[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the program my good friend, Dr. Barbara Blackburn. Barbara is the author of 28 books and a well-known consultant who works with schools around the world to help raise the level of rigor and motivation for professional educators and for students alike. And we're here today to talk about her new book, which is aimed at educators as well as parents, called Money for Good Grades and Other Myths About Motivating Kids.
[00:43] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:45] SPEAKER_00:
Barbara, welcome back to the show.
[00:47] SPEAKER_01:
Oh, thank you. It is always a pleasure to be here.
[00:49] SPEAKER_00:
Well, thanks for joining me. And as both a parent and an educator, this question of how we motivate kids is such a critical one, right? We want kids to be motivated to do their very best work. We want kids at home to be motivated to do things that are worthwhile and to keep their rooms clean. We have lots of things that we want to motivate kids around. But you say in the book, and you even organize the book around eight myths about how motivation works and how kids can be motivated.
[01:23]
What are some of those myths? And why do you think they're so pervasive in our world?
[01:29] SPEAKER_01:
You know, I think that everybody has struggled with motivation so much. And I'm not going to say we've always looked for quick fixes, but we have looked for something that seems to work right now. And many of those things that work right now don't work in the long term. And so those have become some of the myths are the things that generally we assume to be true, but not necessarily are true. So, for example, one of the myths is motivating with rewards is the best option. And Everybody I know, including me, has used rewards.
[02:10]
We've either used points or free time or a trip or money or tokens. We've all used something. And it's because it works immediately. But it doesn't work over the long term. So, for example, part of that myth is that once you start rewarding kids, They just expect it all the time and they expect it to increase. And I saw this happen with a parent, but I was told about it from a second grade teacher.
[02:44]
And she had a student who, when she asked the students to line up for lunch, he wanted to know if he was going to get a point. And what happened was she was not using a point system, but the parents were because The young man had definitely been a problem. And so they had him earning points at home and at school. And I have to tell you that like when he earned 30 points, which was easily done in a week, they gave him $100. And that had increased from the starting amount of 10 because the longer it went on, the more he wanted. And so to keep him behaving, they had to increase the amount.
[03:24]
And then again, he started expecting it for everything. And that is what can happen with rewards. And so did it work for them? Yes. But there was a price to pay, in this case, literally, to keep it working. And so what we do find, for example, is that intrinsic motivation, although harder to encourage, actually works longer and is that long lasting even until adulthood.
[03:50] SPEAKER_00:
That raises the really interesting concept of hedonic adaptation, right? This idea that something that is very exciting or rewarding to us one time doesn't quite do it the next time. And we see this a lot with studies of addiction, you know, like buying one lottery ticket is a little bit exciting, but next time you got to buy two and eventually you're buying five, ten. Eventually you're spending your whole paycheck on lottery tickets. There's this cognitive kind of effect where we just get used to and no longer feel the same reaction to one kind of stimulus and we seek a bigger stimulus. And you're saying that happens with extrinsic rewards?
[04:23] SPEAKER_01:
The best example I've ever heard that really parallels what you're saying is Daniel Pink in his book Drive talks about extrinsic and he talks about a couple of things like he says it works best for very rote tasks. OK, which makes sense to me. But he also talks about that it really is like caffeine. It gives you an immediate shot, but then it wears off. And so if you are a coffee drinker, there are days that you probably go, wow, I need more than one cup of coffee today because I have a lot to deal with or it's the afternoon and I'm feeling sluggish. So I drink another cup of coffee.
[05:01]
That's exactly what it is.
[05:03] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, and I was thinking of kind of analogs to food as well, you know, that extrinsic rewards are kind of like the candy of motivation. You know, we know we need a more substantial meal. We know we need those intrinsic motivators to really take us where we want to go long term. But yeah, sure, a piece of candy in the short term sounds great. We just can't come to rely on that.
[05:25] SPEAKER_01:
It doesn't only sound like it. If you eat it, it feels like it. It gives you that short term boost. It's just that it wears off and the next time you need more. So again, it really does parallel what you're talking about.
[05:39] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, that hedonic adaptation. We always need more and it becomes unsustainable. Like the parent who was paying their kid 10 bucks a week to behave and now they're finding themselves paying their kid 100 bucks a week to behave. Clearly out of control here. So we need to think about some things other than just what will work right now in the moment. And we kind of know that as parents and educators.
[05:59]
So take us into some of the rest of your framework for understanding motivation.
[06:02] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, because all of it focuses on long term. It focuses on creating an environment and reinforcing behaviors that do make a difference. So the motivating with rewards shifts to intrinsic motivation. And it's so important. There's another whole chapter on it. And to do that, you've got to focus on what your kids value.
[06:24]
So in a classroom, that's the real life connections, whether that is if I'm a first grade teacher, it's putting a kid's dog's name in a word problem because they appreciate that. At the high school level or middle school level, it may be showing them how this is going to work in jobs or the military or school. At home, it is looking at things like what is your kid interested in? Okay, if on TV, they're interested in cartoons, what can you find for them to read that mimics cartoons? So a lot of times as parents, we're very averse to comic books and graphic novels. But that may be the best way to get your kid reading.
[07:06]
You know, another way if you want to intrinsically motivate them to read is they need to see you reading and you need to talk to them about why that's important to you and provide reading materials. But don't just have things around that you like. Take them to a bookstore, log on to Amazon and let them pick out what they want, even if it's not not if it's developmentally inappropriate. But if it's just an interest that you don't have or you're going, that's a waste of time. You know what? That is not a hill to die on.
[07:36]
You got to pick. And so it really is about looking at that intrinsic. So maybe they really like animals, but you are not in a financial position and this can be school or at home. You're not in a financial position to take them to a zoo. Well, there are plenty of online virtual zoos. So encouraging those kinds of things and taking advantage of technology because they love technology.
[08:04]
My niece right now who's in the seventh grade, if you can get her off your phone, great. Tell me how it works because that does not happen. But if I can say, okay, you spend some time on that, but then I want to spend a few minutes with you And I, you know, I know you're interested in animals. I found this really cool site. So I'm really tapping into what they value. And I think that kind of shift, it takes longer, but it does stick because like, I remember my parents taking me to libraries.
[08:41]
I remember that if we were in a store that wasn't necessarily a bookstore, we would still go over the magazine section and the book section and see if there was anything there. And my parents were very middle class. My mom was a secretary. My dad was a college professor who did not get paid a lot. But there was always money to buy a book or a magazine, not necessarily to buy five, but to buy one. And So I knew that that was important to them.
[09:09]
And I've got a chapter on expectations. And part of expectations is modeling what you want. And so that sort of blends in. I really think they all blend together because it also blends to your relationship with your child or with your student or with your young adolescent. Because I do think one of the other things, and I don't think we've ever intentionally gone here before, But the idea that our relationship, you know, like with middle and high school, it's just not going to be good. So I give up on it because I just don't think it's going to work.
[09:46]
And that really is a challenge. One of the stories and I had in the book, my dad told me this and it's always been real special to me. It's even more because he died on Thanksgiving. And this is one of the stories I told at the funeral back in the 60s. So think about what the time was like then. He was flying back to Charlotte, North Carolina from Washington, D.C.
[10:14]
He had been up there for a meeting because he was a huge volunteer. And he said they bumped him up to first class, which just never happened to college professors. And he's sitting next to this gentleman. And he has a conversation with them all the way back. And one of the questions he asks is, what is the most important thing you've learned in life? And the gentleman says, what I've learned is, and think about the time again, that man can get along with man if he wants to.
[10:45]
And, you know, my dad's always talked about that you can get along with anybody if you really want to. Now, what's really interesting about the story is when they get off the plane in Charlotte, my dad introduces himself. And then the gentleman introduces himself and dad was talking to Martin Luther King senior. Wow. If you think about that, that is just so powerful. And I think that's what relationships are about, that it may be challenging to keep a relationship with your kid and it may not look the way you want it to, but if you work at it, you can keep some semblance of a relationship.
