Forgetting Words and Reading Rewards

[Sophia Maag]

It was a Friday afternoon and the 4th graders of Ms. McLaughlin’s class were excited for the weekend. The school, Greenvale Park, had just completed their fundraising goal of raising $10,000 and the students were congratulated with a dress-up day and superhero-themed bags of popcorn and candy. (It’s not clear what the dress-up theme was — some kids were in PJs, others wore capes, and one, a mermaid costume!) The day had a fun feel to it. After the daily reading opportunity was done, books put back in cubbies, and kids in seats, the teacher called me over and asked if I could take some girls out individually to help them with a math exit slip (I talked about this in my previous blog post). When Allie, the first girl approached the teacher and me, she told us that she was a little sniffly. I smiled weakly and started to say that I was sorry, but then Allie continued. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t think of a word… a word for something and I started crying and I hit my head on the desk!” I was startled by this admission and also by the violence of it. It seems a perfect example of Erikson’s stage of industry vs. inferiority, though. Allie, as a nine-year-old, is in this stage. When she couldn’t figure out what a certain word was, she felt stupid and punished herself for it. While an older person might realize that it’s relatively common to forget certain words (what we’ve colloquially termed “brain farts”), Allie sees her failure to produce a word as a sign of her inferiority.

Even though Allie’s sense of inferiority wasn’t prompted by any assigned activity, her tears show that kids can internalize certain ideas of what is expected of them and what they should know. However, there are many examples of opportunities for identity development that are promoted by the teacher. Every Monday, for instance, the teacher announces certain reading rewards. The students receive these every time they complete a 500-minute block of reading, and in praise, they get their choice of “teacher’s chair,” “a free Culver’s ice cream,” “make a bookmark,” and a few other fun options. The kids all eagerly sit on their seats, hoping they’ve earned the prize, and smiles and sighs always ensue. The achievers smile in glee while everyone else looks sad and defeated. After the whole procedure, kids line up to ask Ms. McLaughlin how many points they’ve accrued, and many pale in comparison to the high-achievers. “You have 187 minutes of reading,” for example when she’s just said that some kids have read almost 1,500 minutes. Of course, more reading doesn’t necessarily have to mean better, but for the kids, it does because they’re getting rewarded for reading more. The reading reward system seems positive in many ways, as it encourages kids to read for fun (industry), but at the same time, it is an opportunity for kids not to meet the demands necessary to obtain a prize and thus not be rewarded as regularly as others (inferiority).

On the same subject of reading, the kids get to pick what books they read every day during reading time, as I’ve mentioned today and written about in previous posts. They love getting the freedom to choose what interests them, and all are eager to tell me what’s going on in all the books they’re reading! It seems to make them feel good about themselves (competent) to know what has been going on in their books (funnily enough, though, many give me summaries of the book they’re reading even if they’re only three of four pages in!). This past Friday, however, the kids received the news that they are soon going to be put in “book clubs” based on interest. I have a hunch that based on interest actually means based on reading ability, and that the kids will soon find out who the “smartest” readers are. The ones in the group with the longest book will likely feel proud and realize their achievement of being the best readers, but I foresee the kids in the other groups, especially the lowest group, feeling inferior. Of course, I haven’t yet witnessed this, but if the book clubs of Greenvale Park are anything like the book clubs of my elementary school, pride and sorrow are bound to happen. These designations as “good” or “bad” readers are important in identity formation and can sway the kids’ perceptions of self.

Another activity I was able to witness was clean-up time! To me nice to the janitors on Friday, the entire class cleaned the classroom; everyone was responsible for wiping down their desks, and kids took turns vacuuming the floor. It was extraordinary to watch. The kids went from struggling with answering questions correctly (or originally) to excelling in cleaning the room — they weren’t even being motivated by anything! While I’d witnessed some previously fall out of the chairs they were sitting in, now the same kids were leaping over the vacuum cord (half a foot in the air), rag in hand, ready to clean their desks. I was amazed that they all knew how to clean so well and were so enthused about the process. It was a fun event to see and I caught a photo of it!

On the question of my own identity in reference to Marcia’s extension of Erikson’s theories, I consider myself to be in moratorium. I joke with my friends about “quarter-life crises,” but now I understand that that term is relatively apt. I don’t know who I am and I feel the pain of trying to figure it out. I used to be a runner but after an injury, that’s lasted two years and left me unable to run, I no longer consider myself one. But what am I? My injury caused me to question my relationship with my body and mind but also what I wanted to do with myself outside of school and friends. The initial year I was injured I was in full crisis regarding what my physical body meant to me and also what I was interested in besides the sport I loved so much. I still haven’t figured it out. Funnily enough, though, I’ve found that wandering, the hallmark of Erikson’s theories, has helped me in my search for identity. This summer I drove 8,500 miles across the eastern half of the United States. Identity searching was not in my mind, but the trip and the lessons learned from it are sticking with me. I have a feeling that my future trips (west coast here I come!) will continue to help me understand who I am, what I value, and how I see the world. Perhaps they’ll also give me some insight into a possible career or hobby to replace running!

To return to the 4th graders, I think I had my hardest experience in the classroom this Friday. I was tasked with helping a student, Allie, with the math she’d fallen behind on. The students complete their math work on their iPads on a service called IXL. It asks the question, they have to type it in, and then it tells them whether they’re correct. On this day, Allie was working on subtraction problems. In maybe fifteen minutes, she answered three problems, whined to me, hit me, told me to “just give [her] the answer!” and refused to take off her headphone which made her whine even more because she couldn’t hear me. Working on subtracting large numbers, she would line up the numbers incorrectly, put them in the wrong order, and struggle with the subtraction process in general (7 – 2 = 3, and things like that). I did not know how to respond and I felt unprepared to deal with the task at hand. I tried to explain to her how to subtract the part from the total, the usefulness of lining up the numbers correctly, and showed her how to use her fingers to subtract, but she just got mad and told me to tell her the answer. Once, the teacher came over, gave her a number line, and told her she could finish after three problems instead of five. Even though she is often difficult to work with, she deserves positive attention and I want to be patient and kind to her.

[Arlo Hettle]

It makes me so sad to hear that the students might be getting grouped in ability-based reading groups. I remember reading your previous blog where you talked about that and feeling hopeful that this practice was being phased out of elementary schools. I know that as an elementary schooler, the feeling of always being in the top group played a big role in feeling like I had industry and eventually shaping my identity as a “smart kid” in school. I can easily imagine that the people in my class in the other reading groups were going through the exact same thought process and coming to the inferiority conclusion. I hope that the groups really will be based on interest, particularly since that fits in so well with Piaget’s ideas about letting students explore what they want to learn for themselves.

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