children & incentives
It’s common for Korean parents to send their children to tutoring centers. It’s likely fueled by Korea’s extremely competitive academic culture, but I think for Korean-American parents it’s because oftentimes they cannot provide the same academic support at home that native English-speaking parents can.
Still, it was my sweet and patient mother who taught my siblings and me how to read. Although English was her second language, she went out of her way to go through the entire series of Hooked on Phonics books multiple times at a soul-crushingly slow pace. Imagine a child trying to sound out every word while forgetting certain letters exist. We have all been that child.
Anyways, before moving to the boonies in 4th grade, I attended my first tutoring center called SCORE!. My siblings and I would go in and do 10?-minute lessons. If we passed it, we’d get a couple of score cards, and if we got 100%, we’d get 10 or so. Score cards could be spent on prizes like toys and gift cards. In between lessons, we’d try to make some basketball shots for more score cards while chatting with our “coaches”. One of my coaches said she had a broken toe that she never fixed. My brother and I suggested she go to the doctor’s to check it out.
At what age do children evolve into homo economicus? From my experience, it’s sometime between ages six and eight. My studious younger sister would work hard and come home with scores all across the board. Sometimes, she wouldn’t pass a lesson and since she was short, she’d inevitably lose the chance at earning score cards from shooting hoops too.
I, on the other hand, would not accept low wages for my time. I’d go in and open a lesson only to answer one question. If I got it right, it’d be ten score cards for me. And if I got it wrong, eh, it was better than struggling with 20 questions only to get a couple score cards anyways.
At the end of the day, my scores were all either 0% or 100%. My poor mother didn’t know whether to praise or discipline me. If she had known that an eight-year-old was spending her money to answer 5 questions in one hour twice weekly to amass fake currency, I imagine that I would not be here writing this post today.
All joking aside, when encouraging children to do something, re-examine the incentives you have in place because children (with whose goals ours are rarely aligned) can be just as self-interested as adults.