[11:22]
And I say that to parents, no matter how challenging their kid is. And I say that to teachers when they say there's a student I just can't connect with. You know what? It may take you all year to figure it out, but you can. There is a way. And it goes back to tapping into the intrinsic motivation.
[11:41]
You know, what is their value?
[11:43] SPEAKER_00:
and keeping expectations realistic. Well, Barbara, as both a parent and an educator, I appreciate so much about what you're saying about modeling and relationships and the expectations we set and demonstrate, model in our own lives. And I want to touch on one thing that I think might be a little bit controversial and might step on some toes here a little bit, but I think is a big issue because i know it was it was an issue for me as a young teacher and especially as a young male teacher this maybe missing piece of relationships and i see a lot of schools and a you know again especially a lot of male teachers uh defaulting to what we talked about at the beginning these kind of extrinsic rewards And I even see some trends in our profession pushing people in that direction and away from the relationships that we know are so essential to motivation.
[12:35]
I see people doing things like relying extensively on points, whether it's class dojo points or PBIS points. I think those can be good systems, but if we use them in too much of a behaviorist, kind of extrinsically motivating way, I feel like we can get off track pretty badly. So thinking about the eight myths that you cover in the book, if a principal has a teacher who really seems to be overlooking the importance of those relationships and seems to be over-relying on some sort of point-based management system, what would your guidance be to that principal to kind of start that conversation with the teacher who's maybe going in that wrong direction?
[13:11] SPEAKER_01:
You know, this is going to sound silly, but I go back to the same motivational foundation that I use in the book for kids. Because the reality is we are all motivated by the same things. And so what I see happening in a lot of schools, not necessarily all of them, because I've seen PBIS work very well in some places. I've seen it not be as successful. I would start with the intrinsic motivation. Tell me what it is that's working about this.
[13:42]
What is it that is helping you be a better teacher? Why do you think it is helping student learning? And so I would start where they are. I always believe you do that. Then I tend to go to research because I don't want it to be that I'm personally criticizing you because whether you're a parent or a teacher, when I start giving suggestions, it typically goes through a filter that is you're telling me I'm a bad parent or teacher. Okay.
[14:16]
So like my sister, sometimes when her kids were young, would call me and ask me for advice because I used to be a teacher. And then when I would give it to her, she'd go, you're telling me I'm a bad mom. I'm like, no, I'm answering your question. And so I think it does go through that filter. I think it does that for all of us. So I tend to not go at it from a personal, I'm giving you this suggestion.
[14:39]
I tend to go back to the research. And the research is pretty clear about extrinsic motivation. that it is not the best. It can work. One of the things that is out there with research is that it works best when the reward is tied to the actual behavior. So the school where I did my student teaching, students earned points for reading.
[15:05]
And then once they'd earned a certain number of points, they could go to the book room and get a free book. So the research is pretty clear that if you're going to do that, it's effective. But if you remember back when there was a real push where if you read, you got to go get a free personal pan pizza. The research is also very clear that that doesn't work. It just reinforces liking pizza. And so there is some research with that.
[15:29]
There is some research that short-term it works, that it works best with rote tasks. So like memorizing multiplication tables, but that for higher order thinking for problem solving, uh, for good decision-making, it really doesn't stick very long. So there's plenty of research out there. I would say that one of the best books out there is quite controversial, and that's Alfie Kahn, which is K-A-H-N or K-O-H-N, I don't remember. He's written several books that are designed more for parents, although I think there's one that's a little more for schools. And he really does lay out the research.
[16:09]
Now, he is adamant that any extrinsic reward is bad. And I'm not totally there. I'm a little more middle of the road that it can be used effectively. He is very adamant that no extrinsic reward, including praise, is appropriate. I don't agree with that. I think praise can be used effectively, and I address that.
