A response to the article “Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!” By Alfie Kohn.
After reading this article I have a new appreciation for the term “Good Job”. As someone who uses words like “perfect!”, “wonderful!”, and “amazing!” all day long in my practicum class I had a lot to learn on this topic.
The idea that saying “Good Job” to our students is actually a form of ‘sugar coated control’ and is more for our (teachers) convenience than for the benefit of the student is a concept that makes me want to rethink the way in which I offer praise to my students.
The part in which Alfie Kohn speaks about praise as a way of “stealing a child’s pleasure” was one that was extremely alarming to me. The last thing that I would ever want to do is diminish a child’s pleasure in something that they really enjoy doing. I think that this idea is one that is not too terribly apparent on the outside, for example, without giving it much thought the idea of praising students seems like it is all around a good thing. This I think that I may not have realized that saying “Good job!” is just as much an evaluation as “Bad job!” and that the even thought we see it as a positive judgement, it is a judgement none the less and no one likes to feel judged. Huge oversight on my part.
I was also shocked at my oversight in that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. So each time I go on and on about a students work they might be loosing more and more interest in what they are doing.
As a teacher candidate I am very glad that I read this article when I did
Going forward I will definitely try following the three possible responses that Alfie Kohn suggests at the end of the article although I know that this may be particularly challenging for me, the praise queen. He suggests: Saying nothing- which seems like it might be really hard, and maybe a little bit cold, Saying what you saw-which could work, although I may find it very hard to say what I saw without also offering praise or my approval, and talking less and asking more-which again, I might find hard to ask questions without also offering some sort of praise.
These are good insights! We often inadvertently praise the child instead of asking more questions and commenting on what you have seen. Practicing our responses is the way we get better at it! It is easy to fall into the ‘good job’ evaluative trap.