, and some adults now say that it worked incredibly well for them, except for the part where they now have irrational fears of rulers.
Nowadays, everyone generally agrees that carrot motivation works better than stick motivation, but is that really the case?
The truth is, it isn't the school's job to motivate us. It's ours. It's part of being an adult, taking personal responsibility—you know the drill. We've got all these strategies in hand now for helping us to study more efficiently and effectively, but what if we just don't want to? Sometimes school is like a perpetual "Case of the Mondays" and we get that. We need motivation that works for us, and we can't just invoice the principal for every A we get in class, as nice as that would be. Although, that gives me an idea for later….
Anyway, until the day that we can invoice the principal, this is a DIY job. We can go carrot or we can go stick, but either way, we've got to find something that works. Maybe one of these?
Carrot Motivators (Rewards)
Carrot Motivators (Rewards)
Five minutes of brain break on social media
A jelly bean for every right answer (beware diabetes)
Buying a new movie or game
Cracking open the penalty jar for fun times
Stick Motivators (Penalties)
Stick Motivators (Penalties)
Five minutes of boring chores around the house
10 push-ups for every wrong answer
Banishment from the TV/Social Media/Phone for a day
Putting a dollar in the penalty jar
I'll be the first to say that negative incentives that we impose on ourselves are harder to enforce. If we wanted to do them, they wouldn't be negative, would they? This is where having an accountability buddy comes in. This idea of external accountability is gaining popularity with applications in which users sign up for and give their permission to be levied fines (for real money) for not meeting the goals they set. That sounds pretty motivational to me.
So, what's motivational to you? Today, we find out.
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