[16:31]
But it is a good place to start if you're looking for Why shouldn't I use an extrinsic motivation? So go in with the expectation that he has a very strong bias and it comes through all the way through the book. But there is some really good information in there. He's got plenty of articles. If you Google, there's plenty of articles out there. But I would go with the research.
[16:54]
So with a teacher or even with a parent, if I'm having a parent conference, I'm going to start with where they are by asking a lot of questions. I'm going to share research. or other examples. And I'm going to do that in a facilitative manner instead of a directive manner. And then toward the end, hopefully they're going to ask for it, but I'm going to give some suggestions. And again, I'm going to try really hard not to be directive because the more directive you are, the less responsive.
[17:29]
And then the other thing that I'm going to do, and there's actually two full chapters on these topics. is I am going to talk about not only expectations. I'm going to talk about reasonable expectations for it may not be effective to completely stop. You may have to sort of go down and wean off it. But I'm also going to talk about what happens when you fail. How can I help you get back up?
[17:54]
And there's even a chapter on what do you do when they're getting stuck all the time? Because I do think it's a matter of coaching and helping if they want to get off. And then, of course, none of this applies if you're using something as a district or school mandate. Then you've got to go with what you got. You know, the other piece that I want to make sure that I tell your listeners is some of the programs like PBIS, and there are certainly others out there, they do have some research that shows their programs work. And I'm not going to disagree with that research.
[18:27]
I'm not as familiar with it, but I'm not going to tell you they're wrong. I'm also not going to tell you you're wrong if you're telling me it's working. What I will tell you is that I have had educators at all levels tell me that what it does is increase compliance. But when I ask them about more than that, I don't get good answers.
[18:50] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, because motivation and compliance are definitely not interchangeable terms. So let's get into talking about some of the higher aims of motivation. We want students to strive. We want them to work hard. We want them to challenge themselves. And we even want them to try to the point that they fail sometimes.
[19:09]
We want them to take risks. But you say in the book, it's not OK for kids to be in a position where they're failing all the time. Take us into your thinking on failure.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01:
The challenge with failure is students are going to fail. Kids are going to fail. It is going to happen. I had my fair share. I still do. So it is going to happen.
[19:31]
But if it happens too much, then it can build patterns in a kid's brain that that's all that's ever going to happen. So then they give up. And so what we find is that there's a couple of ways that students actually begin to deal with failure. And this comes out of some work from the University of California at Berkeley that you have students who are success oriented. You have kids who are success oriented. They just love to learn new things.
[20:02]
They love to encounter new things. And so they just go with it. And that's really what you want. But you also have some over strivers. And if you've got one of these kids in your classroom or at home, you know exactly who they are because they are always reaching for the very top, which is not necessarily bad. But they also don't accept if they can't do their very best.
[20:26]
And I taught a student like this. You know, he would say to me, did I make the best grade in the class? And I'd be, you know, you made a great grade. You made an A. It's really good. He said, no, no.
[20:36]
I have to go home and tell my dad. But I made the best grade in class. And so he was such an over striver, partly maybe because of the parents influence, partly maybe not. It could have just been internal. But those are those over strivers. And what happens with them is they are so scared of failure that they keep shooting for the best.
[20:59]
But when they fail, meaning instead of 100, they make a 99, then they automatically feel like a failure. So then you've got people who are fail you're avoiding. And some of these over strivers hit into that where I'm not even going to try because I don't want to fail. And I will have to tell you that when I was growing up, that was me. I hated things I wasn't good at. It's probably still true.
[21:22]
So if there's something that I know I'm not good at. I don't want to try and I've had to really teach myself as an adult to deal with that. And then there are those who just accept failure, meaning if they fail, okay, that's just who I am. I'm always going to fail. So they don't even try anymore. They just do what they're told to do.
[21:43]
So you've got those four reactions and you really do have to approach each of those differently. But some overall strategies I recommend are, are being very upfront about your own failures, whether it was when you were growing up, when it was when you were their age, or something now. Again, developmentally appropriate, so make sure you're sharing stories that are appropriate, but sharing things that have happened to you. Getting other family members and caring adults to share their stories also, and don't do them all at one time, you know, spread them out. Reading about stories. about people who have failed.
