From: dermer@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Marshall Dermer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: A Jewish Solution for Motivating Secular and Jewish Learning
Date: 25 Jan 1993 20:56:20 GMT
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                       A Jewish Solution for Motivating
                          Secular and Jewish Learning

                  Marshall Lev Dermer/Department of Psychology
             University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee/Milwaukee, WI 53201
              
             The Jan 22 _Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle_ presented several
	 articles regarding improving secular and Jewish education.  My
	 concern is that a very old but effective Jewish solution is being
	 ignored.
             In one article we learn that the Milwaukee Jewish Council
         supports the $366 million Milwaukee Public School bond
         referendum.  "As goes Milwaukee, so goes the state," said
         Mordecai Lee, MJC executive director.  This is a politically
         correct decision that might have been educationally correct,
         if the major problem facing MPS were insufficient facilities.
         The major problem, however, is insufficiently motivated
         students.
             We can best help the thousands of insufficiently
         motivated MPS students by linking daily academic performance
         to rewards.  For example, Beth Sulzer and associates enhanced
         the performance of slow readers by implementing a
         classroom-based reward system.  Students' rate of progress in
         spelling and reading increased by 30% and 44%, respectively,
         when performance was rewarded with toys, models, crafts,
         jewelry, or candy.  Many of these fifth-grade, public school
         children were economically disadvantaged and had previously
         been disruptive. So, it is encouraging that rewards also
         enhanced student conduct.
             How much would it cost to so reward student learning at
         MPS? If rewards cost, on average, a dollar a day per student,
         $18 million per school year would motivate the approximately
         100,000 students at MPS. Reduce this amount by 50% if we can
         only afford to help students attending schools falling in the
         bottom 50% of the achievement distribution. Obviously, it
         costs less to motivate a third-grader than a high-school
         senior. So, we could reduce costs further by only providing
         such help to elementary schools.
             MPS thinks it may be able to increase learning by
         negotiating building contracts that put adults to work. I am
         sure we can increase learning by negotiating learning
         contracts that put MPS students to work.
             Just as there are many MPS students who cannot see the
         connection between secular studies and later earnings there
         are many Jewish children who cannot see the connection
         between Jewish studies and later fulfillment as a Jewish
         person. Jewish children are often without family or neighbors
         who value Jewish learning, who bestow personal admiration for
         Jewish learning, who can tutor their children to enhance
         Jewish learning, or who are fulfilled by virtue of Jewish
         learning.  In short, many Jewish children are Jewishly
         deprived.
             The Jewish community has addressed this problem in many
         ways.  One solution, not surprisingly, has involved
         construction.  Consider, for example, the wonderful buildings
         which house the Milwaukee Jewish Day School and Hillel
         Academy and the small student to teacher ratios which are
         often less than 18:1.  Our congregational Hebrew and
         religious schools are generally in good shape too. Still,
         there is the ubiquitous problem of student motivation.
             Consider my son Noah who attends MJDS.  My wife and I had
         many times told Noah that we consider his learning Hebrew
         important.  We pray together in Hebrew and I am always happy
         to speak with Noah in Hebrew. Nevertheless, we were informed,
         last spring, that Noah had trouble reading Hebrew. We then
         had a serious about how he would read Hebrew daily during the
         summer.  Summer came but Noah repeatedly put off reading.
         When a session was scheduled he read slowly and responded
         poorly to constructive feedback.
             So, we negotiated a learning contract. Noah agreed to
         read Torah for 15 minutes daily. When Noah read 35 words
         correctly per minute with less than one error per minute, I
         agreed to pay for one-half of something Noah very much
         valued: a computer. During the sessions I counted the number
         of words read correctly and the number of errors.  I also
         corrected errors.
             The first sessions under the contract were painful.  Noah
         read only about ten words correctly per minute with about two
         errors per minute.  He angrily noted that it had taken me 46
         years to read 35 words per minute and that, therefore, the
         goal was unreasonable.  Gradually the emotional behavior
         subsided and his reading improved. He then often asked to
         read twice daily.  Within 12 sessions he was reading 20 words
         per minute. Within 20 sessions, a total of five hours, he had
         achieved the goal he had previously thought unattainable.
             Apropos to the problem of motivating Jewish children is
         the article announcing the appointment of Dr. Ruth Cohen
         director of the "lead community program." This program is
         responsible for improving Jewish education through
         "coordinating leadership, financing, planning, and innovative
         programming."  However, what if a Jewish program is not
         innovative but is highly effective?
             In the 12th century, Rabbi Moses Maimonides recognized
         that young children could not possibly anticipate the value
         of studying Torah, so the RAMBAM offered children who read
         and discussed Torah figs.  When the children no longer valued
         figs, clothes were offered, and still later money.  Sound
         familiar?
             The RAMBAM cogently addressed the most frequent criticism
         of paying children for learning: learning should be its own
         reward.  He noted that this ideal was rarely achieved by
         asking how children who learn for figs are unlike adults who
         follow Torah for rewards in this or the world to come?
             The RAMBAM also presciently addressed another criticism.
	 Social psychologists have conducted extensive research which
	 supports the idea that rewards undermine intrinsic interest.  These
	 studies, however, are largely based on temporally brief experiments
	 in which the subjects never learn anything useful.  Although the
	 RAMBAM understood that students would initially learn for the sake
	 of rewards he wisely saw that students would acquire new
	 capabilities, values, and perspectives that could transform their
	 lives and sustain the Jewish community.
             There is certainly more to being Jewish than e.g.,
         knowing Torah and Hebrew. Unless our children are motivated
         to learn, however, the lessons offered in our day and
         congregational schools will not be well-mastered.
             Whether we call it learning contracting or RAMBAM
         contracting I hope that Dr. Cohen and community leaders will
         support teaching it to Jewish parents and instructors.  Its
         important features include: lessons that are appropriate to
         students' skills and that produce prompt, performance-based
         feedback.  Performance, of course, determines rewards. As
         students progress it is prudent to delay the interval between
         performance and reward to foster self-discipline.
             How will we pay for all this? Tax dollars make sense when
	 parents, like many inner-city MPS parents, can barely put food on
	 their tables. Fortunately, the Jewish community is comparatively
	 well-off. For example, not only do we put food on our tables but
	 herbicides and fertilizers on our private, school, and
	 congregational lawns.  If we established the dandelion as a symbol
	 of learning we could better support Jewish education.  When we
	 celebrate _Shabbot_, _chagim_, and _smachot_ with bouquets of
	 dandelions; green, dandelion-free lawns will loose their beauty.
             Commenting on the MPS bond referendum Mordecai Lee said,
         "The issue is not only for the city and its citizens, but for
         the state and all of its citizens." That is just how I feel
         about learning contracts. May the millions of dandelions that
         will bloom this spring symbolize what we can achieve by
         negotiating contracts with children to master secular and
         Jewish studies!


Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish