Incentives for grades

*This essay was an in-class essay written in my English Debate class in 2017

When I hear of students getting incentives for grades, I think of a guy I knew in in middle school. He used to get good grades but mixed with the wrong crowd, causing his scores to plummet. His parents were desperate and offered to buy him cigarettes and alcohol for him if he raised his grades. Of course, this is an extreme case that would even shock students who receive incentives. But thinking of this case, plus the many drawbacks of incentives for grades makes me grateful that I didn’t receive incentives while growing up.

Giving incentives to students has short term benefits but also has long term side effects. Incentives can make students study harder, but they condition the students so they can’t study without them. I had many friends growing up. Many of them actually raised their scores because their parents promised them a new phone, concert tickets, and so on. However, the problems occurred after they received their rewards. They lost all their passion and started to not pay attention in class and go out before tests. To them, they no longer had any reason to study because they already got what they wanted. The problem with giving incentives is that it makes it incredibly difficult for the students to work without them. It prevents the students from raising the power to set personal goals and find happiness from personal accomplishments and hard work. The incentives might have worked in middle school and high school, but the parents can’t give incentives forever. When the time comes where the student is required to work without external motivations, whether in college or after getting a job, the student will either be unable to set any goals or set goals as another materialistic incentive. Both will bring horrible results, and the only way to prevent this is by not giving incentives in the first place.

Also, the rewards given to students lose their meaning as incentives. Incentives, by definition are things that motivate or encourage one to do something. The incentives do their role at first, but if they are continuously given to students, they lose their role. The student starts to get used to receiving rewards for academic work and the rewards start to become required. The reward loses its value as an incentive and instead becomes a payment. The parents will need to keep on increasing rewards for their children to do what they are supposed to do as students. The rewards were supposed to be incentives that boost one’s motivation but they become the source of the motivation. Giving rewards to students who did well in school does not act properly as an incentive.

Finally, the incentives have a bad influence on the students and others around him. In the case of the student, incentives make the student create materialistic goals. Because the objectives are unhealthy to begin with, it increases the chance that the actions and results based in them will be unhealthy too. If a student with incentives receives bad grades, he will not only feel disappointment but also feel like he lost what was promised to him. Because the rewards of success were too high, the failure impacts the student more negatively. This may even encourage the student to use unethical means, like cheating, to get what one wants. Giving incentives to one student also evokes negative emotions in other students too. The other students will start to become jealous of the rewards and start to feel like they aren’t getting rewarded properly. I remember complaining to my mom of my lack of rewards compared to my friends. This negatively impacts the passion one has for studying because they start to compare the rewards they will receive with other’s.

Incentives may seem like a logical method to increase one’s accomplishments. However, in real life, it is almost impossible for them to work properly, especially if they are given to superficial accomplishments like good scores. Of course, whether or not parents give incentives to their students is the parent’s choice. However, I hope parents keep in mind the various side effects and negative influences the incentives have when they make their choice.