Sky High Motivators

As the testing season approaches, so do (sometimes wacky!) efforts to motivate kids.           

Many devoted teachers spend long hours at school, sometimes leaving long after sunset. Not many, however, watch the sun rise too!

Yet that is exactly what a seventh-grade teaching team at Smart Intermediate School in Davenport, Iowa, did last year. Think tents, TV cameras, and stacks of take-out pizza. Sound like fun? It gets better: They actually spent the night on the roof of their three-story school!            

This rather, er, unusual slumber party was meant to reward students for improved scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Teachers had promised kids that they’d endure the elements if scores went up by at least 5 percent. When math scores soared 16 percent, the educators started packing.

With the stakes so high, they’re not the only educators going to great lengths to challenge, inspire, and reward students for academic gains, especially on test scores. Across the country, folks are kissing pigs, shaving heads, and doing whatever it takes to get students excited.

These tactics have their critics. Author Alfie Kohn writes that rewards devalue learning and eventually backfire as children inevitably lose interest in their work. Others say they don’t much matter, compared to the actual teaching.

At Smart, most teachers say they aren’t focused on the debate—they’re just trying to make the testing season a little more fun. Said one: “We know it was a goofy thing to do, but we want people to recognize how great our students are!”