rewards in 2nd grade

It's been busy in 2nd grade lately! There's always the daily routine of math, language arts, science, social studies, Bible, handwriting, and so forth. But, that's just the beginning. Between planning a field trip to the museum, writing and casting a script for our upcoming Easter chapel, and keeping track of 19 responsibility goals, it seems we don't have room for much more in 2JB. 


Yet in the midst of it all, teachers at ECES make it a priority (at least) once a year to give our students a unique opportunity to learn through problem-based learning (PBL). It's easy to see that our world is full of problems that these young ones will inevitably face, and we want to prepare them by giving students the chance to formulate solutions already at an early age. Each year, students at every grade level are presented with a problem. Together as a class, students learn more about the problem and decide on an appropriate response to help solve the problem.


Second grade is currently in the thick of our PBL project for this year. Since we are studying animal camouflage and habitats in science, we thought it would be appropriate to challenge our students with the problem of endangered animals. Students became very interested in this topic and were eager to find out why animals become endangered, and what we can do to help. In response, students are busy creating shadow boxes (dioramas) of various endangered animals in their habitats. We plan to display these projects in our school library next week and invite the student body to visit our "museum" in order to raise awareness of endangered animals. But the second grade students did not want to stop there! They were quick to suggest that we should also somehow raise money for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a well-known organization that helps to protect endangered animals. We decided that when students come to visit our "museum," they will have the opportunity to join us in caring for God's creation and buy an endangered animal pencil for 50 cents. All of our profits will be donated to the WWF.

Another reason we chose the problem of endangered animals is because students at ECES have been striving to develop responsibility during the month of February. As one of our school's core values, it is important to us that students learn to be responsible. Students in all grades were asked to come up with 2 responsibility goals to strive for during this month - a home goal and a school goal. Each class is also working toward a class goal together. (My students are doing a great job of keeping their backpacks and jackets on their hooks and off the floor!) We found that this theme of responsibility ties in nicely with our calling as Christians to respect and protect God's creation. God calls us to care for the Earth and everything in it. What better reason to be responsible?

During this PBL project, I've found that the most difficult part of it all is helping 7-8 year olds understand the reasons why we should be responsible. At this young age, many of them have a hard time working toward a goal without the promise of a reward at the end. I do my best to explain that developing new habits (being able to form letters correctly, or sit attentively through a lesson, or complete work neatly) is a reward in itself. Being responsible allows us to strive for excellence (another one of our school's core values) and do everything for God's glory. But to an extrinsically motivated second grader, that simply doesn't cut it. "You mean we don't get a prize for being responsible? No toy or piece of candy?  Are you kidding me, Mrs. Beverly?"


I quickly realized that a sticker on their responsibility charts simply wasn't enough for many of my students. They needed something more to motivate them to be responsible. I knew that I must incorporate some kind of reward for a completed responsibility chart, but did not want this reward to be the sole reason for their being responsible. This is when we decided to partner with our students' parents. Our proposal was that parents donate $5.00 to the WWF if their child completed his/her school responsibility goal 25 or more of the 30 possible days on the chart. If students were responsible 20 or more of the 30 days, parents would donate only $4.00, and so on. This way, students earn a reward for their hard work, but the money is still going to a worthy cause. I thought it was genius, and was thrilled when parents agreed to the plan. I was eager to share this reward system with my students...

Upon hearing the idea, many students hopped right on board. A large majority of my class has a genuine desire to care for animals of all kinds, and these students were excited that they could help endangered animals simply by being responsible. I was thrilled to see their eager smiles ... until it was time to answer their questions. One hand shot up quickly to say, "You said we would get a reward. I still don't see what we are getting out of this." Ugh. Clearly everything I had said up to that point was not sinking in for this small boy. Before I could get a word out to answer, another student spoke up - "The reward is helping the animals! Don't you want to protect God's creation?" Well at least some of them are catching on the way I hoped. But, I was still discouraged by the frown on this small boy's face. He still wanted to know what was in it for him.


Though most of my students were overly motivated by this plan, I was still discouraged by the one who wasn't. I couldn't help but partly blame myself for his selfish desires. Did I help to instill this need for a physical reward? You see, this same small boy is one of a few students in my class who have a daily behavior chart. If he completes the appropriate tasks on the chart throughout the school day, he is rewarded at home with quarters. These quarters are meant to be saved until he can buy something he has been waiting for. I imagined this small Lego-loving boy would stack up his quarters until he could purchase the next set on his list.


Or so I thought until I received this email from his mom just yesterday:


I just wanted to share with you that [small boy's] been collecting quarters in a jar ever since we've started the behavior chart. He wants to use those quarters to donate towards the wildlife conservation. I thought that was pretty neat. :)

Pretty neat? I think it's outstanding! This took me completely by surprise. I have no idea what changed his mind, but clearly this small boy is not just thinking of himself. It's rewards like this one that make the difficulty and busyness of my job oh-so-worthwhile.