[22:24]
I mean, one of my favorites that I still use with kids because half of them have iPhones and I always share about Steve Jobs and the fact that he was fired from Apple and that just blows them away that he would have been fired. And I said, well, here's what he went and did. And then he came back and that's when they released the iPhone. And, you know, they're like, oh my gosh, if somebody like the person who created the iPhone can fail, then maybe that means it's okay for me too. So I think that really becomes important in terms of role models. And the second piece that I think you just can't get past is the encouragement that happens.
[23:08]
So how we respond to it is very critical. Again, one of my sisters, and the good news is I have three, so they won't know who this is. Whenever her son or daughter earned less than an A, She was not happy because she was an A student all the way through school. And so if her son came home with a B, she would be very unhappy with him and would say, what are you going to do to make an A next time? I mean, nothing less than an A was acceptable. And, you know, I like A's as much as the next person.
[23:46]
But I got to tell you, if you make a B or even a couple of C's, I did that when I was in school. The world didn't end. And it's not going to end. And so I need to encourage you and then help you focus on, OK, what do you think happened if you made a D and how can I help you? And let's also talk to the teacher and see if he or she has any ideas. So it's very much how we approach that failure.
[24:12]
Again, very much under our control.
[24:14] SPEAKER_00:
And I think that touches on something that's of great concern to a lot of parents and educators these days, which is anxiety. You know, I don't know if you're seeing this, but I just feel like suddenly we are seeing anxiety increase. everywhere, and maybe some of it can be blamed on Steve Jobs' good old iPhone and the social comparison that kids are doing online. There are a lot of different theories about where that's coming from, but if we're talking about grades, if we're talking about motivation, we're talking about reinforcing high expectations, I think we have this fairly well-founded fear that our best efforts to help our children succeed may go awry and instead create this kind of perfectionism and anxiety that we see is really debilitating to so many people. What are your thoughts on that? the relationship between everything we've been talking about today and anxiety, and how can we help students become motivated without pushing them into that, you know, I have to get all A's, everything has to be perfect, I'm worthless and terrible if I don't get all A's, you know, help us out on that a little bit.
[25:18] SPEAKER_01:
It's funny, the last chapter is, if I do everything right, my child will be motivated. And that's not true. You can be the perfect parent, and your kid may still not do something that's perfect. We've got a neighbor. They are great parents. You know, I never saw anything they were doing wrong.
[25:38]
We were talking to them a lot. And their son, who is 30 right now, doesn't have a job, is using drugs and alcohol very heavily. And they have no idea what's going on with him. They don't even know where he is. They did everything right. And he still made some choices.
[25:57]
And I think what makes it harder and the things you're talking about, I think, feed into it. But but I think the major thing that makes us feel bad these days is the comparative culture we live in, where everything is set up, where we compare ourselves to each other. And I'm not going to knock any of these things. I'm just going to tell you, I think that they contribute. And I think one of the top ones is Facebook. Because if you look at Facebook, everybody's posting the perfect life, you know, the perfect kids, the perfect meal, you know, the perfect vacation, the perfect job.
[26:34]
And what we know is that people don't post everything about their real lives. They post the best. But if you're looking at all these things. then you're going, oh my gosh, I'm not as good a mom. You know, they're hand making all of their clothes. They're hand cooking every meal from scratch.
[26:54]
And no, they probably aren't. They're just probably posting those. And if you're a teacher, heaven forbid, if you're looking at Pinterest, every teacher has more stuff than you do. And what does that mean? Okay, you're not as good a teacher because you're not doing these perfect little charts and that kind of stuff. And I really think that this notion of comparing ourselves is what is causing at least part of the anxiety.
[27:18]
And, you know, I think for that, we've got to pull in a little bit. I will tell you that on Facebook, I've got a friend who, if you looked at her Facebook postings, she and her husband must have a million dollars and they go on every glamorous trip there is. And, you know, they're going to every party. And, you I don't even want a life like that, but I'd look at those pictures and go, wow. So they had this really cool thing on Facebook where you can unfollow somebody, which doesn't mean you unfriend them. You just don't see their posts all the time.
[27:50]
And you know what? I've had to do that with a couple of people because it was causing me anxiety to see them. I think also focusing on what you're doing right is important. One of the suggestions I give in that last chapter is, is to keep a success journal where you write down things that you do right. You write down things that you're doing well. And that may be when my child did this today, they had a temper tantrum.
[28:18]
I didn't overreact. When my students in my fourth grade class were off task, I redirected them without raising my voice. You know, it's a matter of listing all those successes so that when you're feeling bad, you go back and look at them. And that's the reason I recommend you write them down, because you won't remember them when you're having a bad day. And I think things like that can help us with that comparative culture piece, because I really do think the more you compare yourself to other people, the worse you're going to feel.
[28:52] SPEAKER_00:
I think it's true that we get more of what we focus on, right? That if we're focused on our failures or the one point we missed on the test or the deficiencies of our vacation compared to someone else's vacation, we're just going to get more fixated and more focused on those things. As you said, if we focus on what's going well, on what we did right... One of the things that we offer to our members in the Instructional Leadership Association is a daily planner.
[29:17]
And I make myself use it every day to plan my schedule and think about how that's setting me up for success. And one of the things that I put on there is daily gratitude. I need to force myself to think about what I'm grateful for, about what's going well, because I know if I focus on that I will get more of it and I will spend more of my time not thinking about, you know, what somebody else has that I, I don't or, or the mistakes that I've made, but I will focus on what's going well and, uh, and get more of that. And I think that's, that's kind of what we all want for, for our students and for our own lives.
[29:53] SPEAKER_01:
Right. Yeah. And I, and I really heavily recommend that at least one of those things be an action you took. So yes, I'm grateful for the fact that, uh, My mom is doing well after my dad's death. But I'm also grateful for the fact that because she has dementia, when I call her and she tells me the same thing 10 times in 20 minutes, that I reacted with a calm, low voice. Because what happens with the action piece is you also remember what you are doing so you can do it again.
[30:31]
OK, so, Justin, there's two specific features that I put throughout the book that I got feedback on and people really liked. One is at the end of every chapter, there's a classroom connection. And it is, is there something I might ask my kid's teacher about? So if you're teachers, is there something you can ask the parents about? And are there any ideas I might share? So that's a good piece for that classroom connection.
[31:02]
Now, the other one, and this is actually my favorite feature in the book. Throughout, anywhere it's appropriate, is a box called mixed messages. And they are examples of things we tend to say that actually send mixed messages. And I find that teachers and parents really like that.
[31:21] SPEAKER_00:
So the book is Money for Good Grades and Other Myths About Motivating Kids. Barbara, if people want to learn more about your work or about your many other books on rigor and motivation, where's the best place for them to go online to find you?
[31:33] SPEAKER_01:
The best place is at my website, which is Barbara, B-A-R-B-A-R-A, Blackburn, B-L-A-C-K-B-U-R-N, online, O-N-L-I-N-E, BarbaraBlackburnOnline.com. There are just, oh my gosh, I think there's over 100 free resources. You don't have to register on the site. Everything you can download, you can use. So the easiest way to get to anything is free.
[32:01]
That's the heading. And if you want to get in touch with me, there's a contact me. So you can get to me both ways.
[32:07] SPEAKER_00:
Well, thank you again for joining me on Principal Center Radio. And I'll just add for anyone interested in your other books on rigor, we've talked about most of them on Principal Center Radio here. So you can also search on our website for our past interviews. Barbara, always a pleasure to speak with you.
[32:23] SPEAKER_01:
Oh, always a pleasure to speak with you too. I hope you have a great day. And listeners, thank you very much for your time today.
[32:30] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
